This article was developed in editorial collaboration with the travel app Polarsteps.

This summer, we didn’t drink Spritz by the sea. We didn’t try to squeeze our beach towels onto a crowded Mediterranean beach. Instead, we spent June and July working and driving around Sweden in our campervan. Spoiler alert: nothing special happened.

Daytime temperatures hovered around 25°C (77°F) and we were mostly alone, surrounded by forests, lakes, and moose. A summer body wasn’t required; aperitivo was replaced with pickled herring and potatoes, and it turned out to be the best decision we could have made.

A choice that almost felt prophetic

Growing up in France, summer had a very specific feeling: salty sea breeze, sunscreen, pine trees, melons, and smoky charcoal… But as I’m writing these words, France is experiencing its fourth historic heatwave of the year. We’ve been watching wildfires and climate-related disasters unfold from afar, heartbroken for the people and wildlife affected. And our childhood definition of summer seems to be disappearing with them.

Looking back, it almost feels as though our choice to skip Western and Southern Europe this summer was prophetic. But it wasn’t. We were hardly alone in looking north. In one recent survey by Polarsteps, 39% of travelers said they were considering a destination with a cooler climate than their home country this summer, rising to 57% in the US. The main reason was to escape extreme heat at home. It was only one survey, but the finding felt familiar.

So here we are in Sweden, wearing jeans and always keeping a rain jacket within arm’s reach.

We didn’t just escape the heat

When people asked why we were heading north (because, yes, it sounded like a punk decision to most of our relatives!), our first answer was always: “to escape the heat”. And that’s partly true. We don’t have air conditioning in our campervan, and once temperatures climb above 25°C, we (and our cats!) struggle to work, sleep, cook, or simply exist.

But once we settled into a Scandinavian summer, we realized we hadn’t just escaped the heat. We’d escaped the crowds, the FOMO, the endless checklist of things you have to see, and the pressure to make every day count.

Sweden didn’t leave us much choice but to slow down. Some days, absolutely nothing happened. Maybe a walk through the forest, or a late-night barbecue. That’s it. Some people would call that boring, but boredom was our greatest luxury.

Summer has become a performance

European summer isn’t just a season. Somewhere between paid holidays becoming the norm and Instagram taking over our lives, it became a status symbol. Then it became content. And without really noticing, we stopped experiencing summer and started performing it.

You need the right body, the right swimsuit, the perfect beach, and the perfect angle to make it look like you had the whole coastline to yourself. Did summer even happen if you didn’t post at least one Spritz a day on your Stories? For decades, Southern Europe sold us the dream of the perfect summer.

This summer, Sweden gave us permission to opt out. To stop performing. To come back with nothing special to say when someone asked about our holiday. To embrace a different kind of luxury: sleeping without air conditioning, eating lunch outside without melting, walking at 4pm without desperately searching for shade, or hearing birds (and moose!) louder than tourists. It reminded us that doing less isn’t failing at summer. It is just enjoying it the way we like it. Cool and calm. Isn’t that the whole point of this country anyway? Balance? It even has a name in Swedish: lagom. Well, something tells me ‘lagom summers’ might be about to have their moment.

Maybe summer is being rewritten

We believe this shift will go far beyond summer vacations, as more people rethink where they want to live and work in a warming world. Climate change is quietly redrawing the map of travel, remote work, and life in general. And maybe that’s also an opportunity to rewrite what we expect from it.

There is a travelling circus moving through Europe’s villages, rural areas and supposedly forgotten territories.

It arrives with a stage, a press office, a programme of panels and the usual collection of words: regeneration, innovation, community, future of work, creative economy, sustainability and, inevitably, digital nomadism.

For two or three days, a place that is difficult to reach, difficult to stay in and often almost impossible to inhabit without a car declares itself the next destination for digital nomads.

Then the circus moves on.

This is not about one particular event (and oh boy we got plenty in mind). It is about an increasingly common format: destinations attempting to reposition themselves for digital nomads without first becoming places where a digital nomad could realistically live.

The logic appears to be simple. The destination is losing residents, tourism is seasonal, property is relatively cheap and the surrounding landscape photographs well. Therefore, digital nomads will come.

But digital nomads do not relocate (the same definition ‘nomad’ says it all) because a village has discovered the correct vocabulary.

They come when they can arrive without undertaking an expedition, find appropriate accommodation for several weeks or months, work reliably, move around, meet people, access essential services and understand how daily life actually functions.

Too many aspiring digital nomad destinations begin at the opposite end. They start with the story.

A festival is announced. Speakers are invited. Journalists arrive. Tourism professionals discuss the future of remote work. Local institutions declare that the territory is ready to attract an international community.

Nobody appears particularly concerned with whether that community can actually get there.

In many of these destinations, public transport is scarce, badly coordinated or nonexistent. Reaching the village from the nearest airport may require several connections and a final taxi journey. Suitable accommodation may be scattered thirty minutes away by car. Long-stay housing has not been organised. Coworking spaces are temporary, symbolic or available only while the event is taking place. Local services are designed for residents who already own cars or tourists staying for two nights.

These are not minor details. They are THE destination.

A picturesque square is not infrastructure. A beautiful landscape is not a mobility system. A panel on co-living does not create available homes. A speech about community does not give a newcomer a place within one.

Without logistics and genuinely habitable places, what is being sold is not a digital nomad destination. It is a tourism discovery experience for people who will visit, take photographs and leave.

That may still have value.

It can promote an area, generate some local spending, fill restaurants for a weekend and persuade a few people to return for a Sunday excursion. A tourism board, a travel agency or an ambitious local association might legitimately organise exactly that.

But it should be described honestly.

It is tourism promotion, not territorial transformation.

The media rarely help to preserve this distinction.

Too many journalists gloriously confuse travelling with nomadism, temporary visibility with regeneration and the arrival of conference guests with the creation of a resident community. A person spending two nights in a village becomes evidence of a new population flow. A panel discussion becomes an ecosystem. A press trip becomes a territorial strategy.

Travel, digital nomadism and regeneration are not interchangeable concepts.

A traveller passes through. A digital nomad temporarily lives and works somewhere. Regeneration requires lasting changes in housing, services, mobility, economic activity and local opportunity.

Confusing the three makes for uplifting articles, but very poor policy.

The story is irresistible: an overlooked village discovers innovation, attracts global talent and prepares to reverse decades of decline. It allows journalists to write about rebirth without returning six months later to see whether anything has actually been born.

Politicians, naturally, rush towards the stage.

What follows is often an orgy of institutional self-congratulation and a parade of wannabe saviours: mayors, regional representatives, consultants, public bodies and project promoters congratulating one another for having placed the village “at the centre of an international conversation”.

The smaller and more vulnerable the place, the grander the announcement.

A weekend initiative becomes a model for Europe. A handful of speakers becomes an international community. A temporary event becomes a new economic trajectory. The village is told that it is about to be reborn through innovation, talent and the future of work.

And the village often believes it. Why would it not?

When residents are leaving, shops are closing and public services are shrinking, even a temporary spotlight can feel like a rescue. Promoters arrive with professional presentations, institutional endorsements, optimistic headlines and, occasionally, access to public funding. They promise international attention and a new population of skilled mobile workers.

The alternative is silence.

But attention is not accessibility, and publicity is not demand.

That is the most uncomfortable contradiction. A territory may announce plans to attract globally mobile professionals while continuing to lose the people who were born there. It presents itself as a future home for outsiders without having created enough opportunity, mobility or services for its existing population to remain.

The new arrivals exist mainly in the presentation slides.

The departures continue to appear in the demographic statistics.

The events themselves are largely stages for static institutions and tourism professionals to discuss mobile lives.

Consultants, destination managers, public officials, journalists and speakers move from town to town explaining how digital nomads might revitalise places in which they themselves would rarely attempt to live for more than a few days.

They speak about mobility while seated beneath stage lights.

They describe the future of remote work in territories where taking a morning flight, finding a month-long rental or reaching a supermarket without a car may require an unreasonable amount of planning.

They talk about attracting people free to live almost anywhere while offering them some of the least practical places in which to live.

These questions require more than storytelling. They require housing inventories, transport solutions, local hosts, property agreements, operational budgets, reliable information and permanent management.

In other words, they require somebody to build the destination before marketing it.

Instead, the marketing often becomes the project.

The organiser receives visibility. The speaker receives another stage. The politician receives another photograph. The institution receives reassuring headlines. The consultant receives another case study. The journalist receives a convenient story about another village being reborn.

Everyone involved in describing the transformation receives something.

Whether the village is transformed is a secondary matter.

In the more fortunate cases, some public funding has been spent, a few local businesses have earned money during the event and the well-intentioned promoters have gained enough visibility to organise the next one.

Perhaps several visitors have been persuaded to return for a day trip.

Perhaps four or five occasional remote workers will stay for a week, cause no particular inconvenience and populate their Instagram feeds with the inevitable laptop at sunset and a spritz in the village square.

Nor is there anything wrong with trying. A modest initiative is better than complete inertia. A well-organised weekend may create relationships, bring some revenue and introduce outsiders to a place they had never considered visiting.

The problem begins when a small tourism event is inflated into evidence of regeneration, repopulation or the birth of a digital nomad destination.

The test should be mercilessly simple.

Six months later, how many remote workers arrived independently of the event?

How long did they stay?

Where did they live?

Could they arrive without a car?

Did any new service become permanent?

Did residents gain jobs, income, customers or meaningful international connections?

Did the village become easier to inhabit?

Did anything remain that did not depend on another conference being organised?

Without answers, the destination has not been transformed.

It has merely been narrated.

And the circus depends on this constant movement. It cannot remain long enough for results to be measured. It must travel to the next village, the next rural district and the next place prepared to declare itself an emerging digital nomad hub.

A new stage is assembled.

The same speakers return.

The same institutional promises are made.

The same media confusion follows.

Another territory is promised rebirth through people who have not been given either a practical reason or a practical way to live there.

The provocation begins with visitors who arrive without a car. But the answer is not to invent services for people who are not there yet. It is to build useful services for residents — making the village naturally more accessible to everyone else.

The provocation from our Editor-in-Chief, (first published on ITS Journal), is very simple: Want digital nomads in your village? Fine. First, help them get there.

And, ideally, allow them to leave again.

Many remote workers arrive in Italy by plane or train. They do not own a car, they have no intention of buying one for a two- or three-month stay, and they quickly discover that renting one can cost almost as much as the apartment.

There is also a minor cultural detail.

Have you ever considered what driving and parking in an Italian hill town looks like to somebody who has just landed?

A road wide enough for one Fiat Panda is officially classified as two-way. Parking requires a steep reverse manoeuvre between a medieval wall and the plumber’s van. The ZTL sign is viewed with respectful uncertainty even by Italians.

Authentic, certainly.

Not necessarily inviting.

But turning this observation into yet another special programme “for digital nomads” would miss the point completely.

The point is the opposite.

Do not invent artificial services for people who are not there yet. Use their perspective to see more clearly what is already missing for the people who live there.

When a service works for older residents, young people, one-car households, disabled people and those on lower incomes, it will automatically make the village more accessible to remote workers, new residents and visitors.

For a visitor it is inconvenient. For a resident it can be a prison

For a digital nomad, poor transport may mean choosing another destination.

For somebody who already lives there, it may mean being unable to buy food, reach a doctor, accept a job, attend education or maintain an independent life.

There are older residents who no longer drive, people who never obtained a licence, young adults who cannot afford a vehicle and households where the only car is used every day by the family member who works.

Even an unimpressive old car now costs several thousand euros. Then come insurance, tax, maintenance, tyres and fuel — which now costs more than wine. Almost twice as much, depending on which Eurospin shelf we use as our economic benchmark.

The European Commission now explicitly recognises transport poverty: the inability to access affordable, adequate mobility for employment, education, healthcare and essential services. Rural, remote and poorly connected areas are among those most exposed.

Across many small communities, this lack of mobility is currently hidden by an informal network of relatives, friends and neighbours.

When the neighbour is available, the system works.

When they are working, ill, away, tired or simply unwilling to become the village’s unpaid taxi service, it stops working.

Neighbourly generosity is valuable.

It should not be a municipality’s transport policy.

Permanent dependence on favours also removes privacy and autonomy. People have to explain where they are going, why, at what time and when they intend to return.

Buying groceries or attending a medical appointment becomes a personal negotiation.

A village can be beautiful and still be a prison.

Do not build a showroom village for people who have not arrived

In recent years, many territories have treated digital-nomad attraction mainly as a communications exercise.

A website in English. Sunset photography. Four desks in an unused municipal room, a coffee machine and the word coworking.

The village is then declared ready to welcome the world.

But the world still has to reach it.

A railway station twenty-five kilometres away is not genuinely accessible when no service connects with the trains.

An airport ninety minutes away is not especially useful when the only option is a taxi costing more than the flight.

A supermarket twelve kilometres away is not “nearby” when somebody must carry water, detergent and food along a provincial road.

Accessibility is not measured in kilometres on a map. It is measured by the time, cost and complexity involved in covering them without owning a car.

The European Commission recognises a significant rural mobility deficit and recommends combining public, social and private finance while integrating shared solutions with the main public-transport network.

That is the change in perspective:

do not create a service for digital nomads. Allow their presence to contribute to the viability of a service designed primarily for the community.

Sometimes the entire mobility strategy is one car

Villerouge-Termenès is a French municipality of around 140 residents, located far from major shops and specialised healthcare.

Its solution was remarkably simple: a shared municipal electric car, charged beneath a photovoltaic canopy and bookable by residents for journeys generally ranging from 40 to 80 kilometres.

It is used for markets, grocery shopping, medical care and errands that would otherwise be difficult or impossible.

The project cost €46,355 and received substantial European and territorial public support. The vehicle reached approximately 30,000 kilometres per year, and demand eventually revealed the limitations of a single small car: insufficient passenger and luggage capacity and periods when the service became saturated.

This does not prove that every rural shared car can pay for itself.

It proves that, in the right territory, one car can be genuinely useful.

Official Villerouge-Termenès project

Extended description and financing

Allons: a car managed through municipal social services

Allons is a small municipality at the end of a sparsely populated valley, far from major shops and public services.

In 2025, the municipality acquired a shared electric vehicle and placed it under the management of its local social-assistance centre. Residents can hire it at a modest cost for short journeys.

The project was financed through France’s Green Fund, support from the Verdon Regional Natural Park and municipal resources. As the service is recent, there is not yet enough evidence to judge whether its ongoing operation can become independent of public contributions.

The principle is important: the car is not treated as a tourism gadget. It sits within the local social-support system.

Official Allons case on France Mobilités

Pays de Lumbres: not only cars, but rural mobility stations

The Pays de Lumbres is a rural French territory covering 36 municipalities and approximately 24,000 residents.

Its experiment expanded into seven mobility stations, seven electric vehicles and eighteen e-bikes. The system is complemented by a solidarity-transport service involving volunteer drivers, including support for people on low incomes or unable to drive.

The mobility-station project had a declared total budget of approximately €420,000 excluding solidarity transport, with at least €247,383 coming from national, departmental, agricultural-social-insurance and municipal funding.

The original experiment used an extremely low tariff. When a charge of €1 per hour was introduced in 2019, usage declined — a useful reminder that some users choose the service precisely because they cannot afford the costs of owning a car.

Official mobility-stations page

Original rural car-sharing experiment

Italy: demand-responsive transport in Val Degano

Italy also has services designed for genuinely mountainous, sparsely populated territories.

UDonDemand, operated by TPL FVG, connects municipalities in Val Degano during periods and in locations that receive limited or no conventional scheduled service. It allows residents of isolated hamlets to reach interchange stops for the regular connections between Sappada and Tolmezzo.

Journeys can be booked through an app or by telephone — essential if digitisation is not to become another barrier for people with limited technical confidence.

Official UDonDemand information

Demand-responsive transport does not necessarily remove the need for subsidy. It can, however, avoid sending large, nearly empty buses around rigid routes, concentrating resources on journeys people actually request.

One shared car for ten apartments may be worth more than ten slogans

The municipality does not necessarily have to own the vehicle.

A company, cooperative or property operator managing several homes could provide a small shared car for tenants and guests.

Imagine ten or fifteen apartments in the same village. Their listings probably include one polite but decisive sentence:

A car is essential.

That sentence immediately excludes a substantial group of potential tenants.

Instead, the operator could offer access to a small bookable vehicle. A limited number of hours might be included in the rental, with additional use paid per journey or through a weekly mobility package.

There is no need to assign one car to every home.

Many users would require it only for grocery shopping, the railway station, an appointment or an evening in the next town.

A single vehicle shared between several properties could make homes genuinely rentable that are not truly usable without mobility.

The product would no longer be simply:

Apartment with Wi-Fi.

It would become:

Apartment with access to mobility.

The same vehicle could be opened to residents when guests are not using it.

The municipality could purchase blocks of hours for people facing hardship. Accommodation providers could buy station-transfer journeys. A supermarket, pharmacy or medical centre could contribute because the car enables customers and patients to reach them.

People arriving from outside would therefore help support a service for those already there.

That is territorial attractiveness.

Not building scenery for foreigners, but using new demand to make the village stronger.

Car sharing does not help somebody who cannot drive

A shared vehicle solves only part of the problem.

It helps people who hold a licence, are physically able to drive and feel confident on local roads.

It does not automatically help a very old person, somebody whose disability prevents driving or anyone who never obtained a licence.

They also need a driver.

Sopotniki is a Slovenian organisation providing free transport for older rural residents through dedicated vehicles and professionally coordinated volunteers.

The service operates across 17 municipalities, supports more than 6,370 active older users, involves approximately 310 volunteer drivers and delivers around 13,000 journeys per year. Funding comes from national and European public programmes, municipalities and private partnerships.

Its success does not rely on goodwill alone. It depends on coordination, training, management, technology, insurance and clearly allocated responsibility.

That is the difference between a service and hoping a neighbour has time.

Official Sopotniki case – European Rural Pact

Sopotniki service in Brežice

Can these services survive without public funding?

The honest answer is: rarely, at least not entirely.

Villerouge-Termenès required substantial public support for its initial investment.

Allons was launched with national, territorial and municipal funding.

The Pays de Lumbres used public finance to create its network.

Sopotniki provides free journeys through volunteers, municipalities, European programmes and private partners.

Guidance published by the UK Department for Transport in 2025 is explicit: particularly in rural areas, demand-responsive services are unlikely to be commercially profitable and normally require sustained local-authority or external support.

But not being commercially profitable is not the same as being unsustainable or pointless.

A rural road is not required to generate a profit.

Street lighting is not switched off because each lamp fails to produce revenue.

A nearly empty conventional bus route does not become rational merely because it has existed for thirty years.

The correct question is not:

How much profit does the car make?

It is:

• How many people can reach healthcare?

• How many essential journeys are completed?

• How many residents regain independence?

• How many homes become genuinely liveable or rentable?

• How many customers can reach local businesses?

• What is the cost per journey compared with the alternatives?

• How much is saved by avoiding oversized services and empty routes?

Considering the amount of public money sometimes spent on oversized infrastructure, consultancy, unused platforms and routes designed for a world that no longer exists, funding one or two small shared cars does not seem extravagant.

It looks like the minimum.

Who should pay?

No single organisation needs to cover the entire cost.

The municipality can fund the launch, buy hours for vulnerable users or cover socially necessary journeys.

Property owners and operators can contribute because the service increases the accessibility and practical value of their homes.

Agriturismi, distributed hotels and holiday rentals can buy packages for guests and station transfers.

Pharmacies, supermarkets, local businesses and employers can participate because they gain customers, patients or workers.

Users can pay an affordable charge, possibly differentiated between visitor, ordinary and social use.

Public programmes can support the initial vehicle, technology or journeys for people with fewer resources.

The most credible model is not one with no public funding whatsoever.

It is a mixed model with transparent costs and measurable results.

Start with one vehicle, not a platform

A pilot for a small village could begin with:

one car;

one collection point;

a simple booking system;

a block of hours purchased by the municipality;

several property owners contributing to the monthly cost;

a tariff for visitors and ordinary users;

a small organised driver network for people unable to drive;

and a telephone number alongside any app.

After twelve months, measure usage, costs, unmet requests, medical journeys, shopping trips, station connections and the number of people who would otherwise have had no option.

When demand justifies a second vehicle, add it.

Not before.

An empty fleet, an unused bicycle rack and an app downloaded by twelve people are not innovation.

They are digital street furniture.

Digital nomads are the test. Residents are the reason

People arriving from outside immediately see what residents have learned to consider normal.

A resident knows which neighbour to call. They know that the 7:20 bus actually passes at 7:12. They know the unofficial taxi driver who may be available, unless it is market day, a wedding or a football match.

The visitor searches online.

They discover that the bus does not connect with the train, the taxi costs €140 and the supermarket cannot safely be reached on foot.

Then they choose another place.

They do not write to the mayor.

They do not begin a public debate.

They simply do not arrive.

Digital nomads are therefore an excellent stress test.

But the response should not be a fake service created to seduce them.

It should be a real service, designed for people already living in the territory and made more viable by those who may arrive.

Fast internet matters.

Affordable housing matters.

A coworking space may occasionally matter too.

But quality of life begins with the ability to buy food, reach a doctor, catch a train and see other people without requesting a favour every time.

So yes: want digital nomads?

First, help them get there.

More importantly, allow the people already living in your village to leave their homes.

From provocation to pilot

NOMAG does not want this discussion to end with an article.

Building on our direct experience in a small Italian community, we want to speak with people and organisations possessing practical expertise in rural car sharing, fleet management, insurance, regulation, vehicle-booking and access technology, community transport, public-private partnerships and rural funding.

We are not looking for another presentation about smart mobility.

