Nomad Stays — Accommodation for digital nomads & remote workers

Thanks Maria. Yes, Madeira was awesome. It was our first visit there and we didn't have any preconceived ideas about the place so it was a lovely surprise to discover such a pleasant and positive business community.

This year the Madeira Startup Retreat focused a lot on the travel industry and the digital nomad opportunity in particular. The island has done spectacularly well in this new market and are keen to see it develop even further. We were privileged to be part of this program.

Apart from the wonderful hospitality they showed us from the very highest levels of government to every single person assisting on the program we were very impressed with the depth of understanding of the travel industry and the high quality of mentors.

If anyone gets the opportunity to apply for future Madeira Startup Retreats I can strongly recommend it.

Yes, definitely something I would recommend it, I second that! A great experience and brilliant to connect with some great travel tech startups.

Well Ian - talk about a journey since we met in Bansko 2 years ago!

We opened with bookings and great response from day 1 - but then covid obviously turned the world upside down the following month. Long haul travel came to a screaming halt so getting ready for a difficult journey was our first major challenge since opening. Luckily we're bootstrapped so could adjust our expenditure to match our income unlike a number of other industry players.

It was a clear challenge to get investors interested during the never ending disruptions to the travel industry. We're only now seeing investors come out of their funk and start getting back into early stage travel.

We actually had some growth challenges during covid. We've now had 7 quarters of 40%+ membership growth in a row. For a while there we were getting so many applications from Stays around the world, all obviously hurting from covid restrictions, that we found it hard to review and respond in a timely manner as well as improve our onboarding systems at the same time.

I guess our biggest challenge was all about juggling everything about a running a bootstrapped tech startup, from a foreign country, as a global pandemic shuts down the industry (we got stranded in France 2 hours after we arrived, and we don't speak French either BTW.)

No single item stands out as more challenging than others - its just the volume of adjustments needed in fast changing times that causes the stress. I feel for industry teams and owners that became less focused, are less technological or got stranded with obsolete products and limited funds to adjust.

In terms of surprises I don't think anyone could ever have imagined the digital nomad market would take off so strongly, and the travel industry respond, so much.

Without the pandemic there would probably have been some continued natural growth of the market but now, almost post-pandemic, we have seen a huge change of lifestyle and work methods around the world that align strongly with the travelling remote worker, digital nomad lifestyle. All in all expecting to bring huge volumes of working travellers to explore more of the world.

Who would have foreseen some 30+ countries could create a digital nomad visa and new marketing campaigns to attract the working traveller. We've seen whole regions like Madeira Island create almost a whole new, profitable, travel industry within 1 year, bringing millions of travel money into the region.

Even within this nomad sector we're already seeing sub-niches develop. At Nomad Stays we're tracking 18 different sub-niches of digital nomad. All slightly different from the next with their own desires and travel preferences.

At the same time the travel industry has redesigned their products to become appealing to this digital nomad market.

Hostels became covling spaces. Large computer monitors, and ergonomic standup desks are being provided by hotels for large numbers of a new type of guest. Coworking spaces have popped up in resorts and apart-hotels. Even guests houses are now running business networking events to put working visitors in touch with their local business community. It is certainly a vibrant time even while international traveller numbers build slowly and airlines rebuild capacity and routes.

All in all I have been pleasantly surprised to see the travel industry grab the new world and run hard at the opportunities.

Hi Mark,

It looks like a great platform you guys have created, and a pretty awesome journey your team has been on - I'm sure challenging at times.

You mentioned above 30+ countries have a digital nomad visa now - is there a resource centre you would recommend to find out more information about this? I looked on your website to see if you hosted this info but could not see it (maybe also an opportunity - an example, I've never heard about the Rhone Alps but landing on that page makes me want to work there www.nomadstays.co/location/Rhone-Alps - as a kiwi maybe I need a visa to do so, does france have a digital nomad visa)

For clarity - I am moving onto a LT40 camper next year to live and work from, so this space interests me but I am not actually looking at the stays in Rhone Alps, the above is just me thinking out loud (is it a think to say "typing out loud"?)

Again, platform looks awesome!
Regards, Jake.

Hi Jake. Thank you.

As a Kiwi you've got some awesome opportunities to stay in Europe virtually forever. NZ has about 17 bilateral visas that supersede the Schengen Visa making it easier for you than most other countries (including us Aussies).

France doesn't have a digital nomad visa but they do have a 4 year French Tech Visa (we have these actually and also live in the Rhone-Alps). The French Tech Visa is easy on paper but we found lots of problems (took 18 months not 2) so suggest you use a French Immigration specialist.

BTW - we have an Advanced Visa Tracker app going into beta testing soon which you may want to be part of.

Hey Jake! Just jumping in to share this resource of digital nomad visas accessible around the world:

Digital Nomad Visas (18 upvotes)

Also, App in the Air just created a tool to help remote workers find suitable programs internationally

Remotely by App in the Air (9 upvotes)

Amazing, thanks for the links Mark and Maria - almost given me too many possibilities

Thanks Renat, great to see you here!

Thanks Andrew. I wish you all the best in business too. But I guess we might be talking about that soon on your podcast :)