Moved from Houston to Kuala Lumpur with all furniture in tow and was easily able to find a place larger than we left for less than what I was paying for in Houston and the company paid most of that... Then moved to Oslo where finding something more than 2000 sq feet was a challenge and had to pay quite a bit out of pocket. 2000 sq. ft for a nice house in suburbs of Copenhagen was easily $4500/month. Very difficult to live in Scandinavia without work sponsoring it (and expensive as hell without the tax breaks and subsidies work provided...) Lived in Perth, Bangkok, Paris, Madrid and Barcelona as well but as shorter assignments (furnished housing).
Living in Asia, no need for a kitchen as its too cheap to just eat out. In Norway, DK, Australia, you better have a kitchen as its too expensive to go out to eat often...
Wife and I plan to eventually down scale house in the US and then rent a place overseas for 6 months at a time once kids are gone. 1000-1500/ month for a 2 bedroom flat in Southern Europe or Asia is easy but not so much in Northern Europe or the larger cities. 6 months is ideal as you don't usually have to deal with visa issues. (I also have a EU passport so the EU is an easy option)
Top of our list is Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines, Spain, Italy, Croatia and multiple locations in Central America.