We are looking for people willing to help determine whether a small, mixed and replicable model can work in the real world.

Links and sources

• European Commission – Access to transport for all

• European Commission – Sustainable rural mobility guidance

• Villerouge-Termenès – official project

• Villerouge-Termenès – extended financing case

• Allons – shared municipal vehicle

• Pays de Lumbres – mobility stations

• Pays de Lumbres – original rural car-sharing experiment

• Sopotniki – European Rural Pact case

• Sopotniki – Brežice service

• Val Degano – UDonDemand

• UK Department for Transport – Demand-responsive transport guidance

Countries invent visas for them, cities build coworking spaces for them and villages promise them an authentic life among olive trees. There is only one minor problem: almost nobody has bothered to ask who they are, what they need or whether the local population genuinely wants them around.

In What Women Want, Mel Gibson needs lightning, a hairdryer and a near-death experience before he can finally hear women’s thoughts. Governments, tourism boards and local councils have developed a less hazardous method for understanding digital nomads: they simply make things up.

Every few weeks, another country introduces or adjusts a digital nomad visa, another city declares itself a remote-working hub and another half-empty village discovers that it possesses stone houses, grandmothers, olive trees and something the local councillor confidently describes as “excellent Wi-Fi”. The OECD confirms that governments are continuing to introduce these schemes — Italy and Türkiye did so in 2024, Bulgaria followed in 2025, while Croatia extended its programme — although it also notes that they remain relatively small-volume migration channels.

Then comes the inevitable announcement: we want to attract digital nomads.

Wonderful. Which ones? Why would they come? What exactly would they do there once the ceremonial photograph with the mayor had been taken? More importantly, has anyone spoken to an actual digital nomad, rather than to a consultant whose direct experience of nomadism consists of opening a MacBook during a weekend in Barcelona?

The world’s favourite imaginary population

Digital nomads have become the urban and rural development equivalent of truffle oil. Sprinkle the expression over an ordinary project and it immediately sounds modern, international and vaguely expensive. An abandoned school becomes a “nomad hub”; a room containing three IKEA desks becomes a coworking centre; an unreliable internet connection becomes “an opportunity to reconnect with yourself”; and a village with no evening bus, no pharmacy and one bar that closes whenever the owner feels tired becomes “an oasis for conscious professionals”.

The digital nomad in this fantasy is young, single, permanently cheerful and able to manage an international software company from a deckchair. He — because the cliché is usually male — owns one backpack, wears shorts during investor calls and requires only four things: a laptop, a cappuccino, a panoramic view and a wall bearing the neon instruction DO WHAT YOU LOVE. He never needs a doctor, a printer, childcare, privacy, a second monitor, decent heating or somewhere to buy food on a Sunday.

Reality is considerably less decorative. MBO Partners’ 2025 research estimates that the United States alone has 18.5 million digital nomads, representing roughly 12 per cent of the American workforce. More importantly, 11.2 million of them have conventional salaried jobs, rather than fitting the freelance-backpacker stereotype; 54 per cent are married or living with a partner, and around one in nine is aged 55 or over. They work across technology, finance, consulting, sales, marketing, research and creative industries.

The MBO research is American rather than global, and it should not be treated as a perfect portrait of every nomad on Earth. That limitation, however, reinforces the central point: even within one country, this is not a single tribe. It includes graduates on modest incomes, highly paid executives, founders, freelancers, couples, parents, older professionals, domestic travellers, international travellers and people taking a temporary workation before returning home. Calling all of them “digital nomads” tells us approximately as much as calling everyone who owns a suitcase “a traveller”.

The question nobody asks

Territories usually begin with the wrong question: how can we attract digital nomads? It sounds strategic, looks excellent on a conference slide and is almost entirely meaningless. The useful question is much less flattering: which specific kinds of digital nomad could genuinely want the life we are capable of offering, and what would make that life function once the promotional video ends?

That extra sentence destroys approximately 80 per cent of municipal PowerPoint presentations. A large city with international flights, nightlife, universities and several professional communities may appeal to a newly remote employee who wants energy, opportunity and connections. A coastal town could attract a couple seeking three quieter months without disappearing completely from civilisation. A mountain village might appeal to an experienced slow traveller, a writer completing a book, a founder preparing a launch, a family wanting nature or someone who actively enjoys solitude.

The same village may be completely unsuitable for a corporate executive who must return to London twice a month, a parent who needs an international school, a single 25-year-old hoping to meet other people or anyone who interprets the phrase “the last bus leaves at 5.20” as a threat rather than a charming expression of local identity. “Digital nomads” cannot be a target market until someone decides which digital nomads they are talking about. Until then, it is not a strategy. It is a hashtag with a municipal budget.

No, they do not simply want Wi-Fi

Reliable internet is essential, obviously. Inviting a remote worker to live with unstable connectivity is like inviting a chef to use a kitchen without electricity and compensating them with a beautiful sunset. Yet broadband alone is no longer an attraction; it is the entrance ticket. Advertising a destination because it has Wi-Fi is increasingly like advertising a hotel because it has doors.

A 2025 study based on a survey of 101 digital nomads from 26 countries found that their five leading destination criteria were digital connectivity, quality of life, cost of living, safety and visa or entry conditions. The sample is relatively small and was recruited online, so its percentages should not be mistaken for eternal universal truths. Nevertheless, its findings align with broader research showing that destination choice is shaped by a mixture of infrastructure, affordability, legal simplicity and the quality of ordinary life, rather than by scenery alone.

A separate 2024 academic study analysed digital nomads’ online discussions and found that cultural immersion, gastronomy, coworking and employment opportunities contributed positively to destination perceptions, while poor connectivity, visa problems, awkward working hours and loneliness operated as significant barriers. The study’s most useful conclusion is not that nomads possess a secret checklist, but that emotional well-being and social connection matter alongside technological infrastructure.

In practical terms, digital nomads need a life that does not require a daily administrative expedition. They need accommodation in which “workspace” does not mean a decorative shelf beneath the television, a chair designed for a human spine, enough electrical sockets to power something more advanced than a bedside lamp, heating in winter, cooling in summer and photographs that bear some relationship to the property they eventually enter.

They need medium-term housing without hotel prices, twelve-month contracts or a landlord demanding three payslips, two guarantors, a letter from an employer, a blood sample and evidence that their grandfather paid rent punctually in 1963. They need food shops, healthcare, public transport, exercise, somewhere to work and somewhere to stop working. In other words, they need many of the same things permanent residents need, which continues to arrive as astonishing news to tourism departments.

They want community, but not compulsory fun

One of the most persistent myths in digital nomad policy is that opening a coworking space automatically creates a community. It does not. It creates a room, and quite often a room containing uncomfortable chairs, motivational quotations and nobody else.

A functioning community requires introductions, repeated encounters, activities, local connectors and some plausible reason for people to see one another again. It also requires residents who are interested in meeting newcomers and newcomers who are treated as potential participants in local life rather than temporary cash machines. None of this is achieved by organising one “nomad aperitivo” beneath a banner carrying seventeen sponsor logos and requiring everyone to introduce themselves with their name, nationality and personal brand.

Digital nomads are not exchange students trapped in a permanent orientation week. Some want professional networking, some want friendships, some want collaborators and some simply want to recognise a few faces in the café and know whom to call when the boiler begins making demonic noises. What many of them do not want is complete isolation rebranded as peace and tranquillity.

A study published online in late 2024, based on 30 in-depth interviews with digital nomads, described loneliness not as an inevitable condition but as a continuum influenced by social support, the ability to stay somewhere long enough to develop relationships and the individual’s capacity to connect with others. In other words, installing fast broadband may allow someone to attend a Zoom meeting, but it will not automatically give them a reason to remain in the town after closing the laptop.

MBO’s wider 2025 research reaches a similar conclusion from a different direction. Among the challenges most frequently reported by American nomads were separation from friends and family, financial pressure, concerns about personal safety, travel burnout, inconvenient time zones and loneliness. The glamorous lifestyle apparently consists of freedom, adventure and occasionally trying to conduct a board meeting from an apartment where the router has decided to enter a period of spiritual reflection.

The great village delusion

Small towns and villages are particularly attracted to the digital nomad story because the arithmetic appears irresistible. The village is losing population, houses are empty and remote workers can supposedly live anywhere; therefore, remote workers will move into the empty houses. Unfortunately, “anywhere” has never meant “everywhere”.

Peer-reviewed European research published in 2025 concluded that the expansion of teleworking was unlikely, by itself, to produce a major rebalancing between urban and rural areas. People’s location choices remain connected to employment ecosystems, services, amenities, family networks and other advantages concentrated around cities. Remote work can loosen the rope tying people to a particular office, but it does not erase the rest of their lives.

A 2026 working paper using data from more than 7,400 European remote workers makes the point even more brutally. It reports that 67 per cent of remote-work-related relocations occurred from one urban area to another, while moves from urban to rural areas accounted for only 2 per cent. Quality of life was cited by 78 per cent of movers and economic or housing considerations by 70 per cent. Because this is a recent working paper rather than a final peer-reviewed publication, those precise figures deserve some caution, but they provide little support for the fantasy of millions of laptop workers stampeding towards every picturesque hamlet with an empty primary school.

This does not mean rural destinations cannot attract nomads. It means that a stone alley, three vacant houses and a population problem do not automatically constitute a product. A successful rural destination has to identify the people who might actively value what it offers and then remove the practical reasons preventing those people from staying.

Can the village be reached without buying a car? Can someone find a comfortable furnished home for six weeks rather than two nights or twelve months? Is there a supermarket, a doctor and somewhere to eat on a Tuesday evening in February? Can a partner build a life there too? Can children attend school or childcare? Will residents still speak to newcomers after the official welcome event, and when everyone proudly says, “In our village, everybody knows everybody”, does that sound like community — or surveillance with geraniums?

Cheap is attractive. Depressed is not.

Cost matters, particularly to freelancers, younger workers and people using differences in living costs to sustain a more flexible lifestyle. Nevertheless, there is a substantial difference between affordable and lifeless. A destination cannot remove every service, opportunity and form of entertainment and then market the resulting absence as “slow living”.

Low prices may attract initial attention, but nomads evaluate the complete package: housing quality, mobility, safety, weather, healthcare, bureaucracy, social opportunities, legal conditions and access to other destinations. A £400 flat is not a bargain when it comes with mould, no desk, no heating and a three-hour journey to the nearest airport. A cheap village is not attractive to an executive who must spend hundreds of pounds and an entire day reaching a monthly meeting, nor to a parent who has to drive 50 kilometres for childcare.

“Authenticity” is equally unreliable as a substitute for functioning services. Nomads may genuinely want to experience local culture, learn the language, eat regional food and participate in community life. What they probably do not want is to discover that “authenticity” means every shop closes between 1pm and 5pm, the only available rental contains furniture from a deceased aunt and the internet technician is expected “sometime next month”.

Authenticity is wonderful. So is a pharmacy.

They increasingly want to stop moving

The word nomad encourages destinations to imagine people in constant motion, collecting countries, airport stamps and photographs of laptops beside swimming pools. Many real nomads eventually discover that moving every few days is not liberation but unpaid logistics.

MBO’s 2025 report identifies a continued shift towards “slomading”: visiting fewer destinations and remaining in each for longer. Its respondents visited an average of 6.2 locations in 2025, down from 7.2 in 2023, while the average stay increased from 5.4 to 6.4 weeks. The report links longer stays with better productivity, stronger social lives, more meaningful contact with local culture and lower travel stress.

This change should transform how destinations think about the market. Someone staying for six or eight weeks is not merely a tourist who happens to own a laptop. They need to live, which means predictable monthly pricing, laundry, cooking facilities, privacy, workspace, exercise, social relationships and the possibility of becoming temporarily familiar with a place.

They may buy local food, use local services, attend events, learn some of the language, invite family members to visit and return the following year. They may contribute more to the ordinary economy than a weekend tourist. But they can only become temporary citizens when the destination allows them to participate in local life, rather than treating them as unusually productive hotel guests who should remain grateful for every cappuccino.

Your citizens also get a vote

Destinations frequently discuss digital nomads as though only the visitors’ preferences matter. They do not. The people who already live there have homes, expectations, frustrations and votes, and their reaction can determine whether a nomad strategy becomes genuine integration or simply another local conflict with better branding.

A study involving 307 digital nomads across four established destinations found that conflict with residents could weaken nomads’ identification with a place and their desire to return. It also found that cooperative contact and practical support from residents could reduce some of those negative effects. The conclusion is not that locals must smile obediently while rents rise, nor that newcomers should be welcomed regardless of their behaviour. It is that relationships between nomads and residents must be deliberately designed into the project rather than treated as an automatic by-product of proximity.

Before advertising a town as a nomad destination, local leaders should therefore ask residents some uncomfortable questions. Do they want medium-term newcomers? Are landlords likely to remove homes from the long-term rental market? Will local businesses adapt their opening hours or simply increase their prices? Are nomads expected to integrate, spend money and participate, or merely to sit silently in the new coworking centre as evidence that the funding application was successful?

There is also the delicate matter of personality. Digital nomads are often independent, impatient with bureaucracy and accustomed to comparing cities, services and countries. They ask why the bus does not run, why broadband disappears during working hours, why the municipal website was last updated in 2017 and why obtaining a document requires four appointments with three offices that disagree with one another. This may be useful pressure for improvement, or it may irritate everybody within a five-kilometre radius. Usually, it does both.

So, what do digital nomads really want?

They want freedom, but not chaos; adventure, but also a chair that does not damage their lower back; affordable living, but not a house furnished entirely with objects rejected by three previous generations. They want community, but not organised happiness; local culture, but not to be displayed beside it; nature, but perhaps also a gym, a train station, decent coffee and somewhere to eat after 9pm.

They want legal clarity without having to read a 94-page government PDF whose English translation appears to have been completed by a distracted toaster. They want to feel welcome, but not to be blamed six months later for every rent increase, crowded café and unfamiliar face. They want choice, flexibility and a destination that understands they are working, not enjoying a 365-day holiday financed by mysterious internet money.

Most importantly, they probably do not want what you imagine they want when you have never tried the lifestyle, never worked for a month from an unfamiliar place and never asked anyone who has. They are young workers, middle-aged executives, freelancers, founders, couples, single people, families, people travelling internationally and people remaining relatively close to home. Some want a tropical social hub; others want a silent room in the mountains. Some are trying to build companies; others are trying to recover from them.

The one-size-fits-all strategy and the purely American image of a young man coding beside a swimming pool are therefore your worst enemies. They prevent you from seeing both the variety of the market and the limits of your own destination.

Before launching another visa, village, hub, residency programme, platform or promotional film featuring a woman inexplicably typing on a beach, ask yourself three final questions.

Do you truly know which digital nomads you are talking about?

Are you quite sure that your town can give them what they need?

And, most importantly, are you and your residents absolutely certain that you want creatures like us hanging around, questioning your transport, occupying the best table in the café for four hours, requesting invoices, demanding functioning Wi-Fi and asking why nothing can be done online?

Because attracting digital nomads is the easy part. Living with us may be the real adventure.

Research note and sources

This article draws on a combination of peer-reviewed academic research, institutional reporting, industry surveys and one recent European working paper. None of these sources, taken individually, can define a single universal digital-nomad profile — which is precisely one of the article’s arguments. MBO Partners’ research is limited to the United States; the Trihas and Papadaki study uses a relatively small convenience sample; qualitative studies provide depth rather than statistical representativeness; and the 2026 European relocation analysis remains a working paper rather than a peer-reviewed publication. What matters is the convergence across different sources: digital nomads are more diverse than the familiar stereotype, while connectivity, housing, quality of life, affordability, safety, social relationships, legal clarity and relations with local residents repeatedly influence where they go and whether they stay.

Sources

1. OECD, International Migration Outlook 2025 — Recent Developments in Migration Policy. Used for recent developments in digital-nomad visa programmes, including those introduced or modified by Italy, Türkiye, Bulgaria and Croatia, and for the OECD’s observation that these remain relatively small-volume migration channels.

2. MBO Partners, 2025 Digital Nomads Trends Report: A Niche Workforce Becomes Mainstream. Used for estimates of the American digital-nomad population, employment status, age and relationship profiles, reported lifestyle challenges and the shift towards longer stays in fewer destinations. The report estimates 18.5 million American digital nomads in 2025, of whom 11.2 million held conventional jobs; 54 per cent were married or living with a partner. It also reports an average of 6.2 destinations and 6.4 weeks per stop in 2025.

3. Nikolaos Trihas and Eirini Papadaki, “Digital Nomads: Lifestyle, Travel Behavior, and the Work/Leisure Balance”, in Strategic Innovative Marketing and Tourism, Springer, 2025. Based on an online survey of 101 digital nomads from 26 countries, the study identifies connectivity, quality of life, cost of living, safety and visa policy as the five leading destination-selection criteria. The authors explicitly acknowledge the limitations created by the sample’s size and recruitment through social media.

4. Francisco Javier S. Lacárcel, Raquel Huete and Konstantina Zerva, “Decoding Digital Nomad Destination Decisions Through User-Generated Content”, Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Volume 200, 2024. The study analyses online discussions and identifies cultural immersion, gastronomy, coworking and employment-related themes as positive influences, while connectivity problems, visa management, difficult working hours and loneliness emerge as barriers.

5. Cristina Miguel, Christoph Lutz, Rodrigo Perez-Vega and Filip Majetić, “‘Alone on the Road’: Loneliness Among Digital Nomads and the Use of Social Media to Foster Personal Relationships”, Media, Culture & Society, first published online in 2024. Based on 30 in-depth interviews, the study presents digital-nomad loneliness as a continuum affected by social support, length of stay and the ability to establish meaningful connections.

6. Pui-Hang Wong, Karima Kourtit and Peter Nijkamp, “The Teleworking Paradox: The Geography of Residential Mobility of Workers in Pandemic Times”, The Annals of Regional Science, 2025. Using large-scale European survey data, the authors find little evidence that teleworking alone will substantially narrow urban–rural disparities, because residential decisions continue to be shaped by place-specific economic and quality-of-life factors.

7. Sławomir Kuźmar, From Core to Periphery? Assessing Remote Work’s Potential to Rebalance EU Regional Development, working paper, 2026. Based on survey data from more than 7,400 European remote workers collected in 2024, the paper reports that 67 per cent of relocations remained urban-to-urban, while urban-to-rural moves represented 2 per cent. As a recent working paper, its findings should be treated as provisional rather than definitive.

8. Dario Miocevic, “Baby Come Back: Resident–Digital Nomad Conflicts, Destination Identification, and Revisit Intention”, Journal of Travel Research, first published online in 2024. Drawing on a multinational sample of 307 digital nomads across four destinations, the study finds that conflict with residents can weaken identification with a destination, while cooperative contact and practical support can reduce some of those effects.

Sources and figures last checked on 29 July 2026.

The relocation grant attracts the headlines, but Tulsa Remote has lasted since 2018 because the money is only the entrance ticket to a much broader civic, professional and economic ecosystem. While much of Europe remains mesmerised by cheap houses, tax discounts and one-off incentives, Tulsa has concentrated on the considerably harder question: what happens after people arrive?

Let us admit it: many of us knew Tulsa primarily, perhaps exclusively, through Tulsa King, the television series in which Sylvester Stallone plays a New York mafia capo exiled to Oklahoma and proceeds to build a new criminal enterprise with the sort of efficiency rarely encountered in conventional regional-development policy.

Hands up. Guilty as charged.

Tulsa, in the European imagination, is not usually filed alongside New York, San Francisco, Austin or even Nashville. It is somewhere in the middle of America, in the middle of Oklahoma, in the middle of that vast geographical space that international visitors tend to cross at 35,000 feet while watching a film about New York, San Francisco, Austin or Nashville.

That relative invisibility is partly what makes Tulsa Remote so interesting. Since 2018, the city has been deliberately recruiting remote workers from elsewhere in the United States, offering selected applicants a relocation grant, workspace, practical support, professional connections and access to a substantial community of people who have already made the same move. The programme welcomed its 4,000th member in January 2026, having started with a first cohort of just 70 people.

The predictable headline is that Tulsa gives people $10,000 to move there. It is a very good headline, which is presumably why almost everybody uses it. It is also an increasingly inadequate description of what the programme has become.

The grant may prompt an application, but it cannot explain why the initiative has survived for more than seven years, expanded from dozens of participants to thousands and reported an 80 per cent two-year retention rate among its 2025 survey respondents. Nor can it explain why 96 per cent of participants complete the initial year and why a large majority choose to remain after the contractual reason for staying has expired.

The more consequential story is not that Tulsa found a price at which some people would move to Oklahoma. Almost every place can attract temporary attention by attaching cash to a press release. The more consequential story is that Tulsa attempted to build the conditions under which newcomers might develop careers, friendships, businesses, routines and a sufficiently convincing life not to leave again.

This is not a scheme devised by a nearly deserted village offering a symbolic house, a municipal key and best wishes for the restoration of a roof last inspected in 1957. Tulsa had an estimated population of 416,209 in July 2025. It is a proper city, with universities, hospitals, aerospace, energy, finance, manufacturing, cultural institutions and a metropolitan economy large enough to offer more than picturesque isolation and a weekly bus.

That distinction matters because the programme is not trying to use remote workers as emergency demographic decoration. It is positioning them inside an existing city and, more ambitiously, inside an evolving economic ecosystem.

The grant is marketing. The ecosystem is the proposition

Tulsa Remote is backed by the George Kaiser Family Foundation, a large philanthropic organisation with the financial capacity and local commitment to operate less like a short-term sponsor and more like a patient civic investor. The programme selects people who already have portable employment outside Oklahoma and encourages them to relocate without requiring the city first to persuade their employers to move as well.

