(We also have a ton of other questions, and it would be super useful if anyone cared to help answer them by spending 3 mins on this quick survey: https://theintro.typeform.com/to/DUSbNl5v)
Before realizing that for me at that stage in my life the best place for me ironically was the country where I started, just in a bigger city with a good metro system.
If you wanna determine this you'd be best off constructing a matrix of priority systems (weather, cost of living, language, broad cultural region a la northern european, southern european/latin, east asian, latin american, etc), nature in the area, etc) and make a tool for an individual to rank their priorities in terms of categories/factors, then rank the options _within_ each of those categories/factors, and then try to score the results for them. But even then, people often don't know what they want or care about until they've experienced a variety of places.
Please reach out to the email in my profile if you are open to it.
Thanks Andrew
FB group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/AussieBackpacking
The major issues with creating a one size fit all site is the bureaucracy of visas/immigration that depends on the user's location/passport/country of birth etc.
Then, it's hard to run a business from a different country. Its easier to visit as tourist but running a business is extra complicated.
If you have remote teams, timezones are major pain.
Apart from that the best place I found was Hawaii & Toronto. Australia is also really first class with free public amenities everywhere.
Like you say there's a lot of stuff to consider. Just like when someone asks which is the best city to live in - that's impossible to answer because it depends. The best way to find out is simply packing up your things and living in a foreign country for a bit. If you like you can make plans to stay and settle there, if not move on and try a different place. Think about it like marriage. You wouldn't marry someone you only know online and never met in real life, right?
Use similar questionnnaire to identify which nomad "type" the user is. Recommend them cities using a bayesian adjusting system.
Figuring out how many digital nomads "types" there are will take a while and be tricky. But I don't think this is an intractable problem.
Yeah you can just fly to Chiang Mai with your laptop and work from a coffee shop and no ones likely to care. Because you’re one person.
Setting up a company in another country is hard and often expensive. It’s hard to imagine how the business you describe wouldn’t come under the scrutiny of local immigration and/or labour officials, and face legitimate legal barriers and/or expectations of bribes (obviously depending on the nature of governments where you chose).
In fact, there's only a handful of countries that you can work in without a permit.
It doesn't get anywhere. The responses are any one of the same set: "they should appreciate my high $$ income supporting their economy", "I'm just one person who will notice", etc etc.
I'm well aware of the legalities of working in Thailand. I've lived here (Thailand) for 8 1/2 years, I'm director and own (with my wife) a company here.
Besides the significant hassle setting up legally in foreign countries, co-living places are a target for immigration and labor law enforcement, since the guests are almost certainly working without work permits. Harder to stay under the radar as a digital nomad when you’re living at a place that advertises as a haven for DNs.
There’s no best place to work from. DNs tend to congregate more in some places (Chiang Mai, Ubud, Medelin) than others for various reasons, mainly price. Big cities are expensive, beach towns don’t have the infrastructure or can’t attract enough DNs.
I'm in the process of doing user interviews to learn about what people would want out of a similar space. Feel free to email me if anyone has experience living at a Roam or similar environment and would be open to doing a user research interview.
Email is in my profile
I'll be there next week if anyone wants to meet up!
Most would agree all the amenities are good to have.
But then people digress into two groups. One group of nomads want to be in the "poppin" location where there's tons of other people etc.
Other people like to be in relatively calm/secluded spots that still have amenities.
https://nomadcapitalist.com/2018/06/02/puerto-rico-tax-incen...
But after I thought about it seriously, I found there are a lot of wonderful domestic places (or nearby countries if you're living in a small country). Usually, those places speak similar languages, cultures are different but mutually understandable so I can live in those places and maximize the joy of living.
There are nice and cheap places all over the world, and there's no need to travel to the other side of the globe to find one... Unless you already have your dreamed one in mind then you already got your answer. IMHO In both ways, you don't really need other people to tell you where your perfect place is.
Seriously, remote-hostile places (expensive, terrible network, dangerous) are pretty easy to identify, and they are much fewer than remote-friendly places.
I live in Germany and I am running away from the weather, so I have to look at locations at least a 5 hour flight away if I want good weather all year round.
Agreed, that's definitely the idea. It's just I found many people stuck with the stereotypical idea of digital nomads who work in Bali, all sunshine and beaches, which makes the first step harder. In fact, being a digital nomad is much easier than that - just find a place that is better than the current, experience things, and then repeat the process.
Also, many Mediterranean cities have pretty decent weather all year round for my taste. I'm not sure if that counts for you :)
And by good weather year round you meant warm or non-cold/wet weather, didn’t you?
Compared to northern Europe where this year has seen 5 months of winter, that's like paradise though :-)
What's an example? I can think of dangerous countries, but how would you find out about a terrible network?
I would try to Google first to have a general idea, there are usually many complaints if the connection is bad or problematic. Also, websites like Nomad List scores Internet connection for most of the cities (gladly it's not behind the paywall). This should clear major pitfalls already.
In the end, I would travel there to see for myself for two or three days. It should be easy because it's domestic or neighboring countries. Not only for the Internet connection but for everything to see if I really want to stay here for a while.
It may, for example, be fantastic to be a Digital Nomad™ from the Nomad's perspective in Bolivia ... but from the business perspective be an absolute nightmare :)
Or wonderful to setup shop in the Maldives ... but your Nomads would all hate it
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Note - I know nothing about the business climates of Bolivia or the Maldives - just using then as examples :)
My guess is that most people could find some variation of it that they would love and some variation of it they would hate. Some of my best and worst travel experiences have been at coliving spaces.
As mentioned in a different post, I'm in the process of trying to develop a space based on figuring out what I liked and didn't like over years of traveling.
I love Tokyo, but the value factor certainly isn't there.
Spend a few days at sea working, then dock and explore for a day or two. Then a few more days working.
Of course it’s an environmental nightmare but it seems nice.
As soon as the DN thing got a little popular scammers set up shop and left some DN groups hanging with no hotels or transportation. Be careful and do your research before signing up.
For me the best part of the DN lifestyle was doing it on my own. I didn't join groups or seek out DN hot-spots, but I met lots of great nomads and non-nomads just bouncing around to places I found interesting. The trick is to start conversations with people you meet. I was always amazed at the DNs sitting in Chiang Mai or Prague coffee shops with headphones on furiously blogging away about how lonely the DN lifestyle is.
Step 2: Start your blog about how easy it is to do digital gonadary, and sell subscriptions to it.
At least; when I was travelling this seemed to be what all of them were doing.