In 2014, languages and humanities graduate Dan Kelly was looking for a new job when an unusual opportunity caught his eye. “The first line was: could you find the price of an apple in Liberia?” he says.
“I applied – and 10 years later, I’ve been spat out the other side.”
The role, it transpired, was to collect data on the cost of living for companies which relocated people around the world for business. The findings were passed back to his London office which would use the data to compare costs.
Dan would turn up to a new city every two days —New York, Buenos Aires, Ulaanbaatar [the capital of Mongolia] — with a list of 164 items and a single mission: to find out how much they cost.
On the list, which Dan can still recite, was a combination of food items, household goods, electronics and services, like internet, haircuts, shoe repairs and cinema tickets. “[It’s the] 164 items that make up a life,” says Dan, who is 38.