The logic is simple, but rather more sophisticated than it initially appears. Conventional economic development frequently involves offering tax concessions, land, infrastructure and public money to a company in exchange for a promise to create jobs. Sometimes this works very well. Sometimes the jobs arrive late, in smaller numbers than advertised or accompanied by public costs that remain discreetly outside the celebratory press release.

Tulsa Remote reverses the process. Instead of recruiting the employer and hoping the employees follow, it recruits workers who already have employers, salaries and professional networks elsewhere. The salary continues to be financed by an external company or client, while a meaningful share of the worker’s spending, tax contribution, housing demand and social activity is transferred to Tulsa.

In effect, the city imports payroll without first importing the corporate headquarters.

By the end of 2025, Tulsa Remote’s 3,972 participants had collectively generated an estimated $878 million in direct employment income since the programme began. This figure should be read carefully: it is not the programme’s profit, nor is it a calculation of money spent exclusively within Tulsa. It is the total employment income earned by participating remote workers. Nevertheless, it demonstrates the scale of the economic capacity that has been attracted into the city.

An independent 2025 study by economist Timothy J. Bartik of the W.E. Upjohn Institute concluded that the programme’s economic effects extend beyond the participants themselves. The research examined whether the incentive genuinely induced moves that would not otherwise have happened and found that Tulsa Remote members create additional local spending, fiscal benefits, business activity and employment. Crucially, Bartik argued that the programme’s support services, entrepreneurship incentives and surrounding housing and development policies are at least as important as the relocation payment and the participant-selection process.

That conclusion should be printed in very large letters above the desk of every policymaker who believes regional development consists of announcing an incentive and waiting for economic life to occur.

The cash is not irrelevant. It reduces the cost and perceived risk of relocation, creates publicity and supplies a clear reason to consider a city that might otherwise never enter a remote worker’s search. But its usefulness depends on what follows. Without professional opportunities, accessible housing, social connections, cultural life, services and a credible sense of momentum, a relocation payment merely subsidises a temporary change of address.

Tulsa Remote appears to understand this. New members receive individual support, access to a network of more than 4,000 remote workers, a dedicated online community, events and introductions to local organisations and residents. The official programme is explicit that its purpose is not simply to facilitate arrival but to build long-term attachment.

This is where the Tulsa model moves beyond the familiar incentive economy. A financial offer can acquire an applicant. It cannot, on its own, produce belonging.

A programme embedded in something larger

The most important feature of Tulsa Remote may be that it does not stand alone. It forms part of a broader attempt to develop Tulsa’s economic identity, talent base and innovation infrastructure through a combination of philanthropy, business, local institutions and public-private collaboration.

The George Kaiser Family Foundation has also supported Tulsa Innovation Labs, an organisation working across areas including energy technology, advanced mobility, cybersecurity and advanced manufacturing. The city has developed startup support, workforce programmes, incubation, coworking, professional communities and spaces designed to connect entrepreneurs, researchers, employers and investors.

Gradient, formerly known as 36 Degrees North, operates as a hub for entrepreneurs and growing companies, providing workspace, incubation, acceleration, mentorship and business support. Tulsa Remote participants do not therefore arrive in a city whose entire economic-development strategy consists of having successfully persuaded them to arrive. They enter a landscape in which several organisations are attempting to convert talent into longer-term business and professional activity.

Not every remote worker will establish a company, join a technology venture or become a civic leader. Nor should they. One of the more exhausting habits of contemporary economic policy is the insistence that every reasonably competent adult must eventually become a founder. A functioning city also requires managers, designers, consultants, writers, accountants, researchers, parents, volunteers, customers and people who occasionally wish to finish work without disrupting an industry.

What matters is that the programme increases the number of possible connections between newcomers and the wider city. A remote employee may initially arrive with a job based in California, New York or Texas, but may later hire locally, invest in a business, join a nonprofit board, purchase a home, start a family, establish a company or persuade somebody else to move. The immediate transaction is relocation; the intended return is accumulated participation.

This is also why duration matters more than the original offer. Tulsa Remote began in 2018, before the pandemic turned remote work from a growing employment practice into a global argument about offices, productivity, freedom, loneliness, city centres and the correct number of days per week on which adults should pretend to enjoy commuting.

Many programmes announced during the pandemic were temporary attempts to capture a suddenly mobile professional class. Tulsa Remote predates that moment and has continued well beyond it. Its endurance suggests that the initiative is not based solely on a passing remote-work frenzy or on the novelty of a cheque. The model has had time to develop alumni, networks, local partnerships, institutional knowledge and a community large enough to become part of the proposition itself.

The programme now benefits from a form of compounding. The first participants moved to join an experiment. Later participants can move into an existing network containing thousands of people, accumulated experience and a visible body of alumni who have chosen to remain. Every successful relocation potentially makes the next relocation less socially risky.

That is how an incentive begins to become infrastructure.

Community is not the decorative part

Economic-development plans are often divided into serious components and soft components. Serious components include capital, property, transport, tax, skills and employment. Community is placed near the end, generally beside a photograph of young people drinking coffee under decorative lighting.

For remote workers, however, community is not a lifestyle accessory. It is one of the principal determinants of whether relocation works.

A remote worker can bring employment to a new city without bringing colleagues, an office, a social network or any of the incidental human contact traditionally attached to work. Geographic freedom can therefore produce both opportunity and disconnection. A person may be able to work from anywhere and still discover that “anywhere” becomes lonely remarkably quickly.

Tulsa Remote treats social and professional integration as a core part of the economic proposition. Participants are connected with one another, but also with established residents, nonprofits, businesses and local institutions. The aim is not merely to create an enclave of recently arrived laptop owners, all congratulating one another on the price of their apartments. It is to create routes into the city beyond the programme itself.

The programme’s reported retention figures indicate that this approach has had some success. An 80 per cent two-year retention rate does not mean that everybody remains permanently, nor does it prove that every participant has found professional fulfilment somewhere between downtown Tulsa and the Arkansas River. It does, however, suggest that many participants continue living there after the payment has ceased to provide any reason to do so.

That is the test that cash-only programmes frequently avoid. They publish the number of applications, announce the successful recipients and circulate photographs of the first arrivals. Much less is said two, three or five years later, when the incentives have expired, the ribbon has been cut and the new residents have had sufficient time to discover whether the local ecosystem extends beyond a discounted property and an enthusiastic mayor.

Tulsa’s model is interesting precisely because it is designed around the period after the launch event.

Meanwhile, in Europe: here is your cheap house, and good luck

Europe has no shortage of territories attempting to attract new residents. Rural municipalities offer grants, discounted properties, tax relief, business incentives and houses advertised for symbolic prices. Some initiatives are serious, well-designed and connected to genuine local strategies. Others seem to assume that affordability is a complete answer to the question of why a person should reorganise an entire life.

The sales proposition often begins and ends with cheapness. The house is cheap. The land is cheap. The rent is cheap. The tax regime is advantageous. The municipality may contribute to renovation costs, provided the applicant satisfies 46 conditions, submits the correct historic cadastral document and has not used blue ink on page seven.

Then, once the new resident arrives: “auguri e figli maschi”.

The missing questions are usually the most important ones. What professional opportunities exist once the person is there? Who will introduce them to clients, employers, investors or collaborators? Is there a functioning community rather than a promotional idea of one? Can a partner find work? Are there schools, healthcare, transport, childcare and reliable digital infrastructure? Is housing merely inexpensive, or is it actually habitable? What happens after the grant is spent and the novelty of restoring a stone wall in a village with no pharmacy has worn off?

Cheapness may attract attention, particularly in a period of punishing housing costs across many European cities. But being inexpensive is not an economic strategy. Sometimes it is simply evidence that demand has already rendered its judgement.

Tulsa’s advantage is not that it has discovered a more generous incentive. Its advantage is that the incentive sits inside a proposition with several layers: a sizeable city, an existing labour market, a lower cost base than many major American metropolitan areas, professional networks, civic institutions, entrepreneurial support and a deliberately constructed community of newcomers.

The relevant comparison is therefore not between $10,000 in Tulsa and a €30,000 relocation grant somewhere in Europe. The relevant comparison is between what the recipient can plausibly build in either place over the following five or ten years.

One offer discounts the move. The other attempts to improve the trajectory.

The model is not beyond criticism

Tulsa Remote is selective by design. It attracts people who already possess qualifying remote employment and the economic security required to contemplate relocation. It is not a universal employment programme, an anti-poverty measure or a substitute for investment in residents who have lived in Tulsa all their lives.

The initiative also benefits from the involvement of a foundation with unusual financial resources and a long-term interest in the city. Many towns and regions cannot reproduce that institutional capacity merely by admiring the results and commissioning a logo.

There are also legitimate concerns about housing pressure, inequality and the distribution of economic benefits. Recruiting relatively well-paid workers can increase demand and reshape neighbourhoods in ways that do not benefit every existing resident. Aggregate growth is not the same as equitable growth, and the arrival of new professional talent does not automatically address longstanding racial, social or economic disparities.

This is particularly significant in Tulsa, a city whose economic history cannot be separated from the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre and the destruction of Greenwood, one of the most prosperous Black communities in the United States. A contemporary innovation ecosystem does not erase that history, and the success of a relocation programme should also be judged by whether it expands opportunity for the people already living in the city.

The Upjohn research is encouraging because it considers benefits to existing residents rather than only the income of programme participants. It nevertheless remains essential to distinguish between an estimated net benefit for a local economy and an equal benefit for every household within it.

Tulsa has not solved urban inequality, remote work, regional development or capitalism. This may come as a disappointment to anybody expecting a relocation grant to do all four.

What it has done is construct a programme around a more credible understanding of how people choose places.

Places compete for people, whether they admit it or not

Cities have always competed for capital, companies, institutions, tourists and major events. They are now increasingly competing for people whose income is geographically portable and whose choice of residence is no longer determined entirely by the location of an employer.

This requires a change in the way places present themselves. A city is not merely selling property, weather, tax or cost of living. It is selling the possibility of a future: professional progress, social connection, personal identity, security, opportunity and the belief that moving there will expand rather than diminish one’s life.

Tulsa Remote translates that competition into a structured process. It creates awareness, invites applications, selects candidates, reduces relocation friction, supports arrival, facilitates integration and measures retention. In commercial language, it is a customer-acquisition and retention model applied to human capital. In civic language, it is a place attempting to take responsibility for what happens between attracting a resident and becoming their home.

There is a certain irony in the fact that a city many outsiders first encountered as the setting for a Sylvester Stallone crime drama may now offer one of the more serious case studies in contemporary talent attraction.

The cheque helped Tulsa become a headline. The infrastructure around it has allowed Tulsa Remote to become a programme. Its longevity, retention and connection to a broader economic strategy are what may eventually turn it into policy.

Other cities can copy the amount. They can copy the website, the application form, the photographs of smiling people in coworking spaces and perhaps even the slightly breathless vocabulary of community and opportunity.

The more difficult thing to copy is the substance that begins after the newcomer has unpacked.

Tulsa’s most compelling offer is not that it will help pay for the journey. It is that, more than seven years into the experiment, it is still working on giving people reasons not to make the journey back.

Two Dutch organisers built a “curated community” for nomads, reportedly filtered out Indonesians, blamed the algorithm and left for Singapore. Indonesia has now told them not to come back.

There are many ways to behave like an idiot abroad.

You can drive a scooter without a helmet. Climb something sacred for Instagram. Open a laptop in a café, order one coconut water and occupy the table until the staff change shifts.

Or, for the more ambitious expat, you can move to Bali, organise events on Indonesian soil, use Indonesian public spaces and then allegedly prevent Indonesians from joining.

That last option has proved surprisingly bad for business.

Two Dutch men behind Entourage Bali, a social and running community aimed at digital nomads, have been banned from re-entering Indonesia after authorities accused their organisation of discriminating against local residents and operating events without the necessary authorisation.

The men were officially identified only by their initials, JAS and HQV, aged 35 and 37. Indonesian and international media have reported that they are believed to be Entourage founders Joost Storms and Hidde van Vliet.

Their project marketed itself as a “curated social community” connecting travellers, expats and nomads through carefully selected experiences at some of Bali’s nicest locations.

Very curated, apparently.

The group became known for large early-morning runs, including a silent-disco event in Canggu in which participants jogged through the area wearing wireless headphones. Around 150 people reportedly joined one of the runs.

Then Indonesians started asking an awkward question:

Can we come too?

According to complaints shared online, the answer was frequently no.

One Indonesian woman, Annisa Rahmadani Maclean, said her application was delayed while her husband, who had a Western name and foreign telephone number, was accepted immediately. Other screenshots appeared to show applicants being questioned about whether they were Indonesian or Balinese before being rejected.

In one reported exchange, the club explained that its platform was for digital nomads and suggested that an automated system was responsible for the rejection.

Ah, yes. The algorithm.

The modern corporate equivalent of “the dog ate my homework”, only with a WhatsApp group and some light racial profiling.

Entourage later apologised and said that errors in its automated approval process had created a bias against some Indonesian numbers. It insisted that nationality did not define who qualified as a digital nomad and claimed Indonesians accounted for nearly 25 per cent of tickets sold for the silent-disco run. The organisation paused its activities and promised changes.

That defence may explain a technical failure. It does not explain why someone apparently designed a system capable of treating an Indonesian phone number as a reason for suspicion while operating a community in Indonesia.

Algorithms do not arrive from outer space.

Someone decides what they filter.

Someone defines the desirable user.

Someone looks at the resulting sea of foreign faces and decides the system is working perfectly well — right up until the screenshots go viral.

Indonesian immigration authorities were not amused.

Director General of Immigration Hendarsam Marantoko described the event as resembling “a state within a state” and said foreigners could not invent their own rules or establish exclusive structures inside Indonesian jurisdiction. Officials also alleged that the organisers had breached immigration or permit conditions by managing commercial events without proper authorisation.

By the time immigration officers moved against them, the two organisers had already left Bali for Singapore. They were subsequently placed on Indonesia’s entry-ban list.

The Daily Telegraph reported the case on 27 July, following coverage in Indonesian and Australian media.

And while the story is undeniably funny — two expats building an exclusive foreigners’ jogging club before having to run all the way to Singapore — it exposes something considerably uglier.

Welcome to Bali. Please remove the Balinese

Digital nomad culture likes to describe itself using words such as freedom, community, connection and authenticity.

These words usually appear beside photographs of laptops, infinity pools and suspiciously untouched smoothie bowls.

But in destinations overwhelmed by remote workers and lifestyle migrants, “community” can become a pleasant euphemism for segregation.

People relocate thousands of miles to experience another culture, then immediately construct a social environment in which they never have to encounter it.

They live in foreigner compounds, eat in foreigner restaurants, attend foreigner networking events, date other foreigners and join private chat groups devoted to finding the most “authentic” places before too many locals discover them.

The destination becomes a decorative background.

The local population provides the villas, food, roads, cleaners, drivers, temples, beaches and aesthetic atmosphere. But when it comes to entering the actual social circle, suddenly the community is “curated”.

This is not cultural exchange.

It is colonialism with better branding and worse trousers.

Of course, there is nothing inherently wrong with expatriates wanting to meet other newcomers. People moving to a foreign country often need friendship, practical advice and professional networks.

The problem begins when a network for foreigners turns into a network against locals.

Especially when it occupies public spaces.

Especially when it monetises activities.

And especially when its foreign organisers appear to forget that Bali is not an international coworking resort with a conveniently underpaid indigenous service team.

It is part of Indonesia.

Indonesians are not guest stars there.

Digital nomadism does not cancel immigration law

The other lesson is considerably less philosophical.

A digital nomad visa, residence permit or investor permit is not diplomatic immunity.

Foreigners cannot assume that calling something a “community” transforms an organised commercial operation into a harmless gathering of friends. If events involve sponsors, paid tickets, promotion, staff, partnerships or repeated use of public areas, local licensing and employment rules may apply.

Indonesian authorities said one organiser held a temporary stay permit linked to work and the other an investor permit. They nevertheless concluded that the activities warranted immigration sanctions and further investigation.

This is an important distinction for the remote-work crowd.

Being able to perform your ordinary foreign job from a laptop does not automatically authorise you to launch a local business, organise events, sell services or manage commercial activities in the country where you happen to be staying.

The palm trees do not invalidate the law.

Neither does putting “nomad” in your Instagram biography.

Indonesia has recently increased scrutiny of foreigners suspected of working or conducting commercial activities under inappropriate visa conditions. The Entourage case therefore arrived in an environment where authorities were already less inclined to treat expat entrepreneurial improvisation as adorable.

The apology nobody should need to write

Entourage said it was sorry and had never intended to disrespect or discriminate against anyone.

Possibly true.

But intention is a remarkably low standard.

Most forms of privileged stupidity are not accompanied by a strategic plan entitled How to Offend the Population of Our Host Country. They emerge from people becoming so comfortable inside their own bubble that they stop noticing the people outside it.

That appears to be the larger problem here.

Not simply that Indonesian applicants were allegedly rejected.

But that a group could operate in Bali, fill its promotional material with Bali, build its commercial attraction around Bali and still apparently design its membership experience around keeping a certain kind of Bali resident at arm’s length.

The authorities’ response may look severe to Europeans accustomed to lengthy consultations, carefully worded warnings and perhaps a modest administrative fine in 2029.

Indonesia chose a more concise communications strategy:

Leave.

And do not come back.

It is difficult to misunderstand.

Run anywhere. Just remember where you are

The irony is almost too perfect.

Entourage Bali sold connection but reportedly practised exclusion.

It promoted international community while allegedly filtering out the nationality of the country hosting it.

It organised running events for foreigners and eventually saw its founders make the most consequential run of all: to the airport.

The case should not become an excuse to treat every digital nomad as an entitled neo-colonialist. Many live responsibly, employ local professionals fairly, learn the language, follow the rules and understand that being welcomed somewhere is a privilege rather than an acquisition.

But the Entourage affair is a useful warning for the rest.

You are allowed to move abroad.

You are allowed to build friendships.

You are allowed to create communities and, with the proper permits, businesses.

You are not allowed to behave as though the country is merely a picturesque operating system for your lifestyle.

And when you organise a running club in Indonesia, admitting Indonesians really should not qualify as an advanced diversity initiative.

It is the bare minimum.

Based on reporting by Lily Shanagher for The Daily Telegraph, 27 July 2026, with additional reporting from ABC News Australia, Antara, Detik Bali and the Indonesian immigration authorities.

The digital nomad fantasy usually goes something like this: laptop open, coconut nearby, sea in the background and absolutely no fluorescent office lighting.

The Wi-Fi is perfect. The clients are relaxed. Nobody asks why you joined the meeting wearing sunglasses.

Reality, unfortunately, has paperwork.

According to a recent article by Indrabati Lahiri for Euronews Business, worldwide Google searches for “digital nomad visas” increased by 1,135% in 2024. Clearly, a very large number of people have had the same revolutionary idea: leave home, take the laptop and call it a lifestyle.

For employees, this can already get complicated. For entrepreneurs, it can become a small multinational compliance experiment conducted from a café with one electrical socket.

Before you announce your “new chapter” on LinkedIn, here are nine things worth sorting out.

1. A tourist visa is not a business plan

Choosing the destination because the beach looks nice is understandable. Choosing it without checking whether you are legally allowed to work there is less charming.

Some countries offer specific digital nomad visas. Others may prohibit working while on a standard tourist visa, even when your customers and company are based elsewhere.

Check:

• whether the country has a visa suitable for remote workers or business owners;

• the minimum income requirement;

• how long you may remain;

• whether the visa can be renewed;

• whether it allows you to manage a company rather than simply work remotely.

The immigration officer is unlikely to be impressed by your personal brand.

2. Tax residency follows rules, not Instagram stories

You may leave your country. Your tax obligations do not necessarily leave with you.

Where you live, how long you stay, where your company is managed and where its economic activity takes place can all affect your personal and corporate tax position.

In the worst cases, you could face obligations in more than one jurisdiction. Double-taxation treaties may help, but they are not magical “I work online” exemptions.

Before relocating, speak to a qualified tax or legal adviser about:

• personal tax residency;

• corporate residence or permanent-establishment risks;

• double-taxation agreements;

• local registration and reporting requirements;

• social-security obligations.

This is the boring conversation that may prevent a much more expensive conversation later.

3. Your bank may not share your sense of adventure

Running a business internationally means dealing with different currencies, foreign transaction fees, exchange-rate movements and banking systems that occasionally become suspicious because you bought lunch in Lisbon and paid a supplier in Bangkok on the same afternoon.

Consider business accounts and payment services that support multiple currencies, reasonable conversion rates and low international fees.

More importantly, keep business and personal money separate.

Paying for a client subscription, an Airbnb and six cocktails from the same account does not make you a global entrepreneur. It makes your bookkeeping unnecessarily creative.

4. “The Wi-Fi looked good in the photos” is not due diligence

Beautiful accommodation listings often describe the internet as “fast”.

Fast enough for what? Sending a message? Uploading a 4GB file? Hosting a presentation for twelve people while somebody in the next room streams a film?

Before booking a destination or long-term accommodation, check:

• actual broadband speeds;

• mobile-data coverage;

• backup connectivity;

• access to coworking spaces;

• electricity reliability;

• whether the workspace is usable for several hours a day.

A hammock is excellent for a photograph. It is less impressive after four hours of spreadsheets.

5. Travel insurance may not cover your actual life

A standard holiday insurance policy may cover a lost suitcase. It may not cover long-term remote work, expensive professional equipment, business liability or interruption to your operations.

Check whether you need separate:

• health insurance;

• extended travel cover;

• equipment insurance;

• professional or business insurance;

• business interruption cover.

Assuming you are insured is a surprisingly popular method of discovering that you are not.

