How does Best Cities for Me calculate overlap scores?

The tool takes your selected city, workday start and end time, and scans global cities to measure how many of their office hours overlap with yours. Cities are grouped into excellent, good and limited overlap buckets.

What counts as excellent time zone overlap?

Excellent overlap means roughly six hours or more of shared working time in a typical weekday. This is ideal for pair programming, sales calls and close collaboration between teams.

Can I use this tool for relocation or remote job searches?

Yes. Many people use it to shortlist cities that provide comfortable work hours with their main team or clients, before applying for roles or planning a move.

Does the tool consider weekends and unusual work patterns?

By default it assumes a standard weekday schedule, but you can adjust your own day length and start time. For unusual patterns, you can experiment with narrower or shifted working hours to see the impact on overlap.

Best Cities for Me

Discover which global cities naturally fit your working day, based on real overlap in business hours.

We score each city using your preferred working hours and accurate time zone offsets, including DST changes.

How MeetSpan calculates time zones (DST‑aware)

We use IANA time zones (for example: America/New_York) and apply daylight saving rules for each location automatically.

Your local time zone comes from your device settings, and you can override it anytime by selecting a city/time zone.

Scheduling reminder: local public holidays and movable observances (e.g., Ramadan/Eid, Lunar New Year) can shift working hours. Holiday/observance overlays aren’t enabled on MeetSpan yet—please confirm with local calendars.

If something looks off, double‑check your device date/time and time zone.

Your Location & Work Hours

Tip: your selections can be shared via the page link.

Your City

Work Start Time

Work End Time

Select your city and working hours above to see which global cities have the best overlap with your day.

🌟 Excellent Overlap (6+ hours)

These cities have significant overlap with your working hours

No cities with 6+ hours overlap found.

👍 Good Overlap (3-5 hours)

Workable overlap for regular collaboration

No cities with 3-5 hours overlap found.

⚠️ Limited Overlap (1-2 hours)

Challenging but possible with flexibility

Why Time Zone Overlap Matters

For remote workers, freelancers, and distributed teams, time zone overlap is crucial for effective collaboration. Having at least 3-4 hours of overlap allows for:

Real-time communication: Quick responses to urgent questions and real-time brainstorming sessions.
Daily standups: Most agile teams benefit from synchronous daily check-ins.
Pair programming: Developers working together need significant overlap.
Client meetings: Maintaining client relationships often requires live calls.

Tips for Working Across Time Zones

Even with limited overlap, you can make global collaboration work:

Document everything: Good documentation reduces the need for synchronous communication.
Use async tools: Loom, Slack, and Notion are great for async updates.
Establish response time expectations: Be clear about when team members should expect replies.
Respect boundaries: Just because you're working doesn't mean others should be.

Smart tips for choosing your best cities

Time zone overlap is only one part of the decision. Use it as a hard technical filter, then layer softer factors like culture, salary bands and cost of living on top.

Start with excellent overlap cities for roles that need live collaboration every day.
Use good overlap cities when most work can be asynchronous, with only a few weekly meetings.
Keep limited overlap cities for follow-the-sun coverage or highly independent contributors.
Document your preferred overlap window in your team handbook so hiring stays consistent.

After shortlisting a few promising cities, you can open My Time vs City to see exactly how your day would shift, or run them through the Meeting Overlap Finder for multi-city team scenarios.

How to read your overlap results

Each group of cities represents a different level of working-hours comfort with your current schedule. Use the excellent and good overlap lists for long-term collaboration, and keep limited overlap cities for one-off or asynchronous work.

When to choose each bucket

Excellent overlap: ideal for core teammates and high-touch client work.
Good overlap: works well when part of the work can be asynchronous.
Limited overlap: best for back-office, async, or follow-the-sun coverage.

Tips for remote job seekers

Filter job boards by city or time zone and cross-check with your excellent overlap list.
Share your overlap window in your CV or portfolio to set expectations with hiring teams.
Use the tool regularly if your schedule changes (for example during Ramadan or summer time).

Best Cities for Me FAQ

Is the scoring based only on hours, or also on salary/cost of living?: Right now the tool focuses purely on time zone overlap. Salary data, visas, and cost of living are very context-specific and are better checked on specialised sites.
Do you store or track the cities I choose?: No. The calculations happen in your browser. We do not need to store your personal preferences to give you useful overlap insights.