If you’re travel obsessed and your days are starting to feel like the first 30 minutes of Office Space, then it’s time to quit and go off the grid. If, however, you’re travel obsessed and working in a stimulating career that you really love, it’s easy to feel torn in two. Allow us to introduce The Nomads Cowork, a community of remote workers exploring South America for 180 days. It’s the perfect cure to all those #tbt semester abroad photos you’ve been posting.
In January 2017 The Nomads Cowork will take a group of 30 digital nomads on a 180 day trip through South America spending six weeks in a major city of four different countries: Peru, Argentina, Brazil and Chile. The Nomads Cowork will secure accommodations, co-working spaces, transportation and lunch five days a week. Stellar Wi-Fi is such a high priority, it’s part of how the program chose their cities.
Most importantly, the Nomads Cowork team is committed to providing personal and professional growth to each participant. The program will include tours from locals and customized networking, social and entertainment activities. If you’re a digital nomad who’s passionate about dance, they’ll schedule lessons in each city. If you want to learn more about how your industry operates in South America, they’ll make it happen.
The program is limited to 30 people so that organizers can get to know each participant individually and get involved in their projects to offer support, feedback and local opportunities. Two full-time team members will travel with the community to curate group discussions, adventures and nights out.
The Nomads Cowork founder is Diego Flores whose bio is a résumé of travel related jobs (including HostelWorld and Groupon) and lengthy backpacking treks.
Friendly and enthusiastic, Flores is immediately recognizable as the backpacker who seems to work at the hostel where you meet him, even if he’s only been there a day. The average traveler is excited to compare travel notes and give you tips for your next stop but Flores is excited to draw you a map and book you a tour.
Hell, he may even go with you — never mind the fact that he’s already been.
“Even people that are already traveling are missing amazing things because they are just doing one touristy thing in each place” proclaims Flores. “I meet people all the time that struggle with where to start when it comes to planning. They don’t have the time to plan, they don’t know where to look. I often find that I am the one organizing trips and tours for people when I’m traveling in South America. There are things they would have never done because they didn’t hear about it.”
Flores and the rest of the Nomads Cowork team — “Communications Rockstar” Lara and “Nomad Talent Acquisition” expert Sole — hope to help remote workers become digital nomads.
“Our main target is people that currently work remotely from their own city” explains Flores who champions the benefits of “location independence” no matter what the industry. Studies have found that remote workers tend to be more engaged in their work and working remotely can make you more efficient, in part because you don’t have a commute time.
The Nomads Cowork isn’t the first program of its kind. Flores modeled the idea on Remote Year which takes a community of 75 nomads to 12 cities over the course of a year. The Nomads Cowork is, however, the only program of its kind run by people who are from the places they’ll be hosting. “We have all lived or traveled to where we are going,” explains Flores, who grew up in Lima. “We are going to be able to give attendees the local experience and make sure they are not paying the “tourist price.”
Flores also believes in the importance of their timeline, “staying in a big city for just one month feels short when you are working every day,” and that six-month timetable is going to go over a lot better with a squeamish boss than packing off for a year.
Flores and his team are also passionate about keeping their program down to 30 participants. Not only to customize the experience for each traveler, but also to cultivate the feeling of community, something Flores feels can be lacking in the nomadic world.
“I would meet people once in a while who were traveling or working remotely but feel lonely even if they are surrounded by people who don’t share the same lifestyle,” he explains. “Thirty people can feel like a family after six months”
The Nomads Cowork is now accepting applications for 2017.