Read the policy. Yes, the actual policy.

6. Time zones are fun until every meeting happens at midnight

Moving eight or ten hours away from your customers sounds manageable when viewed as a line on a map.

It feels different when your working day begins at 5am or ends at 1am.

Consider when your clients, employees, suppliers and partners are available. Then calculate what your real working week would look like.

Could your business operate asynchronously? Can somebody else make decisions while you are asleep? Will customers accept slower responses? Are you willing to arrange your entire life around another continent’s office hours?

Sunset meetings look glamorous for approximately three days.

7. Public Wi-Fi is not your IT department

Digital nomads frequently work from cafés, hotels, airports and coworking spaces. These are convenient places to drink coffee and less convenient places to handle sensitive customer information.

Basic protections should include:

• a reputable VPN;

• multi-factor authentication;

• encrypted devices;

• automatic security updates;

• secure backups;

• password-management software;

• limits on what you access through unsecured networks.

Also prepare for the loss or theft of your laptop and phone.

Your cybersecurity strategy cannot simply be “I usually sit where I can see my bag.”

8. Keep an emergency fund that belongs to you, not the company

Visa delays, cancelled accommodation, medical emergencies and unexpected flights can become expensive very quickly.

Maintain a personal financial buffer so that a travel problem does not force you to raid company cash.

The precise amount will depend on your destination, responsibilities and business model, but it should be enough to cover a realistic disruption rather than an optimistic weekend.

Working from anywhere is easier when one unexpected invoice does not threaten payroll.

9. The business still needs to work when the novelty wears off

A different country may give you inspiration, energy and better weather.

It will not automatically give you stable revenue.

Before leaving, ask what happens if:

• a major client disappears;

• customer demand falls;

• payment cycles become longer;

• you cannot work for several weeks;

• your new location makes sales or support more difficult;

• key decisions still depend entirely on you.

Document essential processes. Create backups. Delegate access and authority. Review contracts. Build more than one source of revenue where possible.

Business continuity is not especially sexy, but neither is flying home because the company stopped functioning without you.

The beach is optional. The planning is not.

Becoming a digital nomad can be a legitimate way to build a more flexible life. It can provide access to new markets, communities and experiences.

But moving your laptop abroad does not make the legal, financial and operational structure of your company disappear.

It simply changes the view behind it.

So yes, book the flight. Find the sunny apartment. Post the obligatory photograph of your laptop beside the sea.

Just sort out the visa, taxes, money, insurance, cybersecurity, time zones and survival of the actual business first.

Otherwise, you are not running a company from paradise.

You are taking a complicated problem on holiday.

Based on and developed from “9 things European entrepreneurs should know before becoming digital nomads”, by Indrabati Lahiri, Euronews Business, 23 July 2026.

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Take one report on hybrid work, add an event, a newly launched flat in a small town, a hotel with Wi-Fi and a few municipalities rebranded as “villages”. Stir vigorously. Congratulations: you have created the digital nomad economy. The only thing still missing may be the nomads.

Translation and brief from the original article published in Italian by

Esco quando voglio

Cercasi nomadi digitali disperatamente

Prendete una ricerca sul lavoro ibrido, aggiu…

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8 days ago · 8 likes · Matteo Cerri

A few days ago, the largest newspaper on a certain well-known Italian island published an article about flexible hours, workplace autonomy and digital nomadism. I shall spare you the name of both the paper and the author. Otherwise, this would immediately be reduced to the usual little drama: not a criticism of editorial standards, but the bitter outburst of a jilted boyfriend, a professional grudge, a bruised ego, someone “having a go” at somebody else.

That would be terribly convenient, because it would allow everyone to ignore the real issue. And the issue is not limited to one article, one journalist, one island or even Italy. This particular form of editorial alchemy has become remarkably international: take a genuine shift in the way people work, sprinkle it with lifestyle imagery, destination marketing and a few conveniently unverified figures, and suddenly everyone with a laptop is a digital nomad.

The article begins with perfectly legitimate subjects. Employees want more flexibility, greater control over their working hours, a better balance between professional and private life, and fewer hours wasted travelling to an office simply to prove that they exist. It discusses hybrid work, return-to-office mandates, isolation, the right to disconnect and the redesign of corporate workplaces. All real issues, all worth examining.

And then, apparently out of nowhere, the digital nomads arrive.

The transition is made with the confidence of someone boarding a train in Milan, waking up in Vladivostok and insisting that this was always the intended destination. Workers want flexibility; therefore, they want to work from anywhere. If they want to work from anywhere, they must be digital nomads. If they are digital nomads, they can move to small towns. And if those towns install broadband and four desks, they become international destinations capable of reversing decades of depopulation.

Seriously?

Most people asking for flexibility do not want to become nomads. They want to avoid two hours of traffic, take a child to school, care for an elderly parent, concentrate without being interrupted every seven minutes or avoid crossing a city in order to join an online meeting with colleagues based elsewhere. They are asking for autonomy, not itinerancy. They want to work from home, near home or somewhere other than the corporate office when it makes practical sense. They are not necessarily dreaming of changing country every three months with a MacBook, a reusable water bottle and a carefully distressed backpack photographed against the sunset.

An employee working from their kitchen twice a week is not a digital nomad. A professional spending August in the family holiday home while answering emails is not necessarily a digital nomad. Someone extending a holiday and working from a hotel for a few days is on a workation, or has simply failed to take a proper holiday. A person who permanently moves to a smaller town while continuing to work for a distant employer is a remote worker who has relocated.

A digital nomad is something more specific: someone who uses location-independent work to move between places, usually staying temporarily and without tying their professional life to one permanent base.

These categories can overlap. They are not interchangeable. Treating them as synonyms merely inflates the phenomenon until it includes anyone who has ever opened Outlook outside an office.

The exercise becomes more impressive when research is brought in. The article cited, among other sources, the Smart Working Observatory at Politecnico di Milano. We happen to know its work rather well, partly because we publish a title called Smart Working Magazine and should, at least in theory, have some idea of what smart working means.

The Observatory examines hybrid work, remote work, organisational autonomy, workplace redesign, corporate policies and proximity working. In other words, it studies the broad transformation of work that in Italy we stubbornly continue to label “smart working”, even when it often amounts to allowing employees to work from home twice a week.

It does not primarily document a mass migration of laptop-bearing professionals preparing to colonise picturesque Italian hill towns.

Perhaps we have misunderstood the whole thing. Perhaps Smart Working Magazine should be renamed Wannabe Digital Nomad Magazine. We could stop covering management, leadership, productivity, organisational culture and the right to disconnect, and publish photographs of cheerful people typing beside infinity pools instead. It would certainly be easier. We would probably receive more press releases too.

The fault, of course, is not with the research. The problem is what happens to it afterwards.

A serious study on flexible work is reduced to two or three percentages. A paper on loneliness is added. A statistic on office redesign is dropped in. A survey on workplace autonomy is sprinkled over the top. Once the reader has been sufficiently reassured by universities, numbers and fashionable English expressions, the article heads off towards digital nomads, “villages”, rural coworking spaces, hotels and local initiatives.

The research becomes a sort of scientific passport for a story that the research itself does not support.

This is the classic editorial casserole in which every ingredient may be genuine, but the final dish bears no resemblance to any of them. One study measures autonomy, another wellbeing, another the use of office space. A country has introduced a remote-work visa. A region has organised an event. A hotel has decent Wi-Fi. A small municipality has announced a coworking room. Everything is poured into the same pot and presented as evidence that digital nomadism is transforming work and reviving rural communities.

No one appears too concerned that the sources refer to different populations, use different definitions and measure different things. As long as they contain words such as flexibility, remote, autonomy, territory or digital, they are apparently close enough. The headline will take care of the rest.

This is hardly an exclusively Italian habit. Across Europe and beyond, digital nomadism has become one of those gloriously elastic labels that can be attached to almost any mixture of tourism, property, remote work and local economic development. Hotels sell “nomad packages” that look suspiciously like ordinary long stays with a desk. Tourism boards count remote workers as nomads. Cities launch visas and then struggle to explain how many people actually use them. Coworking spaces become “ecosystems”; a group chat becomes a “community”; a two-week retreat becomes evidence of structural regeneration.

The appeal is obvious. “Remote employee spends three weeks working from an Airbnb” sounds fairly mundane. “Global talent chooses authentic village lifestyle” sounds like something that deserves a panel discussion, a research report and at least one person wearing a linen shirt on stage.

The logic of the article becomes easier to understand when read backwards. It may not begin with evidence about flexible work and naturally arrive at digital nomadism. It may begin with a few cases that someone wants to include and then search for a fashionable term broad enough to connect them to the future of work.

That term is, inevitably, “digital nomadism”.

One of the examples cited was an event for digital nomads. It may be an interesting event, well organised and useful in connecting people and places. But it remains an event. It does not measure the scale of the phenomenon. It does not prove that the host territory has created a stable ecosystem. It does not demonstrate the existence of a substantial, settled community of itinerant workers.

The London Boat Show is an event too. It does not prove that Britain has become a nation of yacht owners.

Another example was a newly launched initiative currently centred on one flat in a small municipality. I know the person behind it and have no interest in belittling the effort. It may be a good idea. It may grow, develop a sustainable model and eventually become something important. At present, however, it is an experiment: not a network, not a tested model, not a territorial infrastructure and not a project with significant evidence on occupancy, average stay, repeat visits, economic impact or long-term sustainability.

One flat becomes a local project. The local project becomes a flagship case. Two flagship cases become proof that digital nomadism is reshaping the country. Somewhere during this rapid promotion through the ranks, nobody stops to ask whether anyone has actually moved in yet.

The problem is not that people are attempting small experiments. On the contrary, these individuals, local authorities and entrepreneurs are often the only ones trying to convert years of conference rhetoric into something tangible. The problem is journalism taking fragile, early-stage efforts and using them to support claims far larger than the projects themselves.

This does not help those initiatives. It burdens them with expectations they cannot yet meet and turns them into promotional props before they have had time to become functioning models.

That, then, may explain why “digital nomadism” was needed in the article. It was not the obvious conclusion of research on hybrid work, because that research concerned flexibility, remote work, proximity working and workplace change. It was the bridge required to move from those large-scale findings to an event and a newly launched local initiative.

The structure is an inverted funnel. It begins with research concerning millions of workers, narrows suddenly to a very specific category, and ends with an event and a flat. Yet the scale and authority of the opening are allowed to rub off on the examples at the end.

Had the article simply said that a number of small Italian initiatives are beginning to test whether mobile workers might be attracted to less obvious destinations, there would have been little to object to. It would have been a more modest story, but also a more honest one. It would have required conditional verbs, proportion and the acknowledgement that the model remains largely unproven.

Far better to announce “digital nomadism”, cite an authoritative study on smart working and let the reader imagine that a movement is already under way. After all, the distance between an event, one flat and a national ecosystem is only significant to people who insist on measuring things.

The word “village” performs a similar magic trick. In Italy, virtually every small municipality, outlying settlement or town inconveniently far from a railway station can now be repackaged as a borgo. Internationally, the equivalent might be “historic village”, “rural hub” or “authentic community”. The language immediately produces stone walls, artisanal bread, unhurried living, strong social bonds and an elderly local man who has apparently been making cheese in the same way since 1847.

Not every municipality is a village. Not every small town is a destination. Not every place facing demographic decline can become a remote-work hub by installing a desk beneath an arch and connecting it to broadband.

Behind the sunset photograph there may be no public transport, limited healthcare, homes available only for three-night tourist lets, shops closed for much of the year, no social life and an internet connection that performs rather better in the funding presentation than it does on a Tuesday morning in February.

This is not an attack on the places themselves. Many are doing what they can with limited resources, often relying on one stubborn mayor, one local association or one entrepreneur willing to risk time and money. The problem is presenting them as finished products for an international audience when much of the basic infrastructure for living and working may still be missing.

Broadband matters, but broadband alone is not a strategy. Remote workers also need housing for medium-term stays, transport, healthcare, daily services, accessible information, places to meet and administrative procedures that do not require an advanced degree in Italian bureaucracy. Four desks do not create a community. A two-week residency does not reverse depopulation. An annual conference does not create an ecosystem. A hotel does not become a digital-nomad hub merely because the Wi-Fi password is printed on the room key.

The article also mentioned a well-known high-end albergo diffuso, an important heritage and hospitality project. No criticism is directed at the property, which probably did not ask to be enlisted as evidence in this argument. The question is simply what it proves about digital nomadism.

The fact that a guest can open a laptop in an expensive room does not transform a luxury hotel into infrastructure for itinerant workers. Otherwise every boutique hotel with a desk, a view and a functioning router can be added to the national digital-nomad map.

Its inclusion completes the picture nicely: genuine village, historic stone, dispersed hospitality, open laptop. Visually persuasive. Analytically less so.

Then comes the grand promise of repopulation. Digital nomads, we are told, could breathe new life into struggling towns. They might. But nomads, by definition, tend eventually to leave. They can stay for several weeks or months, spend money, use local businesses and build relationships. All useful. None of it automatically makes them new residents.

To attract longer-stay visitors is one policy. To attract families and permanent residents is another. To host mobile professionals who move every few months is something else again. Each group requires different housing, services, incentives and forms of integration.

Blurring the categories allows everyone to promise tourism, internationalisation, talent attraction and demographic renewal at the same time, without measuring any of them particularly carefully.

Measurement, indeed, is where the story becomes shy. We regularly hear of hundreds of thousands of digital nomads travelling through or living in a country, but rarely receive a convincing explanation of who counts. Freelancers who move internationally? Foreign employees who relocate permanently? Citizens working from a second home? Tourists who answer emails beside the pool? Anyone who tells a survey they would like more flexibility?

The vaguer the definition, the larger the total. Expand the category until the number looks impressive, then use the impressive number to prove the importance of the category. It is a wonderfully efficient system.

Many studies of digital nomadism therefore read less like measurements than letters to Father Christmas. They describe what the phenomenon could become, what destinations might do and what benefits could result. These can be useful scenario exercises. They are not necessarily scientific photographs of the present.

Somewhere between the paper, the press release and the newspaper article, however, the conditional tense goes missing. What might happen has happened. Potential visitors become actual residents. Announced projects become models. One flat becomes a network. Places that could prepare themselves become established international destinations.

This, again, is not merely an Italian speciality. The global digital-nomad conversation is full of projections presented as populations, marketing ambitions presented as policy results and lists of “best destinations” compiled without anyone checking whether an ordinary worker can afford to live there for more than a fortnight.

Italy simply adds its own distinctive ingredients: the borgo, the panel discussion, the enormous untapped potential and the expectation that some lone kamikaze will eventually risk actual money while everyone else attends the launch.

And then there is the small matter of editorial transparency.

One of the initiatives used as an example is also a communications client of the person who wrote the article. This does not automatically mean that the article was commissioned, paid for or dictated. There is no basis for making such claims, and none is needed.

The simpler question is enough: since when has it become acceptable for someone professionally representing a project to present that project as a significant case in an apparently independent editorial channel without disclosing the relationship to readers?

A PR professional can write. They may know an industry better than many reporters and make a valuable contribution. They can also mention a client when genuinely relevant. But readers should be told the position from which they are writing.

One sentence would do: the author handles communications for one of the initiatives mentioned.

That would not be a confession. It would be transparency.

When the person selecting an example is also paid to promote that example, the relationship is not a private detail. It is part of the information required to assess the article. Without disclosure, we enter a neat circular economy of reputation: a project is announced; the person promoting it includes it in an article; the article becomes evidence that the project exists and matters; the project then cites the article as proof of independent media recognition.

Everything circulates beautifully. Except, once again, the data.

Digital nomadism exists and may represent a real opportunity, in Italy and elsewhere. That is precisely why it deserves reporting that is less approximate, less promotional and less infatuated with its own forecasts. It needs clear definitions, verifiable numbers, properly examined examples and a basic distinction between what exists, what has just begun and what people would rather like to happen.

Perhaps the order should be reversed. Build the projects first. Measure the results second. Describe the phenomenon third.

Instead, we often create the narrative, attach a study that was discussing something else, add an event, a newly launched flat, a hotel with Wi-Fi and a tasteful photograph of old stone. Then we wait for reality to have the courtesy to catch up.

Meanwhile, employees continue to ask for flexibility. Some will use it to travel, some to relocate and many simply to live better exactly where they already are.

The digital nomads, however, remain in urgent demand.

And when we cannot find enough of them, we build them ourselves.

Japan has officially entered the digital nomad business, although — being Japan — it has done so cautiously, elegantly and with enough paperwork to ensure that nobody gets excessively excited.

The country introduced its digital nomad visa in April 2024, allowing qualifying foreign professionals to live and work remotely from Japan for up to six months. Applicants must be employed by a company outside Japan, earn at least ¥10 million a year, come from an eligible country and carry private health insurance covering illness, injury and repatriation. In other words, Japan is looking for adventurous free spirits, provided that they are financially stable, fully insured and able to produce the correct documents in the correct order.

The visa has so far been an exclusive success. Japan issued 257 of them during the programme’s first year and 646 in 2025, including visas granted to accompanying spouses. This is in a country that receives tens of millions of international visitors annually. There may be longer queues for limited-edition Pokémon merchandise than for the entire digital nomad programme.

Still, Japan’s tourism authorities are optimistic. They see remote workers as a particularly attractive species of visitor: they remain longer, rent apartments, buy groceries, use coworking spaces, travel at weekends and occasionally spend extraordinary amounts of money on manga figurines before shipping them home.

Unlike traditional tourists, digital nomads do not simply photograph a temple, eat ramen and move on to the next carefully optimised Instagram location. They hang around. They need laundry detergent, desk chairs, phone chargers, dentists and somewhere to conduct a Zoom call while pretending that the temple bell outside is not destroying the quarterly sales presentation.

Japan has even created a wonderfully bureaucratic new concept for them: “long-stay business inbound travel.” It is not quite as seductive as “work from paradise,” but it will probably look excellent in a government PowerPoint.

The economic theory is perfectly reasonable. Someone staying six months will probably spend more overall than someone staying six days, even after the initial holiday enthusiasm fades and they stop eating every meal in a restaurant. Long-term visitors may also travel beyond the famous Tokyo-Kyoto-Osaka corridor, spreading their money into regional communities that would very much like tourists but perhaps not another coachload arriving simultaneously at 11:35 a.m.

The people trying the visa certainly seem enthusiastic.

Christian Mack, a 33-year-old Costa Rican web developer based in Berlin, first visited Japan in 2024 and almost immediately began wondering how he could return to live there. By the end of that year, he had installed himself in Tokyo, working from a furnished apartment in Higashi-Nakano, visiting coworking spaces, walking around the neighbourhood and building a social circle through meetup apps and technology communities.

Financially, Tokyo was less terrifying than expected. Mack paid approximately $1,200 a month for his apartment and another $600 for food, helped by a weak yen and by subletting his room in Berlin. This is not exactly the barefoot digital nomad fantasy of answering emails from a hammock for €14 a week, but it is considerably cheaper than attempting the same lifestyle while maintaining two flats in major European capitals.

There was, however, a small identity problem.

Digital nomads in Japan are not residents. They do not receive a residence card, cannot work for Japanese companies and may struggle to open a bank account. Mack described the status as being “like a long-term tourist,” which sounds enjoyable until you need medical assistance, official documentation or anything more complicated than ordering another coffee.

Shortly after arriving, Mack developed a 40-degree fever and had to search for an English-speaking doctor without the support system that a resident might normally have. The experience exposed the slightly uncomfortable truth behind the location-independent dream: your laptop may travel effortlessly, but your immune system, bureaucracy and need for human assistance remain stubbornly local.

Mack nevertheless enjoyed the experience so much that he returned for a second six-month period and now plans to apply for a third.

This is not as simple as extending the original visa. Extensions are forbidden, and applicants must spend six months outside Japan before applying again. Each return therefore involves starting the procedure from scratch, creating a sort of administrative migratory pattern: six months in Japan, six months elsewhere, then another encounter with the embassy printer.

Mack believes he may be the first person to receive the visa twice. Japan’s Foreign Ministry does not track repeat recipients, making the claim impossible to confirm, which is perhaps the ideal conclusion to any conversation involving immigration paperwork.

Another nomad featured by The Japan Times, 29-year-old British engineer Christopher Flinn, arrived in Tokyo after dreaming of visiting Japan since his teenage years. A self-described otaku with an anime-inspired tattoo, he quickly entered what he called the “honeymoon phase,” exploring Akihabara, buying manga and collectibles and sending boxes of merchandise back to Britain.

In economic development terminology, this is known as highly targeted cultural expenditure.

His employer allowed him to shift his working hours, logging on between 1 p.m. and 10 p.m. to remain aligned with Europe. The arrangement gives him freedom, although it also means carrying his laptop almost everywhere and remaining effectively available around the clock.

This may be the most honest portrait of digital nomadism yet produced: complete geographical freedom, as long as you bring your charger and answer Slack.

Getting the visa required four separate visits to the Japanese Embassy in London because staff were still learning the programme’s documentation rules. But Flinn eventually made it, helped by savings, an accommodating employer and the fortunate end of his rental contract in Britain.

These stories reveal why Japan’s initiative is interesting despite its modest numbers. The visa is not designed for everybody, and perhaps that is intentional. It targets relatively affluent professionals who already have jobs, insurance and spending power, people who can remain in the country for months without competing in the local labour market.

That makes the programme less a revolution in immigration than a carefully controlled experiment in importing temporary residents with foreign salaries.

The country wants the money, the international connections and the creative energy. It does not necessarily want the complications traditionally associated with permanent migration. Digital nomads are therefore welcome to become part of the community, but only provisionally, and preferably without opening a bank account.

