People move for many different reasons. You move because your boyfriend lives in another country. You move because of money or because you can’t find a job in your home country. Some move because of adventure. We moved because we needed change. And to be honest, we chose Prague because it seemed like a nice city. Didn’t know much about people, prices there, rents and so. I wish that I had back then my Prague Travel guide – it would’ve made my life so much easier.
Both my boyfriend and I were in Prague before and we both knew that the city is beautiful. Our first idea was to go for an internship. This is where we got surprised: there were so many job offers. We decided to give it a try and applied for a few jobs. After a couple of interviews, both of us after two weeks already had our first job offers at the table. This was all without us even coming to Prague. After that, we knew this is a city we have to live in. The rest is history.
I know many people know about Prague. But moving here, without knowing any Czech can be a challenge. If you’re that person, it’s your lucky day. Below I listed all pros and cons of living in Prague and I will write more about the moving process in the future.
Pros of living in Prague
There are many, but so many good things about living in Prague. Many would say beer immediately but Czech capital surprised even us who were here before.
Job opportunities
If you’re a young academic I can’t imagine a better city to start your career. Finding a job is easy and you don’t even need to know Czech. Many international companies have offices here and they aks for only English.
But don’t get me wrong: you don’t have to be young to find the job easy here. Persons with more experience will also easy find a job with an even better salary.
To prove this with statistics let me tell you that the unemployment rate in Prague on 20.05.2020. was 1,9 % which makes it one of the lowest in the EU.
The average salary in Prague for an office job is around 1200 euros. This depends on your work experience, job position or negotiation skills. IT positions are quite popular and higher-paid in Prague (as everywhere else).
Unemployment rate at 20.05.2020 in Prague was 1,9% which makes it one of the lowest in EU
And the best thing again is you don’t have to know Czech to get the job. It’s good to learn it if you plan to stay longer here but you most absolutely don’t need it to find a job.
Work-life balance
Salaries in Prague are not the highest in Europe, but the benefits are most definitely the best. Home offices, 5+ weeks vacation, flexible working hours – you name it, they offer it. Managers are open and adaptive people who don’t hang over your head and climate in the office is easy going.
Don’t be afraid to ask for it. Not standard things in other countries, benefits are a common thing in Prague.
Prague public transport
Cheap, fast and reliable
Yearly transport tickets in Prague costs around 3650 crowns (130Euros). And that’s for whole freakin’ year! And it works like a charm: metros, trams, and buses are reliable and fast.
People often think if they live somewhere further from the city center that they need to travel a lot. But in Prague, that’s not the case. You can live at the last station of the metro line and still be in the city center in 20 minutes.
The best thing is you don’t need a car at all, and we are living proof of it. We came with the car when we were moving and then we ended up driving the car back to Croatia because we didn’t use it. The point is that you can have a car but it will spend a lot of time in the garage.
Living in Prague doesn’t bring only benefits of living itself: it’s also great if you want to travel. Germany, Poland or Austria are two hours away. There are many and very cheap flight connections to the whole world. We went to Jordan for 50 euros return ticket, to Rome for 40 and many others.
Trains are also cheap, although they can be older. Still many of them are comfortable and good for traveling.
Weather in Prague
Ok, if you’re coming from Bosnia/ Croatia as us, this will not be a big deal for you. But if you’re coming from the UK, Sweden, Finland, and similar countries, you will love the weather in Prague. Winters are cold, summers are hot, and spring and autumn will be the best time to explore the city. Overall, you will have the possibility to enjoy in each of the 4 seasons.
Safety and cleanness
Again, I’m coming from the also very safe and clean region. But if you ask my friend from the USA she will tell you that this is the best Prague quality for her. Worryleslie sending the kid to park or walk alone at night – she doesn’t take these advantages for granted.
Of course, Prague is not a monastery but it’s for sure one of the safest cities to live in. I never experienced any discomfort neither I felt in any kind of danger. Ok, after I watched You, I thought that someone is following me but that was my brain 😊. Sure, there are always some drunk but harmless people.
Another great point is the cleanness: Prague is a very clean city. I live near the river where every night young people gather to drink and leave bottles all around. But again, every morning everything is clean. I can’t judge other parts of the city, but the general situation is ok.
