We Are NOMAG (Not a Digital Nomad Magazine)

And we mean that quite literally

There’s a strange pressure online to become something recognisable. A magazine. A blog. A platform. A brand with a tone of voice handbook and a content calendar that behaves better than its founders. We tried, briefly, to understand where we fit.

It didn’t work.

NOMAG stands for Not a (Digital Nomad) Magazine. Not a magazine, first of all. But also—not a digital nomad magazine. Still we love magazines and who knows… maybe tomorrow… Which might sound like splitting hairs, until you realise how quickly that label turns into a genre, and how quickly a genre turns into a formula. Top 10 cities. Best visas. Cheapest coffee with the fastest Wi-Fi. A world flattened into bullet points and affiliate links.

We’re not that.

But - just to be clear - we’re also not here pretending to be above it.

We’re genuinely glad someone out there is doing the guides. The “how to become a digital nomad in 30 days.” The breakdowns of where to go, what visa to apply for, which eSIM works best, which co-working space has the fastest Wi-Fi and the least pretentious chairs. We use that stuff too. Of course we do. Why on earth would we reinvent the wheel when someone else is happily spinning it for us?

What we don’t do is build our identity around it.

We’re also not a blog - whatever that word is supposed to mean anymore. We don’t publish with discipline, we don’t chase keywords like they owe us money, and we don’t pretend to have answers for people who are clearly asking the wrong questions.

Yes, we are a newsletter. Technically ‘The Nomag Pulse’ is. But punctuality has never been part of the deal. We show up when something feels worth saying, not when a schedule tells us to exist. Sometimes we disappear. Sometimes we overload your inbox. Sometimes we contradict ourselves. All of it is intentional in the only way that matters: it’s honest.

We’re here and there. Mostly there. Occasionally here. Very rarely where you expect us to be.

And somehow, this chaos has a following.

Across Substack (#10 travel newsletter worldwide), LinkedIn and Instagram, we’re close to 100,000 people. Not followers in the abstract sense, but people who showed up, read something, and didn’t immediately leave. Two years ago, we were still figuring out how to connect to Wi-Fi without turning it into a small existential crisis. Now, Google describes NOMAG (The Nomag Pulse) as a “Leading platform. A lifestyle and culture project. Community-centric.”

We didn’t write that. We’re not even sure we fully agree with it. But we’ll take the accidental compliment.

Also - since we’re being honest - if there are commercial partners out there who feel like working with us: we’re here. We’re big enough to matter, small enough to still care, and informal enough to not turn everything into a corporate funeral. We don’t hide behind jargon, we don’t pretend to be something we’re not, and we’re fairly good at telling stories that people actually read.

And yes, for readers, this thing is free. It has always been free. It will probably continue to be free in the way that matters.

There is a paid subscription, though. Or at least, there will be - once it starts making proper sense. Not as a gatekeeping exercise, but as an extension. Maybe access to the places we pass through. Maybe the ability to stay in the homes we scatter around the world. Maybe discounts on co-working spaces, or things that others already offer but we can make slightly more human, slightly less transactional.

We’re still figuring that part out. In public. Like everything else.

Because NOMAG was never built to be efficient. It was built to move.

We don’t have a newsroom in the traditional sense. It exists somewhere between different countries, time zones, and unfinished drafts. We were born remote, not as a statement but as a default. We never really asked where we were based. It felt irrelevant.

What matters is that this thing doesn’t stand still.

And movement, by definition, resists structure. It breaks patterns. It ignores best practices. It shows up late and leaves early. It doesn’t scale nicely, it doesn’t optimise cleanly, and it definitely doesn’t ask for permission.

So no - we’re not a digital nomad magazine. Maybe one day… now we are a funny mess, but one that moves people and ideas.

We’re something less useful.
And, for the same reason, something far more difficult to replace.

Catch us if you can.