Japan’s tourism agency hopes regional initiatives will help these temporary workers build relationships with local residents through cultural exchanges and community hubs. This is important, because without those connections, nomad life can easily become an international bubble composed of coworking spaces, Airbnb apartments and conversations beginning with the question, “So, how long are you here for?”

The government’s wider ambition is enormous: 60 million foreign visitors and ¥15 trillion in annual tourist spending by 2030. Against those numbers, 646 digital nomad visas may look almost comically insignificant.

But perhaps the small beginning is the point. Japan is testing whether remote workers can contribute more than tourism revenue: whether they can support regional businesses, create professional connections and participate in communities without simply becoming permanent tourists with better Wi-Fi.

For the nomads, meanwhile, the attraction is obvious. They can live in one of the world’s most fascinating countries, benefit from the weak yen, travel widely and discover whether “working from anywhere” actually means anywhere — or merely somewhere with reliable internet, manageable time zones and an employer who does not ask too many questions.

Japan has opened the door.

Not completely, obviously.

Just enough for 646 people, their spouses, their laptops and several boxes of anime merchandise.

Some places invest heavily in being noticed. They launch polished campaigns, hire consultants and fill conferences stages with messages about innovation, sustainability and the future. Entire teams are tasked with explaining why a city or region deserves attention from investors, founders and talent.

And then there are places that seem almost indifferent to this effort. Places that focus more on doing than announcing. Places that rarely make headlines, yet repeatedly emerge in conversations among entrepreneurs and professionals who, after years in obvious destinations, begin looking for something more sustainable.

Mendrisio belongs to this second category.

For many outside Switzerland, it is little more than a name between Milan and Zurich. Some associate it with FoxTown, others have passed through its station without stopping. Many have never heard of it. Yet spending time here quickly reveals why it occupies such a distinctive position.

Mendrisio is not trying to become the next Silicon Valley or Europe’s startup capital. It does not promise disruption or utopia. Instead, it offers something that has become increasingly rare: a place where economic opportunity and quality of life genuinely coexist.

At first, that may not sound remarkable. In reality, it is. Much of modern professional life assumes trade-offs: more opportunity often means more pressure, more dynamism less liveability. Cities like London, New York and Milan thrive on this tension: vibrant, ambitious and full of opportunity, yet often expensive and demanding.

Mendrisio suggests a different equation.

It sits at the heart of one of Europe’s most productive cross-border regions, where Swiss stability and Italian dynamism converge within a single economic ecosystem. Milan is close, Zurich accessible, Malpensa practical. For businesses and professionals alike, this proximity matters.

As work becomes more flexible and mobile, people are rethinking not just where they work, but how they live. Increasingly, the goal is not simply higher income, but a more coherent way of living: proximity to nature, safety, efficient services, and time that feels well spent.

This is where Mendrisio becomes particularly compelling—even by Swiss standards. It combines stability, efficiency and reliability with a distinctly Mediterranean character. The pace, climate and culture create a distinctly different experience. Vineyards shape the landscape, historic villages climb the hills, and everyday life reflects a quieter rhythm.

Its economy reflects the same philosophy. Rather than relying on a single dominant industry, it has developed a diversified ecosystem: manufacturing, high-value production, services, emerging technology and academic institutions like USI and SUPSI all contribute to its vitality.

As a result, conversations about Mendrisio rarely begin with tax rates or incentives. They begin with something less measurable: how life feels.

Because ultimately, every business decision becomes a human one. Every relocation is also a choice about lifestyle, family and well-being.

In this sense, Mendrisio represents something increasingly valuable: a place where ambition does not demand constant compromise, where opportunity is not synonymous with stress, and where success still leaves room for everyday life.

Not every city needs to be a global capital. Some simply become places where people arrive with a project—and discover they would like to build a life.

Mendrisio has quietly become one of those places.

Visit Mendreasy Website

Interested in knowing more? Contact welcome@mendrisio.ch

There are few things more reliably physical than a passport officer asking you to produce your documents.

This may come as disappointing news to the people building the Network State, a proposed successor to the old-fashioned nation state in which online communities become physical communities, acquire territory and eventually seek political recognition. The internet was supposed to dissolve geography. At the Network School in Malaysia, geography recently requested to see everyone’s passport.

The Network School is a residential community founded in 2024 by Balaji Srinivasan, the investor, author and former Coinbase chief technology officer. Its website calls it a “startup society” for remote workers, technology founders and content creators. For $1,500 a month, members are offered accommodation, meals, Wi-Fi, coworking space, fitness facilities and proximity to other people who use the word “community” with the confidence usually reserved for quarterly earnings.

It is based in Forest City, the enormous Malaysian property development built on reclaimed land across the water from Singapore. Forest City was conceived as a $100 billion eco-metropolis for hundreds of thousands of residents. Instead, its empty towers and remarkably available apartments earned it the less promotional description of “ghost city”. Where conventional urbanism failed to produce a population, crypto-utopianism volunteered to provide one.

For a while, this appeared almost poetic. A city without citizens met a movement looking for somewhere to manufacture them.

Then, in July, social-media posts alleged that Israeli citizens were participating in the Network School and had entered Malaysia using passports issued by other countries. Malaysia has no diplomatic relations with Israel and generally bars travellers using Israeli passports. The country’s Home Affairs Ministry opened an investigation into the identities, nationalities, travel documents and immigration status of the people living at the school.

The first headlines were irresistible. A secretive technology commune, crypto money, alleged Israelis, a Muslim-majority country, a ghost city and a founder who has written a book about replacing nation states: modern journalism rarely receives all its keywords in one parcel.

There was only one inconvenience. The allegations were not confirmed.

Malaysia’s Immigration Department inspected 266 foreigners from 40 countries and reported that they possessed valid travel documents. The department said further checks would continue, but its director-general subsequently stated that no evidence had yet been found to substantiate the claim that Israeli nationals were present.

The original formulation — that the community had “illegally hosted Israelis” — therefore jumped several floors without using the stairs. It converted an online allegation into a population, the population into an immigration offence and the investigation into something resembling a verdict.

The legal question is less dramatic and more interesting. Malaysia restricts the entry of holders of Israeli passports. According to Reuters, however, it has no specific law prohibiting an Israeli dual national from travelling on the passport of another country. Nationality and travel documentation are related, but they are not interchangeable, however convenient the distinction may be for headline writers, governments or people with two passports.

None of this means the investigation was imaginary. Authorities were also examining whether participants had the correct immigration passes, whether their declared reason for entering the country matched their activities and whether the operation complied with Malaysian rules. A valid passport proves that a document is valid. It does not automatically answer every question about visas, work, business licensing or the permitted use of a building.

But it does mean that, at the time of writing, the strongest version of the story is unsupported.

Srinivasan responded by placing future investment in Malaysia on hold and asking whether the country genuinely wished to become a global technology hub. He said the officials had acted professionally, while arguing that the investigation itself had become a punishment produced by anonymous online accusations.

He has a point, although perhaps not quite the point he intended.

Governments seeking foreign entrepreneurs cannot advertise regulatory openness and then allow online rumours to become instant national-security theatre. Legal predictability matters, especially when a country is trying to attract technology companies, investors and international talent.

Yet startup societies cannot demand the advantages of operating inside an established country while treating its politics, laws and historical conflicts as irritating legacy software. Forest City may look empty enough to inspire fantasies of a blank sheet. It is still in Johor. It remains subject to Malaysian immigration law, Malaysian institutions and Malaysian public opinion.

This is the recurring contradiction of digital nomadism once it becomes ambitious. At the individual level, it promises the freedom to work from anywhere. At the corporate level, it searches for cheaper property, favourable taxes, flexible visas and governments eager for investment. At the ideological level, it occasionally begins to imagine that mobility has made sovereignty obsolete.

But the lifestyle depends almost entirely upon sovereignty: one government issues the passport, another grants entry, another supplies legal protection, and several more maintain the banking, aviation and telecommunications systems that make the supposedly borderless existence possible.

The cloud has always had a border. It was simply hidden behind a pleasant interface.

The Network School episode may end with no immigration violations at all. It may uncover administrative problems unrelated to the nationality controversy. The investigation is not complete, and neither innocence nor wrongdoing should be manufactured in advance.

For now, the incident offers a less sensational but more useful lesson. You can create an internet community, give it accommodation, a gym, cryptocurrency and a theory of history. You can even place it inside an unfinished city and call it the prototype of a new civilisation.

But until your new civilisation has its own immigration desk, it is still a guest in somebody else’s country.

And the host has just asked to see its passport.

The industry is still selling backpacks, bunk beds and bargain living to a workforce increasingly made up of salaried professionals, founders, couples and families. Meet the grown-up nomad — assuming the beanbags have not frightened them away.

According to stock photography, a digital nomad is a 24-year-old man sitting cross-legged on a beach, typing into a laptop whose battery apparently lasts forever.

He has one backpack, one linen shirt and no visible responsibilities. He lives on smoothie bowls, sleeps in a coliving space with seventeen strangers and spends his evenings attending workshops called Monetise Your Authentic Self.

He is always described as having “escaped the nine-to-five”, although nobody has yet established what he does between nine and five.

This person exists.

The problem is that an entire industry — destinations, festivals, colivings, visa consultants and people selling courses about selling courses — has mistaken its most photographable customer for its only customer.

The digital nomad has grown up.

The marketing, unfortunately, is still sleeping in a bunk bed.

The backpacker is real. He is just not the market

Let us not manufacture a counter-myth. Digital nomadism still skews young.

MBO Partners’ 2025 study, the most established longitudinal research on American digital nomads, found that 75% were Gen Z or Millennials. But that also means one quarter were 45 or older, while 11% were at least 55. More than half — 54% — were married or living with a partner. This is not an army composed entirely of commitment-phobic copywriters searching for the cheapest mojito in Medellín.

More importantly, most are no longer even independent freelancers.

Of the 18.5 million Americans classified as digital nomads in 2025, 11.2 million had conventional salaried jobs and 7.3 million were independent workers. In other words, roughly 61% were employees — people with managers, targets, clients, compliance departments and, quite possibly, opinions about lumbar support.

They are also unusually educated. Fifty-four per cent hold at least a college degree, compared with 35% of American adults, while 19% have an advanced degree. Their main fields include information technology, finance and accounting, research and development, consulting, sales and communications. In 2024, 46% reported household incomes of at least $75,000.

That does not make every nomad wealthy. Seventeen per cent of nomad households earned below $25,000 in the 2024 survey, and financial stress remains a serious problem.

It does make the universal image of the broke backpacker intellectually lazy.

The market contains junior freelancers and senior consultants, creators and accountants, start-up founders and corporate employees, single travellers and families. Treating them as one lifestyle tribe is rather like describing everyone who uses an aeroplane as an “aviation enthusiast”.

Visibility is not the same as volume

Why, then, does the juvenile stereotype survive?

Partly because the younger, faster-moving nomad is better content.

A photograph of somebody answering email from a hammock says freedom. A photograph of a 48-year-old strategy consultant in a rented apartment, speaking to the board over a secure connection while her husband collects their child from an international school, says Tuesday.

The second may represent a far more durable and economically significant form of location independence. It is simply less likely to generate 40,000 likes.

Social media also over-represents people whose work requires them to be visible. Nearly half of the digital nomads surveyed by MBO in 2025 said they earned at least some money through the creator economy. The nomads we see most often are frequently the nomads professionally incentivised to be seen.

The senior software architect, fractional CFO or business owner may not be producing a reel entitled Five Things Nobody Tells You About Albania.

They are working.

This has created a peculiar inversion: the most visible nomads are treated as the norm, while some of the most professionally established ones are almost invisible because they are too busy maintaining the careers that make their mobility possible.

Meet the executive nomad

“Executive nomad” is not a term invented in a beachfront mastermind.

Savills has published an Executive Nomad Index since 2022. It defines the category around founders, entrepreneurs and senior managers who work remotely over longer periods and choose destinations according to connectivity, quality of life, climate, prime rental housing and international access.

These people are typically older than the familiar backpacker stereotype and more likely to travel with partners or children. They care about reliable internet, certainly, but also healthcare, safety, schools, airport connections, adequate space and the ability to conduct a call without a shirtless Australian making overnight oats behind them.

They are not necessarily CEOs.

The category includes established consultants, specialists, entrepreneurs, investors, senior employees and people running small but profitable businesses. Their common characteristic is not a job title. It is that their working life has reached the point where location independence is supported by professional capital rather than optimism.

“Executive nomad”, however, can sound like a property brochure involving an infinity pool and a man named Sebastian.

A broader and perhaps more useful term would be established nomad: a location-independent professional with stable income, mature working habits and the ability to stay somewhere without immediately asking which neighbourhood is cheapest.

For destinations, an even more useful category might be the resident nomad: someone who remains long enough to form routines, use local services and participate in a place rather than merely consume it.

Because a nomad who stays for nine months is not economically or socially equivalent to one who stays for nine nights.

And neither should be marketed to as though the principal attraction were free coffee.

Even governments have stopped believing the backpacker story

Visa policy provides an amusing collision between the imagery and reality of digital nomadism.

The promotional photograph may show a carefree traveller with a surfboard. The application form would like to see your employment contract, qualifications, insurance policy, bank statements, accommodation and evidence that you are not about to become anybody’s financial problem.

Japan’s digital nomad visa requires applicants to demonstrate annual income of at least ¥10 million and medical insurance with substantial coverage. It also explicitly provides for spouses and children. Japan is evidently not building its mobility policy around somebody who has just discovered affiliate marketing.

The UAE’s virtual-work residence programme requires evidence of employment or business ownership and a minimum monthly income of $3,500.

Italy restricts its digital nomad and remote-worker visa to highly specialised professionals. Applicants must demonstrate qualifications or substantial professional experience, suitable accommodation, health insurance and prior work history. Some consular guidance explicitly asks for evidence of advanced education or several years of relevant experience.

Governments may still call them nomads.

Administratively, they are looking for skilled, insured, solvent adults.

The irony is exquisite: national immigration systems increasingly understand the high-value nomad better than much of the nomad industry does.

Cheap is not an economic-development strategy

For years, destinations have attempted to attract remote workers by announcing that local rent, beer or coffee costs significantly less than in London, New York or Berlin.

This is understandable. It is also dangerous.

When a place markets itself primarily as cheap, it attracts people whose loyalty lasts until somewhere else becomes cheaper.

The relationship is not with the destination. It is with the discount.

Geo-arbitrage is a genuine part of digital nomadism. MBO’s research repeatedly finds that nomads use differences between higher foreign earnings and lower destination costs to make the lifestyle viable. There is nothing inherently immoral about this. People have always moved in search of a better life.

But a local development policy built around bargain hunters is structurally fragile.

The destination upgrades its internet, converts housing, organises events and retrains businesses to serve an international population. The customer then leaves because another town offers a private room for €80 less.

This is not regeneration.

It is a permanently relocating clearance sale.

Established nomads are potentially more valuable not because expensive people are morally superior, but because their choices need not be governed exclusively by price. They may pay for better housing, healthcare, professional services, restaurants, childcare, transport, cultural activities and home improvements. Founders may employ people, buy services, open businesses or connect local firms to international markets.

A Public First report on British digital nomadism argued that destinations see an opportunity not only in sustained consumer spending but also in attracting skilled people who may eventually start businesses, create employment, bring investment and use local supply chains.

That is a more ambitious proposition than filling a coworking space in February.

Before we turn rich nomads into saints

The executive nomad is not automatically a gift to humanity.

A 55-year-old foreign professional living in a gated villa, importing every service, avoiding local tax and speaking only to other foreigners may contribute less to a destination than a 31-year-old entrepreneur who rents year-round, learns the language and employs two local people.

Age is not impact.

Income is not integration.

And purchasing power can cause damage as well as opportunity.

Savills reported that prime residential rents across its 30 executive-nomad destinations rose by an average of 2.9% in 2025. Its previous report recorded particularly sharp increases in some markets, including a 31% rise in Lisbon’s prime rents. These figures do not prove that executive nomads caused the increases, but they do illustrate the pressure that international demand can place on already constrained housing markets.

Academic research remains appropriately cautious. A major study of destination strategies found that cities and regions routinely portray nomads as a single homogeneous market even though they contain distinct segments with different behaviour. It also concluded that the long-term economic and social consequences remain insufficiently studied.

So no, the solution is not to replace the irritating 24-year-old with an irritating 54-year-old who wants a tax exemption and a sea view.

The useful distinction is not young versus old.

It is extractive versus contributive, temporary versus committed, precarious versus established and tourist behaviour versus resident behaviour.

The great nomadic contradiction

The word nomad celebrates movement.

The more sustainable version of the lifestyle increasingly involves less of it.

In 2025, American digital nomads visited an average of 6.2 locations, down from 7.2 two years earlier. The average stay increased to 6.4 weeks per destination, from 5.4 weeks in 2023. MBO describes this as “slomading”: fewer moves, deeper cultural exposure, stronger social lives, less stress and better productivity.

This is not surprising.

Packing every fourteen days is not freedom. It is unpaid logistics.

Constant travel may be glamorous when converted into a 30-second montage. In real life it involves unstable Wi-Fi, disrupted routines, repeated introductions, airport security and regularly attempting to remember which kitchen cupboard contains the glasses.

The limits are visible in the numbers. In 2025, 23% of nomads reported travel burnout, 26% financial stress, 21% problems working across time zones and 19% loneliness. Nearly three quarters had been nomadic for no more than three years, while only 11% had sustained the lifestyle for more than five. MBO estimates that between 19% and 22% stop nomading each year.

The backpack may be easy to photograph.

A functioning adult life is harder to pack.

The people most likely to remain location-independent may therefore be those who stop treating motion as the objective. They keep a base, return to familiar destinations, stay for seasons rather than weekends or divide the year between two or three places.

They are technically nomadic.

They simply no longer behave like escaped luggage.

Destinations are selling the wrong things

A serious destination strategy should stop beginning with:

We are 40% cheaper than Lisbon.

It should begin with:

You can build a credible life here.

That means homes suitable for months rather than beds suitable for nights. Reliable infrastructure rather than a neon sign reading Good Vibes Only. Healthcare information, legal clarity, transport, schools, professional networks, tax guidance, local introductions and opportunities to participate in the community.

It means recognising that a 45-year-old consultant may want a desk, a second bedroom and a proper chair more than another networking aperitivo.

It means creating routes through which temporary residents can use local accountants, architects, tradespeople, teachers, carers, restaurants and cultural organisations — not merely foreign-owned colivings and cafés populated entirely by people who arrived last Thursday.

And it means allowing people to test a place before committing to it.

The most valuable location-independent professionals are often not searching for the next destination.

They are searching for somewhere they might eventually stop searching.

Perhaps it is the word “nomad” that needs to grow up

Digital nomadism was originally presented as rebellion: leave the office, reject convention, travel indefinitely and prove that adulthood was merely a failure of imagination.

It was an appealing story.

It also became a costume.

The new generation of established nomads is not necessarily rejecting adulthood. Many have spent twenty years constructing the career, savings, authority and confidence required to redesign it.

They are not running away from responsibility.

They are taking responsibility for where and how they live.

Some are employees. Some own companies. Some travel with children. Some want to invest, renovate a house, join a local organisation or spend half the year in the same town. They may stay longer, spend differently and demand more — but they can also offer more.

Call them executive nomads, established nomads, resident nomads or simply people who no longer believe that professional seriousness requires geographical obedience.

Just stop assuming they all want a bunk bed, a beanbag and a workshop on personal branding.

The digital nomad did not remain 24 forever.

Only the brochure did.

From thousand-person mountain gatherings to Baltic career bootcamps, Japanese slow-living experiments and transatlantic AI cruises, the nomad calendar now offers a tribe for every kind of location-independent human — including the one who insists they hate networking.

There was a time when organising a digital nomad event required little more than a coworking space, several beanbags and somebody willing to explain passive income while wearing linen trousers.

Things have moved on.

Today, nomad gatherings range from proper conferences with investment panels and business workshops to week-long temporary villages, cultural immersion programmes, island expeditions and cruises from which nobody can escape until the ship reaches New York.

Some are designed to help you build a company. Others help you find remote work, test a destination or acquire 47 new friends called either Maya or Alex. A few promise transformation, wellness and community before quietly charging extra for the hot springs.

They may all use words such as freedom, connection and belonging, but they are not selling the same thing. Choosing between them is less like selecting a conference and more like choosing a university, a summer camp or, occasionally, an extremely organised group holiday for adults who refuse to call themselves tourists.

Here is what some of the world’s principal nomad events actually offer, how large they are and whom they are really for.

Bansko Nomad Fest: the temporary republic of remote workers

Bansko Nomad Fest has become the Glastonbury of European nomadism, except that the tents have been replaced by affordable apartments and half the audience is checking Stripe notifications between sessions.

Its 2026 edition was no longer a niche gathering. More than 1,000 entrepreneurs, freelancers, IT professionals and remote workers from over 50 countries descended on the Bulgarian mountain town for a ten-day programme. The conference itself brought together more than 50 speakers across two stages, alongside participant-led sessions, workshops, wellness activities, speed networking, karaoke, park gatherings, pool parties and the famous bonfire night.

What distinguishes Bansko is not simply scale but density. The entire town becomes part of the event. You meet the same people at talks, in cafés, at coworking spaces, in the park and while comparing Bulgarian yoghurt in the supermarket.

That repetition matters. Relationships have time to develop beyond the traditional conference ritual of exchanging LinkedIn details and then reacting to one another’s posts twice a year.

Bansko is particularly good for solo travellers, experienced nomads reconnecting with the wider ecosystem, community seekers and anyone who enjoys a certain amount of cheerful chaos.