Great choices of coffee shops and restaurants
Living in Prague doesn’t bring only relaxed lifestyle and financial stability. It also opens a door to many good places to hang out, eat, or drink. I’m not a fan of Czech traditional food, neither I longer enjoy eating meat as before. Still, I don’t have any trouble finding a place to have a nice meal. Actually, it’s so easy to find a place with delicious food of any kind. No matter if you’re vegan, vegetarian, you like Mexican or Asian food – Prague has it all.
Because of all the reasons above, many people from all over the world chose Prague as their new home. This makes me happy here: it’s the place where you don’t have to travel to meet people from all around the globe. Expat community is quite huge and helpful. There are many Facebook groups, gatherings of expats and it’s a lovely community to live in.
Living in Prague without drinking a beer? NO!
I had to mention it because you all know it already: beer in the Czech Republic is a matter of nationality. Every village here has its brewery. And I swear a lot of times in supermarkets bottle of beer is cheaper than water. 😊 You will love to spend time with your friends in many of the beer gardens while enjoying the sun and cheap beer.
Prague itself
This city is wonderful and so pretty. Amazing architecture, river in the middle of the city, and in general the vibe is great. You can enjoy the hustle of the city center and yet in 10 minutes be in one of many parks in Prague. Prague is a green city with many parks and lakes.
Cons of living in Prague
Most definitely, Prague is an amazing city to live in. I mean, if you read the upper part of the post, you could see how much I love this city. But there are some things that you have to be aware of and that are not so good in Prague.
I tried to be as much as realistic. I spoke with many people and we all agreed that things below are not Prague’s best things.
Customer service
A man would think that people working in customer service would be nice and polite. But no, that’s not the case in Prague. Never in my life, I experienced worse customer service than in Prague.
A rude waiter who threw the check to the floor because we didn’t leave him a good enough tip. Or waiter who didn’t return money back and ignored me are some of the cases that we experienced here.
I can go over bad behavior and say: ok, they are underpaid but stealing money? I’m sorry but no. I don’t understand why people working in customer service-related jobs are so rude. I have many Czech colleagues that are now my friends who are great people. It’s not that Czech people are rude, it’s people working in customer service. I also come from a country where people are underpaid even more than here. Yet, I never experienced such a low level of service.
You get used to it and you ignore it, but I will never understand such behavior. Of course, it’s not always like that but it’s often enough to spoil the impression.
Traveler to be in Prague
High rents
As easy as it is to find a job in Prague, it’s twice harder to find the apartment for a decent price. Compared to salaries, rent prices in Prague are sky-high. You will pay 800 euros with utilities for 40 square meter apartments.
The problem is that demand is overflowing the supply which ends s higher rent price. Good transport connection makes apartments outside of the center also expensive.
The third problem is rental agencies that don’t do anything. Still, you have to pay them a lot to get the apartment even though you found the apartment online all by yourself. It’s possible to find an apartment, of course without agency. The problem is that a lot of Czech people still don’t want to rent to expats.
But even still, people live well in Prague. But that rents are higher than they should be – most definitely.
Language
I speak Croatian so understanding Czech is not the hardest thing. But I can’t imagine how hard it is for someone coming from any of non-Slavic speaking territories. Slavic languages are very hard to learn, especially comparing to English.
I said above, you don’t need Czech to get a job but in most public service, people don’t speak English. Even in office for foreigners, you have to be very lucky to get the officer that speaks English. I would dare to say that they don’t want to speak English. Sometimes I heard also people saying: you are in my country and you should speak my language. I respect that but I don’t agree with it.
Bureaucracy
When coming to live in the Czech Republic you have to do a lot of things and prepare a lot of documents. The amount of papers that you have to collect sometimes is nonsense. I’m surprised that they don’t have a more modern bureaucracy system. I will dedicate a special post to explain everything that waits for you when you move here. But be aware, you will need a lot of documents and a Czech speaking friend 😊
Traveler To be
Do I like Prague?
The answer is more than obvious: I love this city. It gave me something that I could never have in my home city. I live in one of the most beautiful cities in the world and I travel a lot. Sometimes Czech people drive me crazy but then again, my colleagues (also Czech) are super nice. It’s important to learn not to judge the whole country based on the behavior of the people in customer service.
If you ask me should you move here, I will say without any doubt YES.
I hope this post was of great help to you. I hope I will see you in Prague, either as a tourist or a fellow expat buddy. 😊
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