Nomad List: What Is It and Should You Join The Community?

As more people are working remotely, this also has opened the doors for people to become digital nomads.

If you are fairly new to the term, being a digital nomad just means you travel around the world working and typically just need a laptop and internet to get your work done.

Being a digital nomad isn’t appealing to everyone. But more people have become interested in getting to explore new cities and countries, while still earning an income.

Sounds interesting right?

But where can you get started and how can you learn more? Well, that’s where the platform Nomad List becomes an incredible resource. Below, you’ll learn all about it, how it works, and why you might want to join the community.

What is Nomad List?

Nomad List is a platform and service that helps remote workers find the best places in the world to live, work, and travel. It collects data on everything from the cost of living, climate, safety, fastest internet, and more. But it’s also a community for digital nomads to connect with each other.

And the Nomad List platform has a ton of features that are useful to the remote and digital nomad community. In fact, take a look at the image below of the main menu items.

So many options and interesting things you can explore!

Here are a few Nomad List features:

Climate Finder - Discover countries and cities' temperatures, the best time of year to travel, and more. This is great information for your digital nomad plan. And Nomad List even helps narrow down things like clean air levels, humidity, and more.

Nomad List Meetups - Being a remote worker and digital nomad can be a bit lonely at times, especially if you are a solo traveler. Nomad List includes meetups, to help you make new friends and connect with other digital nomads. The community has connected over 19,000 people in real life at various locations like coffee shops, coworking spaces, dinners, and other events.

Fastest-Growing Cities - Using their own data from members and the community, Nomad List aggregates the fastest-growing places around the world. This can give you an idea of what countries and cities are popular, places declining in popularity, and more.

Best Places to Live in the World - Similarly to the fast-growing locations, Nomad List aggregates their data based on users' votes and feedback to determine the best place to live and work currently. From there, you’ll get everything you need to know about the best place like the cost of living, people and culture, neighborhoods, pollution, and more.

Friend Finder - I thought this was also interesting, just like the meet-ups. But you can connect and browse other members who have similar interests to you and may even be working remotely in the same town. It helps you match with others based on some information and interests you share.

Community Chats - Discord and Slack are two popular channels for community and conversations. Nomad List also offers both of these options, pending your preference of community platform. But there are tons of open discussions and ways to connect with others in their digital nomad chat communities, considering there are thousands of folks in each one.

Fastest Internet - Being a digital nomad will require good internet to get your work done, among other things. The Nomad List platform monitors and collects the average internet speed of cities around the world and reports back on the averages. This is updated often but can give you good insights as to what to expect if you were to travel and work from particular cities.

What Are the Benefits of Joining Nomad List?

As you saw from the features above, there is lots of useful information and data to make your experience as a digital nomad better. It can be challenging to know where to travel and what it’s like in particular locations. Plus, it can also be isolating at times.

Nomad List solves this by giving all digital nomads a hub to connect, learn, and meet up.

It’s cool to be able to learn from others and ask questions about getting visas or permits to work in certain countries, especially if you are brand new to the digital nomad lifestyle.

The benefits of using Nomad List include:

• Accessible information from real people working and traveling
• Detailed information about various countries and cities
• Join community conversations to expand your remote work knowledge
• Meet new and interesting people with similar interests
• Numerous data and stats to help you make informed travel choices

How Much Does Nomad List Cost?

Much of Nomad List is free to browse around and find information. This is great if you are just starting to explore being a digital nomad. If you decide to take advantage of the community further, it will cost a one-time membership of $99. This gives you lifetime access to everything Nomad List has to offer.

Most of the fee goes to accessing other remote workers, the Slack or Discord communities, ability to post and engage on their forum, and connecting with other like-minded digital nomads.

Who Owns Nomad List?

Nomad List was built and is operated by Pieter Levels, who also created other popular websites that include RemoteOk, HoodMaps, Rebase, Arline List, and more. He is a solopreneur and is also a digital nomad, working in various places around the world.

I’d also consider him one of the dominant voices in remote work. He foreshadowed that remote work and being a digital nomad would continue to grow and become popular.

For example, he started the remote work job board RemoteOk and Nomad List back in 2014, before being a remote worker was super trendy.

It’s why we’ve also added him to our Top 50 Remote Work Experts and Leaders list, as he is a big proponent of working remotely. He has influenced the space tremendously over the years and continues to do so.

Who Should Use Nomad List?

According to Nomad List’s FAQ, in the last year, 6,000,000+ people have used Nomad List to find 1,355 cities in 190+ countries to live and work. That’s insanely impressive and a lot of people are interested in the digital nomad world.

If you are a remote worker, digital nomad, or thinking about becoming either, then Nomad List can be an amazing resource and community for you.

Since there is plenty of information accessible for free, it can give you a good idea if it’s worth paying for the additional services and features.

The good news is that you only have to pay one fee for lifetime access.  And what’s great, is you can cancel your membership and get a refund if you are not satisfied with the community. I always appreciate this as it shows that the founder believes in the product and value.

Is Nomad List Worth It?

From a free perspective, it’s absolutely worth visiting Nomad List and exploring the resources. But the real question is if it’s worth paying to join the community. My answer would be yes, especially if being a digital nomad is interesting to you.

A one-time fee of $99 gets you lifetime access to everything Nomad List has to offer. This includes the items you cannot access for free like the chat communities, finding friends, etc. And if you are not satisfied, you can always get a refund. 

There is very low risk and cost to you, which is why Nomad List is so popular (besides the great value you’ll receive!). 

However, if you’re mostly looking to get cost of living, stats, and climate data, then it probably won’t be necessary to pay for a membership. 

Looking for more remote work and digital nomad resources? Beyond visiting AI Jobs, you can take a look at Remote Year, Coworker, remote work subreddits, and remote work Slack communities.