Its disadvantage is exactly the same as its advantage: it is enormous and intense. Attempting to attend everything may leave you with 73 new contacts, three half-formed businesses, a mild electrolyte deficiency and no functioning nervous system.

By the numbers: 1,000+ attendees in 2026; 50+ countries; 50+ speakers; two conference stages; ten days of programming.

Nomad Summit Chiang Mai: business school for people without offices

Nomad Summit represents the more entrepreneurial branch of the nomad family tree.

Its 2026 Chiang Mai edition brought together 250 founders, freelancers, investors and operators for one week. The central conference contained 12 talks and two panels across six themed blocks, while the wider Nomad Week generated more than 50 side events at over 20 venues around the city.

Those numbers reveal the format quite well. The main room is deliberately manageable, but the surrounding ecosystem is extensive. Participants can move from a panel on building wealth to a Buildathon, a founder dinner, a practical workshop or something involving rooftop drinks and an unexpectedly detailed conversation about Thai company structures.

Compared with Bansko, Nomad Summit is more deliberately focused on income, skills and building location-independent businesses. Its programme moves from remote employment and freelancing to entrepreneurship, investment and long-term wealth.

This makes it one of the stronger choices for people seeking measurable professional value: clients, collaborators, business models, practical knowledge or a clearer route into remote work.

It is also useful for newcomers who suspect that “becoming a digital nomad” may require something more substantial than purchasing a laptop stand and announcing the change on Instagram.

The possible drawback is that freedom can occasionally sound suspiciously like another productivity target. Anyone allergic to words such as scale, leverage and flywheel should schedule regular breaks and perhaps visit a temple.

By the numbers: 250 participants in 2026; 12 talks; two panels; six conference blocks; 50+ side events; 20+ venues.

Nomad Summit Tallinn: the Baltic answer to remote-work fantasy

The Baltic version of Nomad Summit took place in Tallinn from 3 to 5 July 2026, followed by a week of community-organised events around the city.

Its positioning was notably different from the lifestyle-heavy festival model. The three central days featured 10+ speakers, hiring managers, remote-work mentors, keynote sessions, practical workshops and hands-on help for people seeking remote employment, freelance clients or a credible route into self-employment. Nomad Week then continued from 6 to 12 July with coworking sessions, dinners, walks and participant-led events.

In other words, Tallinn was less concerned with helping established nomads rediscover themselves beside a bonfire and more concerned with helping ordinary professionals obtain the income that makes nomadism possible in the first place.

That is an important distinction.

The nomad industry frequently celebrates the lifestyle without spending quite enough time explaining how anybody is supposed to finance it. Tallinn reversed the order: first develop a remote career, then worry about which beach best represents your personal brand.

The Estonian setting also made conceptual sense. The programme covered remote hiring, freelance business structures, cross-border work, taxation, social security, compliance and the practical systems required to operate independently.

Tallinn is therefore best suited to aspiring remote professionals, employees planning a transition, freelancers who need structure and people who prefer a CV workshop to an ecstatic dance circle.

This may sound less glamorous.

It is also considerably more useful when the rent is due.

The organisers promoted the programme clearly but did not publish a reliable final attendance figure. It would therefore be misleading to present Tallinn as the largest Baltic nomad gathering merely because the branding looked good.

Its importance lies elsewhere: it may offer one of the clearest bridges between conventional employment and location independence.

By the numbers: three main conference days; 10+ speakers; tickets advertised from €220; seven additional days of community events; no verified final attendance total publicly disclosed.

Italy: the sleeping giant is still pressing snooze

Italy should, in theory, be a digital nomad superpower.

It has the climate, the food, hundreds of beautiful and underused towns, relatively affordable areas outside the usual tourist circuit and enough lifestyle content to keep Instagram employed until the end of civilisation.

What it does not yet have is a nomad event — or indeed a nomad ecosystem — with the scale, continuity and international pull of Bansko, Chiang Mai or the more established gatherings elsewhere in Europe.

There is activity. There is enthusiasm. There are festivals, conferences, rural residencies, municipal initiatives and an impressive quantity of promotional language.

But there is also a great deal of noise for comparatively little measurable impact.

Small local experiments are frequently announced as though Italy has just reinvented mobility, regenerated the South and solved depopulation before lunch. A first edition attracts a few dozen people and is immediately described as a movement. A town organises a week of coworking and suddenly appears to be positioning itself as the next Lisbon, usually with a press release featuring the mayor.

Some initiatives are genuinely interesting. Very few have yet demonstrated sustained international relevance.

The largest recent attempt has been Italia Nomad Fest in Palermo, held from 8 to 15 March 2026. Its programme combined talks, workshops, local culture, wellness and social activities, with the explicit aim of connecting digital nomads with residents rather than placing an international bubble inside the city.

That is a worthwhile ambition.

It is not yet evidence that Palermo has become the Italian Bansko.

The event communicated extensively about its programme, speakers, partners and mission, but did not publish a clear and independently verifiable final figure for core attendance. Without that number, it is impossible to judge whether the festival created a substantial international gathering or simply produced very effective communications around a much smaller one.

Italy has a particular talent for inaugurating the future before checking how many people attended it.

Elsewhere in Sicily, Nomadic Sicily held a two-day boutique gathering in Ortigia, Siracusa, on 17 and 18 April 2026, bringing together founders, creatives and internationally minded participants. Its own earlier communication described a deliberately intimate community of around 40 people.

That may create meaningful relationships. It does not constitute an international festival of significant scale.

Then there are projects such as Tursi Digital Nomads in Basilicata, which are not major festivals at all but may ultimately be more relevant than some of the louder events.

Its original rural programme hosted 19 nomads from 13 countries. The project later reported that it had welcomed more than 200 people from 35 countries over four years, using longer stays and small groups to test whether remote workers could contribute to communities affected by depopulation.

This is a different model. It produces fewer lanyards but potentially more evidence.

The recurring Italian problem is fragmentation.

Palermo organises an ambitious week. Siracusa hosts a boutique gathering. Tursi develops a rural residency. Other municipalities, coworking operators and destination organisations launch local experiments, often without any practical connection to one another.

Individually, some are promising.

Collectively, they do not yet constitute a coherent ecosystem.

There is no obvious national anchor event, no shared international calendar, no recognisable route connecting local communities, central government, hospitality operators, investors, remote-work companies, universities and global nomad networks.

More fundamentally, Italy has not decided what it wants digital nomadism to achieve.

Is the objective to extend the tourist season? Fill empty houses? Attract highly paid foreign professionals? Revive depopulating villages? Create start-ups? Sell coliving packages? Support local businesses? Or organise pleasant international weeks involving food tours and panels about belonging?

All are legitimate objectives.

They are not the same strategy.

The result is a country with enormous potential but limited momentum: many announcements, several photogenic experiments and little capable, so far, of altering the international nomad map.

That does not mean Italy should imitate Bansko by producing one enormous festival and importing a thousand temporary residents into a picturesque town.

Its opportunity may be different.

Italy possesses something many established nomad hubs are desperately trying to manufacture: hundreds of distinctive places with real communities, deep cultural identity and a life that existed long before the first portable monitor arrived.

It does not need to build another interchangeable international bubble filled with smoothie bowls and people discussing optimisation.

It needs to connect what already exists, decide whom it wants to attract and give the best local experiments the continuity required to become something larger than a project, a season or a press release.

For now, Italy remains the great unfinished project of European digital nomadism.

There is plenty of activity, but not yet a recognisable centre of gravity.

The giant may eventually wake up.

At present, however, it appears to have pressed snooze and issued a communiqué announcing the strategic importance of getting out of bed.

By the numbers: one week-long event in Palermo, but no clearly disclosed final core attendance; two days and approximately 40 participants for the boutique Siracusa model; 19 participants from 13 countries in Tursi’s original rural experiment, and more than 200 reported over four years. No Italian event yet demonstrates the scale or international network effect of the principal festivals in this guide.

Nomada Festival, Santa Marta: Latin America enters the conversation

The nomad-event circuit has traditionally been dominated by Europe and Southeast Asia, making Nomada Festival in Santa Marta particularly interesting.

Billing itself as the first digital nomad festival in South America, it is scheduled for 1–5 September 2026 and brings together remote workers, freelancers, creators, founders and global builders for five days of workshops, networking and cultural immersion on Colombia’s Caribbean coast.

The event places Latin America and Colombia at the centre rather than treating Santa Marta as photogenic conference wallpaper.

That distinction matters. Too many international gatherings arrive in a destination with their own speakers, their own vocabulary and their own audience, leaving the local community in roughly the same position as the hotel furniture: useful, attractive and largely silent.

Nomada’s emphasis on cultural immersion and Latin American perspectives suggests an attempt to create something more reciprocal, with the city, the Caribbean region and local culture becoming part of the programme.

For nomads interested in Latin America, cultural exchange, regional opportunities and the relationship between mobile professionals and host communities, this may be one of the calendar’s more relevant new experiments.

It is, however, still a first edition.

The organisers have not published a reliable expected attendance total, and the event does not yet possess the alumni network or operating history of Bansko or Nomad Summit.

You are partly buying a festival ticket and partly participating in its proof of concept.

For some people, that is precisely the attraction.

By the numbers: five days; first edition; 1–5 September 2026; no verified target attendance publicly disclosed.

The Nomad World, Porto: where freedom gets a business plan

The Nomad World lands in Porto from 10 to 13 September 2026 under the theme “Building Freedom”.

This is not primarily an event for people wondering whether they could possibly work from another country. It is aimed at founders, creators, entrepreneurs, operators and remote professionals already building something — or at least sufficiently advanced to have begun calling themselves builders.

The four-day programme combines talks, workshops and masterminds on artificial intelligence, entrepreneurship, company building and lifestyle design with city activities and an extensive wellness component: running, yoga, surfing, padel, meditation, sauna and cold plunges.

Among the events in this guide, The Nomad World appears one of the more polished and consciously curated. It sits somewhere between a founder conference, an urban festival and a high-functioning retreat for people who would like to optimise both their company and their sleep quality.

The organisers report more than 1,200 attendees from over 70 countries across four previous editions, although individual editions have been considerably smaller. Albufeira in 2025, for example, attracted more than 150 participants from 15 countries, with over 20 speakers across seven days.

That is useful context. The Nomad World has accumulated a credible community, but Porto itself should not automatically be described as a thousand-person event.

It should appeal to entrepreneurs, ambitious creatives and established remote professionals who want purposeful business content without surrendering the social and experiential side of the nomad world.

Those seeking improvised skill-sharing and spontaneous conversations beside a Bulgarian bonfire may find Porto slightly more composed.

This is freedom wearing clean trainers and carrying a reusable water bottle.

By the numbers: four days in Porto; four previous editions; 1,200+ cumulative attendees from 70+ countries; recent individual editions generally around 50–150+ participants.

Athens Nomad Fest: part bootcamp, part group adventure

Athens Nomad Fest runs from 18 to 25 September 2026 and has published one of the clearer numerical promises in the sector: 200+ digital nomads, more than 20 speakers, at least 10 workshops and participants from over 30 countries.

The programme begins with registration and a central conference, followed by a dedicated AI Day, two days of workshops and bootcamps, and then a three-day island trip ending with the closing party.

The topics include sales, lead generation, automation, content creation, global tax, community building, personal branding and productivity. Early-bird tickets were advertised at €197, rising to €217, although flights, accommodation, meals, outdoor activities and trips were not included.

That structure makes Athens particularly accessible to freelancers and solopreneurs who are still building their remote careers.

It is less “assemble 150 venture-backed founders in a hotel” and more “learn useful things, meet independent professionals and then discover whether everyone still likes one another after travelling to an island together”.

The extended itinerary gives relationships room to develop, while the combination of education and travel creates an easy entry point for first-time festivalgoers.

The important financial detail is that the ticket is merely the opening sentence of a longer story. Once the island trip, food, travel and accommodation are added, the final cost will look rather less like €197.

Still, the published scale is large enough to provide variety and small enough to avoid becoming an outdoor trade fair for portable monitors.

By the numbers: 200+ expected attendees; 20+ speakers; 10+ workshops; 30+ countries; eight days; €197–€217 for the central programme.

Nomad Cruise: networking with no emergency exit

Nomad Cruise solves one of the oldest problems in professional networking: people leaving.

Its September 2026 AI Edition crosses the Atlantic aboard the Queen Mary 2 from Southampton to New York, carrying more than 150 founders and digital nomads for seven days of masterminds, case studies, workshops and practical sessions.

The crossing runs from 19 to 26 September 2026 and is designed particularly for founders, developers, marketers and operators interested in using AI to build, automate and scale businesses.

The format creates a degree of social concentration that a city conference cannot reproduce.

There are no competing neighbourhoods, early airport departures or participants disappearing because they booked a dawn surf lesson.

Everyone remains aboard the same ship, sharing meals, sessions, decks and the gradual realisation that their clever networking opener must now sustain an entire transatlantic crossing.

For deeper relationships and uninterrupted conversations, this is difficult to beat. The unusual setting also attracts participants willing to commit serious time and money, which may produce a more invested group than a casual conference.

But Nomad Cruise is not destination immersion.

You are experiencing a curated floating community, not testing ordinary life in Southampton, New York or the Atlantic Ocean.

It is also a premium proposition and, for anyone prone to seasickness, possibly the only business event where the phrase rapid scaling can trigger a physical response.

By the numbers: 150+ participants; seven days; one Atlantic Ocean; no plausible early departure.

Hiroshima Setouchi Nomad Fest: the antidote to conference speed

Hiroshima Setouchi Nomad Fest may be the most conceptually different gathering in the selection.

Rather than compressing everything into a frantic weekend, it runs from 11 October to 1 November 2026.

The first phase takes place in Hiroshima from 11 to 25 October, combining workshops, networking, cultural immersion and everyday urban life. Participants then move to Matsuyama and the Setouchi area from 25 October to 1 November for a slower retreat involving nature, history, local experiences and time for work and reflection.

Its theme is Yohaku, referring to blank space or margin.

In practical terms, the event is trying to create enough room for participants to experience the destination as temporary residents rather than conference delegates being transferred between branded backdrops.

This is particularly interesting for slomads, introverts, destination researchers and people exhausted by schedules in which breakfast begins with breathwork and dinner ends with a pitch competition.

The three-week structure also changes the relationship with local residents. Cultural contact is less likely to be limited to a food tour followed by an earnest panel about integration.

Accommodation is not included, and committing several weeks is clearly more demanding than booking a three-day summit. The all-access pass was advertised at $330 early bird or $420 regular, but participants must arrange and fund their own accommodation.

Hiroshima is not an event you squeeze between two flights.

That is largely the point.

By the numbers: approximately three weeks; two regional phases; 15 days in Hiroshima followed by seven days around Matsuyama and Setouchi; all-access pass from $330; no verified attendance target published.

And then there are remote-work conferences

Not every event about remote work is a nomad festival.

Running Remote, for example, is designed primarily for founders, executives, HR leaders and people managing distributed organisations. Its focus is how companies build and operate remote or flexible teams, rather than how individuals construct location-independent lives.

Its 2026 conference took place in Austin from 27 to 29 April, bringing together executives, founders and workplace leaders around remote-first and hybrid management. The organisation describes a history of 11 conferences, more than 290 sessions and over 400 expert speakers across its editions.

That does not make it less valuable.

It simply answers a different question.

A nomad festival asks:

How can I build a mobile life and find people who understand it?

A remote-work conference asks:

How can an organisation employ and manage people who may be living that life?

Confusing the two is how you end up attending an excellent panel about workforce compliance while wondering when the ecstatic dance begins.

Different sizes create different events

The numbers are not merely evidence of prestige.

They change the experience.

A gathering of 40 people, such as a boutique event in Siracusa, allows participants to recognise virtually everybody by the second day. It may create excellent conversations, but there is limited room for professional specialisation or unexpected subcultures.

At around 150–250 participants, as with Nomad Cruise, recent Nomad World editions, Athens or Chiang Mai, the event offers enough variety for professional matching while remaining navigable.

You may not meet everyone, but you can encounter the same people several times without needing sophisticated facial-recognition software.

At 1,000+, as in Bansko, the festival becomes an ecosystem.

There are more opportunities, more specialised conversations and more tribes within the tribe — but also more noise, more FOMO and a higher probability of spending four days repeatedly saying, “We should definitely find time for a proper chat.”

A cruise with 150 people produces something different again. The number is manageable, but physical confinement multiplies the intensity.

Meanwhile, a three-week Japanese gathering with no mass-attendance ambition may provide fewer contacts but a much deeper understanding of place.

And Italy currently offers another variation: a collection of small initiatives without a single event large or influential enough to organise the wider market around itself.

Bigger is not automatically better.

It is simply louder.

Although, in Italy, small can occasionally be quite loud too.

So which one is “the best”?

There is no best nomad festival because they are addressing different forms of nomadic dissatisfaction.

Choose Bansko for scale, spontaneity and the largest community effect.

Choose Chiang Mai for entrepreneurship, practical knowledge and a well-developed side-event ecosystem.

Choose Tallinn when you do not yet have a remote career and would prefer that somebody explain how to build one before inviting you to a pool party.

Choose Santa Marta for Latin America, cultural exchange and the excitement — and uncertainty — of a first edition.

Choose Porto for founders, artificial intelligence, curated experiences and freedom with a surprisingly detailed wellness regime.

Choose Athens for structured learning followed by a substantial social and travel component.

Choose Nomad Cruise for concentrated networking and elegant maritime captivity.

Choose Hiroshima if you want to slow down enough to discover whether you genuinely like a destination once the welcome party is over.

And choose Italy only after deciding which Italy you mean.

There is no single national festival or recognisable ecosystem to join yet. There are instead smaller city events, boutique entrepreneurial gatherings and rural experiments, some far more substantial than their size suggests and others rather less substantial than their communications suggest.

Before buying any ticket, ignore the drone footage for several minutes and ask what you actually need.

Do you want clients, collaborators, professional skills, friends, a new destination or simply reassurance that other adults have also constructed lives their families cannot explain?

The right gathering can create relationships that last for years, introduce you to a future business partner or help you discover a place where you finally want to remain for more than three weeks.

The wrong one may still provide a tote bag.

And possibly cacao.

Dates, prices and announced programmes checked on 13 July 2026. Attendance figures are based on organiser disclosures or reported event results; where no reliable total was published, none has been invented.

Dear Substack,

No hard feelings. We still love you. We simply no longer leave the spare keys under the mat.

We have been on Substack for roughly a year. We did not arrive with fourteen subscribers, an inspirational quote and a burning desire to become a thought leader by writing weekly essays about the importance of writing weekly essays.

We brought publications: Esco quando voglio. NOMAG. The NOMAG Pulse. ITS Journal. We also encouraged friends and editorial partners to join us, most notably We the Italians.

When we began migrating, the publications directly connected to our businesses already had a combined registered audience of roughly 180,000 to 185,000 people.

Today, that figure is approximately 220,000.

And that does not include We the Italians, which adds more than another 100,000 readers.

So, directly or indirectly, we helped bring an editorial ecosystem of more than 320,000 people towards Substack.

These were not readers discovered for us by a benevolent algorithm.

They came through our websites, events, social channels, publishing work, professional activities and years of direct audience-building. We had obtained their email addresses one by one, while managing privacy obligations across Italian, British and American businesses.

We did not arrive at Substack empty-handed.

We brought the guests, the champagne, the family silver and, apparently, enough furniture for Substack to begin assuming the house was ours only in theory.

We brought the party. Substack brought the seating plan.

The attraction was obvious.

Email distribution at this scale is expensive. Services such as Mailchimp and their many charmingly priced competitors become rather less charming once your database moves into six figures.

We were not obsessed with monetising every reader. Paid subscriptions were — and remain — a welcome token of appreciation, not a toll booth placed in front of every article.

Substack offered an elegant publishing interface, readable newsletters, a functioning archive and a relatively simple way to distribute our work.

It looked rather good.

Then the relationship began asking why we were not spending more time together.

Why were our readers not producing enough engagement?

Why were we not using Notes more aggressively?

Why were we not converting more people into paid subscribers?

Because, darling, we wanted a newsletter.

We did not realise we had joined a digital wellness retreat where every reader had to demonstrate emotional commitment to the platform.

Many of our readers opened the email and read it.

That quaint activity once known as “reading” was apparently not always enough. They did not necessarily click through, download an app, post Notes, applaud, comment, recommend strangers or spend the afternoon wandering around Substack’s internal shopping centre.

They had subscribed to us.

Not to a lifestyle.

Substack wanted a relationship with benefits. We wanted a newsletter.

The migration had already cost us readers.

Some did not want another app. Some disliked being pushed towards other publications. Others simply failed to complete the additional steps involved in moving from an existing mailing relationship into a new platform ecosystem.

To avoid abandoning them, we kept several systems running: our direct databases, Substack, LinkedIn, our websites and other paid distribution services.

In other words, we reproduced precisely the administrative clutter we had hoped to escape.

Then came the concerns about inactive readers.

Then requests or processes requiring reconfirmation.

Then communications which, from our perspective, arrived with remarkably little meaningful consultation, despite the size of the audiences involved.

We also encountered difficulties around readers to whom we had granted complimentary or lifetime status, with platform processes that appeared capable of pushing them back towards free membership or payment.

The technical detail is not the heart of the matter.

The treatment is.

We were handled as though we were hopeful beginners who should be grateful for a place at the creator table.

As though our publications had arrived on Tuesday, our mothers made up half the mailing list and our entire commercial strategy involved manifesting abundance beneath a Notes post.

No one seemed particularly interested in the fact that the publications directly connected to us had a combined audience of 220,000 people.

No one appeared to think that adding We the Italians — more than another 100,000 — might justify an actual conversation.

A proper one.

The sort involving people rather than an automated message explaining what had already been decided.

It is not you, Substack. Actually, it is.

Platforms are entitled to have rules.

Substack is entitled to favour paid subscriptions, encourage Notes, promote internal discovery and build rankings around the activity that best supports its own business.

But those rankings are not neutral measures of editorial relevance.

They reward the publishers who feed the platform’s preferred economic model.

Again, perfectly legitimate.

Just not particularly romantic.

The grand cultural language surrounding platforms often suggests that they exist to restore the sacred relationship between writers and readers.

In reality, that relationship remains sacred for precisely as long as it behaves in a commercially convenient fashion.

Do not use Notes enough?

Strange.

Do not push paid subscriptions?

Strange.

Have tens of thousands of imported readers who simply open emails rather than perform inside the platform?

Very strange indeed.

At some stage, Substack appears to have forgotten that not every publication exists to become a miniature version of Substack.

We brought 220,000 readers. We may have lost 10,000 to 12,000.

According to our internal estimates, we may have lost approximately 10,000 to 12,000 subscriptions from the audiences we originally brought into this migration.

How many genuinely new readers did Substack’s network generate for us?

Perhaps 2,000.

These are estimates rather than audited figures, and we are perfectly willing to allow a generous margin for error.

The imbalance nevertheless remains rather striking.

We brought a substantial existing audience, lost a meaningful part of it during the relationship and gained a comparatively modest number through Substack itself.

Today, our deliberately charitable estimate is that fewer than one third of our 220,000 readers will ultimately remain on Substack.

The rest will continue to receive our work through our direct databases, LinkedIn, our own websites and those expensive email distribution services we had hoped to reduce.

This means more work for us.

It also means considerably less dependency.

A painful bargain, perhaps, but a useful education.

An Italian divorce, without the murder

We are not dramatically leaving Substack.

That would be emotionally satisfying for about twelve minutes and commercially rather silly.

Instead, we are having an Italian divorce.

Not the Pietro Germi version. Nobody needs to die.

This is the modern edition: immediate separation of digital assets, shared use of selected furniture and a very clear understanding that the address book is coming home with us.

We will continue publishing on Substack for readers who discovered us here and wish to remain.

We will keep using the archive while it remains useful.

We will also create and maintain a complete independent backup because, dear Substack, trust has left the building and taken the good towels with it.

We will use the free tools available to us for as long as they remain useful.

What we will no longer do is automatically direct new readers towards Substack.

People who find us through our websites, events, social channels, professional networks or future publications will enter systems controlled directly by us.

Substack will remain a distribution channel.

It will no longer be home.

We can still be friends. But I am changing the passwords.

The relationship was fun.

There were excellent dinners. The flat was tastefully decorated. The publishing tools worked. We met interesting people.

But the exclusive phase is over.

As a serial dater, I am now embracing a very open relationship.

I will continue to visit Substack when it suits me. I may use the sofa, borrow a book and occasionally stay the night.

But my documents will remain at my place.

My contacts will not be left on the bedside table.

And yes, the passwords are being changed.

More importantly, I intend to cheat.

Shamelessly.

I will flirt with every promising publishing platform that sends a well-written message. I will test every distribution tool that offers something useful. I will use LinkedIn, direct email, independent websites and whatever new platform emerges next Thursday afternoon.

Whenever someone asks us where they should launch a new publication, Substack will no longer receive our automatic recommendation.

This is not revenge.

It is what happens when a business loses the benefit of trust.

We used to praise Substack to friends, publishers and partners. We encouraged others to join. We effectively acted as unpaid ambassadors because we believed the product and the relationship deserved it.

Our future recommendation will be rather more nuanced:

Use Substack. Enjoy it. Exploit what it does well. But back up everything, maintain your own direct audience channel and never mistake convenience for ownership.

Substack may not enjoy this arrangement as much as we will.

We shall continue using what it provides for free while bringing it fewer new users and enthusiastically testing its competitors.

That is the trouble with open relationships.

Both parties are technically free, but only one may discover that the other has many more options.

Newsletters existed before Substack. Awkward, but true.

Substack did not invent newsletters.

It did not invent writers, readers, publishing, communities or direct audience relationships.

It created a very good platform for organising them.

Perhaps, during its impressive growth, it became a little greedy. Perhaps it began confusing control of the venue with ownership of the relationships taking place inside it.

Readers do not belong to us.

They are free people who may subscribe, unsubscribe, disappear, return or read somebody else entirely.

But we built the relationship.

We did so over years, one email address at a time. We are no longer willing to place that entire relationship inside a platform that treated us as though we were interchangeable amateurs.

Does Substack suck?

No.

That would be childish and inaccurate.

It remains an excellent product and, for certain editorial models, one of the best available.

But it is not our friend. It is not a cultural charity. It is not the natural and permanent home of independent publishing.

It is a commercial platform pursuing its interests.

From now on, we shall pursue ours with equal enthusiasm.

No dramatic exit.

No slamming doors.

Just a complete backup, separate finances, several new lovers and a majestic, multilingual and wonderfully liberating:

who gives a damn?

But… What it actually offers is an existing retirement visa, carefully wrapped around a beachfront property proposition and photographed at sunset.

Whenever an immigration story begins with the words imagine waking up to the sound of waves, it is usually wise to stop imagining for a moment and begin reading the small print.

That opening does not necessarily mean there is anything wrong with the product. It merely suggests that what follows may have been written by somebody more interested in the balcony than the residency category, and that questions concerning eligibility, legal status, taxation, healthcare, property ownership and the precise meaning of the word permanent will arrive somewhat later, possibly after the photograph of the infinity pool.

This is certainly the case with Landco Lifestyle Ventures’ Philippine Lifestyle Visa, or PLV, which has recently been presented as a way for global retirees and digital nomads to make the Philippines — and preferably one of Landco’s resort communities — their permanent home.

The original story appeared through The Manila Times’ TMT Newswire and follows the familiar architecture of branded property content: begin with the sea, add wellness, mention global citizens, introduce an international ranking, place a government authority nearby and conclude that the life you have always imagined is already waiting for you, presumably once the sales representative has checked which condominium units remain available.

It is attractive, polished and not entirely untrue.

It is also not quite a new visa.

The visa that is actually a marketing programme for another visa

The Philippine Lifestyle Visa is Landco’s own branded programme. The government-issued immigration status behind it is the Philippine Retirement Authority’s Special Resident Retiree’s Visa, better known as the SRRV.

Landco has entered into a formal partnership with the Philippine Retirement Authority to promote the SRRV through qualifying real-estate investments in developments including The Spinnaker at Club Laiya, The Nautilus at CaSoBe and The Residences at Terrazas de Punta Fuego. Buyers may receive assistance with the application process, ownership incentives, property management and access to Landco’s resort network.

This may be a perfectly coherent commercial package, particularly for somebody who already wants both Philippine residency and a managed coastal property. However, calling the package a visa creates the impression that Landco has somehow developed a new immigration category with the Philippine government.

It has not.

The visa is the SRRV. The Philippine Lifestyle Visa is the beachfront wrapper.

This is not simply a pedantic distinction. Immigration rights are granted by the state, while incentives, property choices, administrative assistance and “Life on Vacation” branding are supplied by the developer. Confusing the two makes it unnecessarily difficult for prospective residents to understand what they are buying, what they are applying for and which part of the arrangement continues to exist should their relationship with the property company become less idyllic than the brochure anticipated.

“Permanent” is doing some fairly energetic work here

The promotional language describes a government-supported pathway towards “permanent long-term residency”, a phrase that manages to sound reassuring while remaining impressively elastic.

The SRRV is officially a special non-immigrant visa. It provides eligible holders with multiple-entry privileges and the right to stay in the Philippines for an indefinite period, provided the required deposit or qualifying investment continues to be maintained and the holder remains compliant with the programme. It is therefore far more substantial than an endlessly extended tourist stay, but it should not automatically be confused with permanent residence in the citizenship, settlement or irrevocable-status sense familiar from other countries.

In practical lifestyle terms, the distinction may not matter to somebody who wants to spend the next twenty years looking at Nasugbu Bay. In legal and financial terms, it matters considerably.

The residence status depends upon the underlying SRRV conditions. The property does not magically transform a foreign buyer into a Philippine permanent resident, and the use of words such as permanent, lifetime and home should not discourage anybody from asking what happens if the investment is sold, substituted, mortgaged, inherited, withdrawn or found no longer to comply with programme rules.

An ocean view is not a substitute for an exit clause.

Digital nomads are welcome, provided they have reached retirement age unusually early

The inclusion of digital nomads in the marketing is even more intriguing because the SRRV is available to principal applicants aged 40 and over.

Under the current SRRV Classic structure, applicants aged 40 to 49 generally require a visa deposit of US$25,000 if they have a qualifying lifetime pension, or US$50,000 if they do not. For those aged 50 and over, the corresponding figures are US$15,000 with a qualifying pension or US$30,000 without one. Pensioners must also provide evidence of lifetime monthly pension income, currently at least US$800 for a single applicant or US$1,000 when applying with dependants.

There are, of course, many digital nomads over 40. Some of them even possess reading glasses, retirement plans and sufficient emotional resilience to survive a property-management committee. But this is clearly not a programme aimed at the broad population usually pictured beneath the term: mobile workers in their twenties and thirties moving between Lisbon, Chiang Mai, Medellín and whichever small Balkan city has recently acquired three co-working spaces and an article calling it “Europe’s best-kept secret”.

More importantly, the Philippines already authorised a separate, genuine Digital Nomad Visa through Executive Order No. 86 in 2025. That framework was expressly created for adults working remotely through digital technology for foreign clients or employers, rather than for applicants entering a retirement and real-estate programme.

The Philippine Lifestyle Visa is therefore not the Philippines’ digital nomad visa. It is a branded route into the retirement visa that may also appeal to some older remote workers.

This distinction is remarkably easy to explain when one is not simultaneously trying to sell a beachfront condotel.

The residency pathway has developed a recognisable condo shape

The commercial logic becomes clearer when the SRRV deposit rules are examined.

Under the SRRV Classic option, the required dollar deposit may, subject to approval, be converted into an active qualifying investment. For the purchase of a condominium unit, Philippine Retirement Authority rules state that the property must be worth at least US$50,000, that the conversion may take place only after the visa has been issued and that the property and transaction remain subject to PRA evaluation and inspection.

Landco’s role is therefore not mysterious. It owns or markets precisely the sort of leisure developments that can be positioned as both an investment and a residency-supporting lifestyle product. The company guides buyers through the process and directs their immigration-linked capital towards homes in its coastal communities.

This is not inherently objectionable. Plenty of residence programmes around the world have been built around property investment, and combining immigration assistance, property management and resort access may reduce genuine complications for an overseas buyer.

The problem lies in presenting an investment-led property package as though a new visa has descended from the heavens carrying a coconut and a room key.

A buyer should understand the separate components: the SRRV application, the required deposit, the conditions for converting that deposit into property, the condominium purchase contract, the service and association charges, the management agreement, the rental proposition, the resale market and the continuing obligations required to preserve the immigration status.

The brochure turns these into one seamless life decision. Reality has several contracts.

The Philippines is officially the world’s best place to retire, according to one insurance company’s index

The promotional story also leans heavily upon the Philippines being named the world’s number-one retirement destination for 2026.

That claim is real, although it benefits from context.

The ranking comes from the Retirement Abroad Index produced by Expatriate Group, a British international health-insurance provider. It assessed 20 countries across five broad categories: healthcare, visa accessibility, health-insurance requirements, cost of living and expatriate community and integration. The Philippines scored 78 out of 100, finishing ahead of Thailand and Colombia.

This is useful evidence that the country offers an attractive overall package. It is not the final ruling of an independent global tribunal on where every human being should spend old age.

Retirement rankings inevitably depend upon the countries selected, the weight assigned to each category and the circumstances of the theoretical retiree. Someone prioritising low costs, English-language accessibility and a relatively obtainable long-term visa may reasonably place the Philippines near the top. Someone prioritising universally consistent healthcare, pedestrian infrastructure, rail connectivity or geographical distance from tropical storms may produce another table.

The real error is not that the Philippines came first. It is the modern habit of converting “first in a ranking assembled by one commercial organisation” into “objectively the finest retirement destination on Earth”, as though retirement involved a medal ceremony and Portugal must now return the trophy.

A resort community is not the same thing as an entire country

There are excellent reasons to consider the Philippines for long-term living. English is widely used, the cost of many everyday services can be competitive by Western standards, the population is famously hospitable, the country has an established foreign-retiree community and the SRRV offers something many competing destinations do not: the possibility of indefinite residence rather than a brief annual permit followed by another administrative performance.

Landco’s developments may also be very attractive. A managed beachfront home can remove some of the difficulties of maintaining property from abroad, while resort infrastructure may provide security, leisure facilities, communal spaces and an easier social landing than an isolated private house.

But “life on vacation, every day” is one of those ideas that functions considerably better on a billboard than in household administration.

Anyone considering the package should investigate the quality and resilience of internet and electricity, access to major hospitals, insurance costs and exclusions, transport to Manila or an international airport, food and service availability outside holiday periods, storm exposure, building insurance, annual association fees, sinking funds, leasing restrictions, achievable rental yields, resale liquidity and what the development feels like on a rainy Tuesday when there is no promotional drone overhead.

They should also visit for more than a long weekend. Preferably in more than one season.

The difference between a wonderful resort and a wonderful permanent home is usually discovered after the staff have stopped arranging the cushions.

The NOMAG verdict

The Philippine Lifestyle Visa is not a new Philippine visa, not the country’s official Digital Nomad Visa and not an all-purpose route to permanent residence for every laptop owner who has ever considered replacing winter with palm trees.

It is a private, property-linked programme through which Landco promotes and facilitates access to the government’s existing Special Resident Retiree’s Visa, particularly for people willing to acquire qualifying units in Landco resort developments.

Once described accurately, the proposition may still be compelling.

A financially secure applicant aged 40 or over who already wants indefinite residence in the Philippines, prefers a managed coastal community and is genuinely comfortable owning a condominium there may find the combination convenient and attractive. Administrative guidance, recognised investment options and professional property management can have real value, particularly in a foreign system.

A 29-year-old copywriter looking for a twelve-month remote-work base should investigate the actual Philippine Digital Nomad Visa instead.

And anybody persuaded primarily by the promise of waking up to the sound of waves should remember that the sea has never reviewed a purchase agreement, explained an immigration condition or disclosed the annual maintenance charges.

The life you imagined may indeed be there.

Just make sure the visa, the property and the imagination are three separate documents.

The country has made its workation visa permanent, lowered the income bar for some younger applicants and extended stays to three years — provided your Korean dream contains rather less Seoul than Instagram suggested.

There is now a fairly established ritual whenever a country launches a digital nomad visa. A minister announces that the nation is opening its doors to “global talent”; a tourism authority produces photographs of suspiciously cheerful people operating laptops beside architectural landmarks; several relocation websites immediately declare the destination the next Bali; and nobody asks why a supposedly revolutionary programme requires applicants to earn considerably more than most of the people already living there.

South Korea has at least done something rather more useful: it has looked at the results of its pilot scheme, noticed that the original conditions were not exactly causing a stampede at immigration, and changed them.

The F-1-D visa — officially the Digital Nomad Visa, although “workation visa” remains the preferred term for anyone who thinks answering emails abroad becomes a holiday when accompanied by an iced coffee — became a permanent programme on 30 June 2026. It allows people employed by overseas companies, or operating qualifying businesses abroad, to live in South Korea while continuing to work remotely for foreign employers and clients. It is not permission to turn up in Seoul and begin competing for Korean jobs, and local employment remains outside the point of the scheme. The maximum stay has also increased from two years under the pilot to three.

That already makes it more substantial than the many digital nomad visas designed primarily to generate an enthusiastic headline, six consultancy articles and approximately eleven successful applications. But the more interesting change concerns income.

The old requirement: please be a nomad, but preferably a rich one

During the pilot, applicants generally had to earn at least twice South Korea’s gross national income per capita. Based on the country’s 2025 GNI, that meant an annual income in the neighbourhood of 100 million won — comfortably above US$70,000 depending on the exchange rate and the particular conversion used by the publication explaining it.

This was not an entirely absurd requirement. Governments launching these programmes do not actually want itinerant backpackers stretching one freelance logo commission over a six-month stay. They want internationally paid professionals who will rent apartments, eat in restaurants, purchase train tickets, order too many things from convenience stores and make only limited demands on the domestic labour market. The word nomad may suggest freedom, spontaneity and a mild disregard for traditional careers, but the visa officer would still very much like to see your tax return.

The problem was that the threshold excluded a considerable share of genuine remote workers, particularly younger ones, while asking them to choose South Korea over a growing number of countries with easier entry conditions. Being able to work from anywhere does not necessarily mean earning Silicon Valley money, however often photographs of laptops, infinity pools and noise-cancelling headphones attempt to imply otherwise.

Under the permanent scheme, the standard requirement of twice the previous year’s per-capita GNI remains, but reduced thresholds can apply according to the applicant’s age and intended place of residence. Most notably, applicants aged 18 to 34 who live outside Seoul, Incheon and Gyeonggi Province can qualify with income equivalent to one year’s per-capita GNI rather than twice that amount. In current terms, that means approximately 52.4 million won, or roughly US$37,000, rather than something approaching 105 million won.

In other words, South Korea has not simply relaxed its digital nomad visa. It has created a discount for being young and agreeing not to live where you originally intended.

Welcome to Korea. Have you considered anywhere except Seoul?

The geographical condition is not an incidental piece of administrative fine print. It is the policy.

During the pilot, which ran from January 2024 to May 2026, South Korea issued 743 digital nomad visas. By May 2026, only 398 registered holders were residing in the country, and around 85 per cent of them were based in the greater Seoul metropolitan area. More than half were in their thirties, while roughly another fifth were in their forties.

That is not terribly surprising. Ask an international remote worker where they would live in South Korea and the answer is generally Seoul, followed by Busan if they have done some research, Jeju if they have watched attractive videos, and a long thoughtful silence if you ask for a fourth option.

Yet South Korea does not particularly need another policy that encourages more people to concentrate around Seoul. Much of the country is dealing with population decline, while the capital region continues to attract people, money, universities, companies and nearly every foreign resident who has ever typed “best neighbourhoods in Korea” into a search engine. The revised visa is therefore a piece of regional development policy disguised as a lifestyle opportunity.

The message is fairly clear: yes, please come and bring your overseas salary, creative profession and internationally transferable spending power — but would you mind deploying them somewhere currently losing residents?

This is considerably more honest, and potentially more intelligent, than merely announcing another generic remote-work visa and hoping that digital nomads will spontaneously regenerate provincial towns through the healing power of flat whites.

The good news: “outside Seoul” does not mean exile to a mountain shed

The phrase outside the Seoul metropolitan area may alarm applicants whose entire knowledge of South Korea consists of Gangnam, K-pop videos and photographs of Gyeongbokgung Palace, but it leaves rather a lot of country.

Busan offers a major coastal city, beaches, dense urban life and enough cafés to prevent even the most determined remote worker from completing a working day without purchasing three drinks. Daegu, Daejeon and Gwangju are large cities in their own right rather than provincial punishment zones. Jeju has long appealed to people seeking a slower base, although anyone imagining an undiscovered tropical island should prepare for the discovery that several million other people have also heard of it. Smaller cities may offer more space and a more immersive experience, although they also require greater willingness to live somewhere that is not constantly translated, reviewed and ranked for foreigners.

And this is precisely where the new visa may become interesting. Most digital nomad programmes promise access to the country while quietly funnelling everyone into the same two neighbourhoods already occupied by expatriates, co-working spaces and cafés selling bowls with seeds on top. South Korea is explicitly using income relief to make a different choice financially worthwhile.

Whether applicants will accept that bargain is another matter. Digital nomads frequently claim that they travel to “live like a local”, yet many become visibly distressed when the nearest English-language brunch menu is more than seven minutes away. Some will embrace regional Korea; others will discover that what they really wanted was Seoul with a cheaper visa.

Korea is not selling the usual nomad fantasy — which may be its advantage

South Korea is unlikely to replace the traditional digital nomad circuit of tropical islands, inexpensive Southern European cities and Southeast Asian hubs where co-working spaces resemble adult summer camps. Nor should it attempt to.

Its appeal is different. It offers an intense, highly urban, technologically saturated environment with a culture strong enough not to reorganise itself entirely around foreign visitors. You are not moving there because somebody promised that your monthly budget would be £700, your apartment would overlook a beach and every café owner would be delighted for you to occupy a six-person table for eight hours after purchasing one espresso.

You go because Korea is Korea: fast, complicated, highly connected, visually overwhelming, deeply convenient in some respects and unexpectedly difficult in others. The attraction is not frictionless nomadism but the opportunity to spend long enough in the country for it to become something more meaningful than a two-week sequence of palaces, skincare purchases and fried chicken.

The three-year maximum matters for this reason. A one-year visa is enough to be a long visitor; three years is enough to build routines, friendships, language ability and an alarming number of opinions about which convenience-store chain is superior.

Justice Minister Jung Sung-ho described the aim as creating a model through which highly skilled people might experience Korea’s appeal, voluntarily establish roots and become valuable contributors to the country. That is ambitious language for a visa that still prohibits holders from simply entering the Korean labour market, and applicants should not confuse permission to remain for up to three years with a guaranteed route to permanent residence. Still, it reveals that this is not being presented merely as an extended tourism product.

Who should actually consider it?

The revised visa is genuinely attractive for remote workers under 35 who earn a solid but not spectacular international income and are open to basing themselves beyond the capital region. Reducing the threshold from twice GNI to once GNI changes the programme from an option mostly for senior professionals and highly paid technology workers into something accessible to a wider group of designers, consultants, writers, developers, marketers and small online-business owners.

For applicants over 34, people determined to live in Seoul, or anyone whose income fluctuates around the qualifying level, the transformation is less dramatic. The original higher threshold has not disappeared; Korea has merely introduced targeted ways around it for the people and places the government most wants to encourage.

Applicants must also remember that a digital nomad visa is an immigration category, not a personality test. Owning a laptop, describing oneself as location-independent and posting photographs from cafés will not replace documented foreign income, qualifying employment or business activity, insurance and the other evidence Korean authorities require. The exact income threshold and documentation should be confirmed with the relevant Korean consulate, particularly because published dollar conversions vary and the decisive figure is normally established in won.

The NOMAG verdict

South Korea’s permanent digital nomad visa is not revolutionary, and anyone declaring it the new global capital of remote work before the first proper application cycle has concluded should be gently separated from their affiliate links.

It is, however, a sensible correction to a pilot that was too restrictive to attract large numbers and too Seoul-focused to advance the country’s regional objectives. The longer stay provides real value, the lower income threshold could make the visa practical for younger remote professionals, and the geographical incentive is more imaginative than yet another government pretending that foreign laptop workers will naturally distribute themselves across the country out of civic-minded curiosity.

South Korea wants digital nomads. It would simply prefer them to be young, financially self-sufficient, paid from overseas and willing to discover that the country continues for quite some distance beyond the final stop on the Seoul subway map.

Which, by the standards of digital nomad visa policy, is almost refreshingly straightforward.

Remote workers are not urban saviours. They are not invading demons either. They are people with laptops, salaries, anxieties, airline tabs, calendar alerts, foreign clients, portable careers and a slightly suspicious ability to describe every personal preference as a lifestyle philosophy.

After our previous article, Nobody Wants Digital Nomads. They Want Their Money. And Their Silence., a few readers did the usual internet thing: they chose the sentence that made them feel least comfortable and decided it was the whole argument. Some thought we were attacking digital nomads. Some thought we were defending them. Some probably skimmed the headline, felt a small ideological spasm and went back to comparing neighbourhoods in Lisbon by espresso quality and proximity to people who also say “intentional community” too often.

So let us try again, with a slightly more dangerous proposition.

Yes, digital nomads may be part of the problem.

There. Nobody died. The MacBook did not burst into flames. The coworking space remains open. Your Slack messages are still waiting for you with the emotional warmth of a parking fine.

But if digital nomads can be part of the problem, they can also be part of the solution. Not because they are magical, borderless knowledge unicorns sent to rescue sleepy towns with Notion templates and cold brew. Please. We have suffered enough brochure language for one century. They can be part of the solution for a simpler reason: they already move money, attention, skills, habits and demand across borders. The question is not whether they have impact. The question is whether that impact is lazy, extractive and disguised as personal freedom, or deliberate enough to become useful.

The immature version of nomad culture says: I am just living my life. I am not responsible for the housing market, municipal policy, foreign investment, weak tenant protections, tax competition, platform capitalism or the landlord who suddenly discovered that a damp one-bedroom flat is “a curated mid-term living experience” if the tenant earns in dollars. Technically, fine. One nomad did not invent the machine. But joining a machine is still joining it.

The mature version says: I am not the sole cause of this, but I am not floating above it either. My rent is a signal. My spending is a vote. My language choices shape a room. My accommodation choice matters. My length of stay matters. My silence matters. My decision to treat a place as a backdrop, a bargain or a community matters.

That is where the ethical digital nomad begins: not with guilt, but with literacy.

Guilt is cheap. Literacy is harder. Guilt writes a LinkedIn post about privilege and then books the same apartment. Literacy asks who owns the apartment, who used to live there, whether a long-term resident could reasonably afford it, whether the host is local, whether the money stays in the neighbourhood, whether the coworking space hires locally, whether “community” means actual exchange or just foreigners networking with better lighting.

This is not moral perfection. Moral perfection is usually a performance carried out by people with excellent lighting and unbearable captions. What we need is practical responsibility.

The good news is that there are already models, partial models and imperfect but useful experiments showing what this can look like.

Take Tulsa Remote. It is not the classic beach-and-laptop fantasy, which already makes it more interesting. The programme pays selected remote workers to move to Tulsa and, crucially, is built around retention, integration and local economic contribution rather than just importing spend for a season. Its own 2025 reporting says the programme has grown to 3,972 remote workers and generated $878 million in direct employment income since launch, while an Upjohn Institute analysis found that benefits to existing Tulsa residents were worth more than four times the programme costs, partly because participants spend locally, expand the tax base and can help create jobs for other residents. The same analysis is refreshingly honest about the housing risk: in places where housing supply cannot respond, the outcome could be very different. That is exactly the point. The solution is not “bring remote workers”. The solution is design, integration, measurement and housing policy, ideally before everyone starts calling a studio flat an ecosystem.

Or look at organisations like Nomads Giving Back, which exists to connect nomads, remote workers and global citizens with local communities through volunteering, cultural exchange, skill-sharing, scholarships and impact programmes. Its community page reports 91 scholarships, more than 200 volunteer matches and more than 250 events. This is not a universal solution, and we should not pretend every volunteer hour cancels out every structural pressure. But it points in the right direction: the nomad as a bridge, not just a customer with a ring light.

The coworking world also offers better and worse versions of the same story. Condé Nast Traveler, in a useful piece on ethical coworking abroad, points to places such as LOKAL Tbilisi, where the founder described hiring Georgian staff, buying from small local businesses and offering free Georgian language classes to digital nomads. The same article mentions PunSpace in Chiang Mai, opened by Thai founders and used by Thai creatives, tech workers and expats, with events designed to create connection rather than a sealed foreign bubble. Again: not utopia, not absolution, not a scented candle called Impact. But it shows the practical architecture of better nomad presence: local ownership, local employment, language, mixed communities, shared spaces, and money that does not immediately evaporate into a global lifestyle brand.

Bansko, Bulgaria, is another useful case, precisely because it is not a polished capital city selling itself as the new Berlin to people who have never survived one Berlin winter. The growth of Coworking Bansko and Bansko Nomad Fest turned a mountain town into a recognised nomad hub, with the festival deliberately timed before the summer season so local restaurants and guest houses could benefit from demand when tourism would otherwise be thinner. In interviews, organisers describe the event as something the local community welcomed because it helped kick off the season. One source is, admittedly, close to the industry, so we should read it with the appropriate amount of salt. Still, the mechanism matters: use remote workers to extend seasons, support existing local capacity and create repeat relationships, rather than simply adding pressure to already overheated neighbourhoods.

And then there is Madeira, which should be treated with much more caution. The island became one of the great digital nomad case studies after the pandemic, but WIRED’s long investigation into Ponta do Sol showed how quickly the language of community can become uncomfortable when housing, local wages and power are not properly addressed. The piece notes that some nomads did try to connect meaningfully with locals, learning Portuguese, using public transport, volunteering, joining sports, meeting social entrepreneurs, but presents those as outliers inside a model where meaningful integration proved difficult. Madeira is therefore not a simple failure story. It is more useful than that. It is a warning that “attracting nomads” is easy; making the arrangement fair is the actual work.

So what does the ethical digital nomad actually do?

First, stay longer when possible. The shorter the stay, the more likely the place becomes a consumable scene rather than a lived environment. A week is tourism with better email discipline. A month can still be surface. Three months begin to reveal inconvenience, and inconvenience is often where real belonging starts. You learn which bus never comes, which shop survived because locals use it, which beautiful square is also where pensioners argue about politics, which neighbourhood is not “up and coming” but under pressure.

Second, stop treating cheapness as a private discovery. If a place is cheap to you because your income comes from elsewhere, that is not your genius. That is exchange-rate privilege, wage asymmetry or tax geography doing push-ups in the background. Enjoy the advantage if you must, but do not romanticise it. Ask what your bargain costs someone else.

Third, choose housing with more intelligence than “nice light, fast wifi, plants”. Mid-term accommodation is often the battlefield where nomadism becomes socially expensive. Renting from local owners is not automatically virtuous, because local owners can also behave appallingly; renting from platforms is not automatically evil, because markets are messy; but the lazy choice is rarely neutral. Ask whether the unit was a long-term home. Ask whether the landlord rents fairly to residents too. Ask whether there are local mid-term operators who do not strip the residential market bare. If the only reason a place works for you is that it no longer works for locals, perhaps do not congratulate yourself on your lifestyle design.

Fourth, use locally rooted workspaces. A good coworking space can be more than a desk with coffee. It can be a translator between worlds, a place where local founders, freelancers, remote workers, students, creatives and small businesses actually mix. A bad one is an airport lounge with invoices. The difference matters. Look for local staff, local programming, local partnerships, language exchange, public events, fair employment and some evidence that the surrounding community is not merely decorative.

Fifth, bring skills without behaving like an unsolicited consultant. This is delicate. Nobody needs a newly arrived marketing freelancer explaining to a 60-year-old shopkeeper how to “optimise the funnel” after buying one pastry. But structured mentoring, workshops, pro bono support, hiring local talent, helping local NGOs with websites, translation, fundraising, design, analytics or international outreach can be useful when it is requested, scoped and humble. The key word is requested. Ethical help is not colonial theatre with better fonts.

Sixth, learn the language beyond transaction level. Nobody expects fluency in three weeks. But if you can spend 40 minutes configuring a travel eSIM, you can learn how to say more than “hello”, “thank you” and “where is the oat milk”. Language is not only communication. It is a gesture of seriousness. It tells people you understand they are not extras in the film of your self-improvement.

Seventh, pay properly. Pay taxes where required. Tip where appropriate. Do not negotiate small local suppliers into exhaustion because you read a thread about “local prices”. Do not demand New York service at village margins. Do not arrive with the purchasing power of a foreign salary and the bargaining ethics of someone trying to win a game show. Supporting the local economy does not mean sprinkling money around like confetti; it means paying fairly, consistently and without humiliating people in the process.

Eighth, accept that criticism is not always hatred. Sometimes residents are angry because they are xenophobic, yes. Human beings remain tragically capable of being stupid in all available directions. But often they are angry because their rent went up, their street changed, their children cannot find housing, their café became a co-laptop showroom, their language disappeared from the room and their city keeps being described as “undiscovered” by people who discovered it on a listicle. If your first response to criticism is “they are just jealous”, congratulations: you are no longer a traveller, you are a walking market externality.

The ethical nomad is not the person who never causes friction. That person does not exist. Movement causes friction. Money causes friction. Difference causes friction. The ethical nomad is the person who notices the friction early enough to change behaviour.

Good nomad policy should be boring in exactly the right ways: housing safeguards, local consultation, minimum-stay rules, tax clarity, integration programmes, language access, support for local entrepreneurs, incentives for underused areas rather than already overheated districts, and measurement that asks not only how much money came in, but who actually benefited.

That is the standard we should use. Not vibe. Not hashtags. Not “community” written in beige typography over a photograph of people pretending to work near a pool. A simple standard: are local residents better off, or merely better photographed?

Digital nomads should be able to live well. They should be able to move, experiment, build lives across borders, escape dead offices, reject commuter misery, find better weather, better food, better rhythm and occasionally a better version of themselves. There is nothing noble about staying miserable in one place just to prove you are socially responsible.

But freedom without awareness becomes extraction with a nicer backpack.

So yes, we might be part of the problem. Good. That is not an insult; it is the beginning of adulthood. The next step is refusing the lazy innocence sold by the industry around us. We are not just customers. We are not just visitors. We are not tiny ambassadors of the future of work sent to bless every city with our productivity stack.

We are participants. And participants have choices.

We can arrive loudly and leave nothing but rent pressure, English menus and a few dead WhatsApp groups. Or we can arrive with enough humility to ask better questions, spend better money, build better bridges, stay long enough to understand something and leave behind more than a carousel of sunsets captioned “home for now”.

The laptop does not make us morally different from everyone else in the arrival hall.

But it does give us tools.

It would be a shame to use them only for invoices.

Sources:

Tulsa Remote 2025 Economic Impact Report and Upjohn Institute analysis.

Nomads Giving Back and its community impact page.

Spacebring interview on Bansko Nomad Fest.

There is a precise moment in the life of every city when it stops being a place and becomes a travel headline. It usually happens shortly after the arrival of a direct flight, a few flattering articles, a handful of good coffee shops, and at least one photographer discovering that the evening light falls very nicely on buildings locals have been walking past for decades without feeling the urgent need to call them “underrated”.

Yerevan, Armenia’s capital, now finds itself dangerously close to that moment. London has a direct flight. Tbilisi has had its turn in the soft-focus travel imagination. The South Caucasus is being rebranded from “complicated region you vaguely remember from the news” into “excellent long weekend with character”. And somewhere, inevitably, a man in a linen shirt is preparing to call Yerevan “the next Berlin”, because travel writing has apparently not yet recovered from the invention of Berlin.

It is not the next Berlin. It is not the new Tbilisi either, nor the alternative Lisbon, nor the affordable Paris of the Caucasus, nor any other lazy comparison that allows a city to be understood only by pretending it is a cheaper version of somewhere already over-discussed. Yerevan is Yerevan: pink volcanic stone, Soviet boulevards, ancient churches, young people in very good trainers, serious history, excellent cafés, a lot of flowers, some very generous plates of food, and the occasional Lada looking as though it has survived not only the twentieth century but also several opinions about it.

That, frankly, is quite enough.

The latest hook is “red tourism”, a term that makes the whole thing sound either academic or faintly contagious. In practice, it means travellers visiting former Soviet spaces not simply for sunshine, restaurants and a photogenic old town, but for the architectural, political and emotional leftovers of the USSR: metro stations, apartment blocks, monuments, mosaics, medals, badges, statues, military memorabilia and markets where history sits in boxes waiting to be bought by someone with a tote bag and a very developed sense of irony.

Yerevan is a particularly rich stage for this. At Vernissage market, where one can find carpets, ceramics, woodwork, jewellery and enough objects to furnish several lives more interesting than one’s own, some visitors ignore the obvious souvenirs and go straight for Soviet pins, old medals, party badges and suspiciously durable cigarette packets from a world that has officially vanished but has not exactly tidied up after itself. They examine these relics with the reverence usually reserved for natural wine menus, as though one more enamel badge might finally unlock the secret of the twentieth century.

There is nothing inherently wrong with this curiosity. In fact, curiosity is preferable to the more common tourist condition of arriving somewhere, photographing two façades, mispronouncing lunch, and leaving with firm views on national identity. Soviet history is part of Yerevan’s urban fabric. You see it not only in museums, but in the scale of the avenues, the mass of the apartment blocks, the stern optimism of certain public buildings, and the monumental tendency to make architecture look as though it has been designed by a committee that believed stairs could improve your character.

The problem begins when curiosity becomes costume. Former Soviet cities are not mood boards for people who want a more politically complex version of vintage shopping. A Communist Party pin is not a personality. A USSR T-shirt is not a travel philosophy. And walking around a place where people lived through the system wearing its symbols as aesthetic shorthand may produce, at the very least, a social interaction less warm than the guidebook promised.

The best version of red tourism is not nostalgia. It is not cosplay. It is not the strange Western habit of visiting other people’s historical trauma and asking whether it comes in a nicer colour. It is a way of looking carefully at the physical remains of a system that shaped lives, cities, families, ambitions and silences. The worst version is a stag weekend for people who read half a Wikipedia page on brutalism and now feel unusually qualified to explain memory to locals.

Yerevan deserves better than that. So does Armenia.

Because Soviet history is only one layer here, and not even the oldest, deepest or most painful. Armenia was the first state to adopt Christianity as its official religion, and the country’s churches and monasteries are not decorative background for a drone shot, but part of a continuous national and spiritual story. The Armenian Genocide is not a historical footnote to be nodded at politely between coffee and dinner, but a wound that still lives in families, politics and memory. The more recent conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh has left its own marks, visible not only in geopolitics but in art, conversation and public mourning. This is a small country with a very large history, which is precisely why it should not be reduced to a charming Soviet aftertaste with good beer.

And yet, the great relief of Yerevan is that it does not feel trapped inside its past. This is not one of those cities that has been pickled for tourists, stripped of real life, and then sold back to visitors in tasteful portions. Yerevan is very much in motion. The city has the strange and appealing contradiction of a place where ancient religious memory, post-Soviet infrastructure, diaspora energy, tech optimism and café culture all seem to be happening at the same time, sometimes on the same street, occasionally at the same table.

You can move from a church courtyard into a minimalist coffee shop in less time than it takes a Londoner to decide whether the oat milk is ethically aligned with their values. You can see young Armenians speaking about Los Angeles, Amsterdam, Moscow, Paris and Barcelona not as distant fantasies but as parts of a wider Armenian geography, because Armenia’s diaspora is not a demographic detail, it is one of the country’s living engines. You can sit in a café beneath exposed brick and industrial lighting and feel, for one dangerous second, that you are back in east London, until the mountains, the language and the khachapuri-adjacent temptation of the wider region remind you that you are not, mercifully.

This is where Yerevan becomes interesting for a NOMAG reader, because it is exactly the kind of city that will attract the remote-work crowd, the “I’m not a tourist, I’m location-independent” crowd, and the increasingly large group of people who claim to be searching for authenticity while requiring fibre internet, flat whites and a decent place to charge a laptop. Yerevan can provide much of that. It has cafés where people actually work, not just perform productivity. It has prices that are still less absurd than Western Europe’s more exhausted capitals. It has a young, educated, internationally connected population. It has enough visual texture to keep Instagram fed without having to invent a personality crisis every morning.

But let us not perform the usual nomad fantasy, in which a city becomes attractive only once foreigners can rent apartments, open laptops and describe themselves as “part of the local ecosystem” because they have learned the word for thank you and bought a ceramic bowl. Armenia is not waiting to be validated by people who arrive with a MacBook and leave with a thread about hidden gems. Its attractiveness is not a new discovery. It is simply becoming easier to access, which is a very different thing.

The direct London connection matters because flights change psychology. A destination that once required awkward connections or a long transfer from Georgia suddenly becomes plausible for a long weekend, a week, or a longer experiment in living elsewhere. This is how travel maps are redrawn now: not by explorers, but by route planners, low-cost airlines and the algorithmic confidence of people who can book before they fully understand where they are going.

The danger is that Yerevan will be swallowed by the same machine that has already flattened so many places into familiar categories. “Great value.” “Authentic.” “Undiscovered.” “The next big thing.” These words always sound flattering until you remember they are usually the opening notes of a very old song: first come the curious travellers, then the lifestyle press, then the influencers leaning against doors, then the property speculation, then the locals wondering why the city centre suddenly serves brunch in English and costs twice as much.

Yerevan is not there yet, and perhaps it will not go that way. It has too much historical gravity, too much local identity, and too little interest in behaving like a Mediterranean village that has agreed to be rented by the week. But tourism has a talent for making even complicated places look simple. That is its commercial gift and its moral hazard.

What makes Yerevan compelling is precisely that it resists neat packaging. Republic Square can feel grand, ceremonial and almost theatrical, especially at night. The Cascade is part staircase, part monument, part public promenade, part urban gym for people who pretend they were not breathless halfway up. The city’s pink tuff stone gives whole streets a warm, cinematic glow, as if the buildings have been designed to look nostalgic before anything has even happened. The metro has that Soviet dignity of being both functional and slightly dramatic. The markets offer the pleasure of browsing without the polished desperation of places that have been curated to death. And the food, happily, is not designed for people who regard dinner as content.

Then there are the flowers. This may sound like a soft detail, but in Yerevan it is not. Roses are everywhere: outside shops, in kiosks, at airport arrivals, in the hands of people walking at night, in buckets, in windows, on pavements, spilling across the city with a confidence that makes Western florists look emotionally underfunded. Armenia’s flower trade has recently become entangled in politics, with Russian restrictions on Armenian imports adding another layer to the country’s already delicate balancing act between old dependencies and new alignments. Even the roses, in other words, have a geopolitical subplot. Very Armenian. Very inconvenient for anyone hoping for a simple travel piece.

And that is perhaps the point. Yerevan is beautiful, but not easy. Welcoming, but not naïve. Affordable, perhaps, depending on where you come from and how allergic you are to reality, but not cheap in the moral sense of being available for careless consumption. It offers sun, beer houses, jazz clubs, cafés, markets, monasteries within reach, day trips to Garni, Geghard and the Azat Canyon, and enough urban strangeness to make a weekend feel like the beginning of a much longer conversation. But it also asks you to pay attention.

That should not be a deterrent. Quite the opposite. The best cities are not the ones that instantly explain themselves. The best cities make you slightly unsure of your first impression. They make you revise your assumptions. They make you realise that the thing you came to see is only the door, not the room.

So yes, go to Yerevan. Go before every travel supplement discovers the same three angles and declares it “unexpected”. Go for the pink stone and the markets, for the old Soviet shadows and the new Armenian confidence, for the coffee shops and the churches, for the roses and the mountains, for the strange pleasure of a city that feels both ancient and unfinished. Go because it is now easier to reach, but try not to confuse accessibility with possession.

And if you must buy the Soviet badge, at least have the decency not to wear it while explaining history to the person selling it.

Remote workers are not the villains of the story. But they have become the most convenient characters in someone else’s business model.

Let us get one thing out of the way before the comment section starts stretching its fingers: this is not an article against digital nomads. That would be both lazy and, in our case, professionally suicidal. NOMAG exists…

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The Wall Street Journal has published one of those articles that will make half of LinkedIn nod solemnly, the other half throw a laptop into the sea, and every self-appointed future-of-work guru quietly rewrite last year’s carousel. The piece, by Owen Tucker-Smith, is titled “Remote Work Stalls Grads’ Job Prospects”, and its ce…

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