Nomad Resources/Madeira Experiment/Where NOT to Go in 2023
Nomadico issue #32
A weekly newsletter with four quick bites, edited by Tim Leffel, author of A Better Life for Half the Price and The World’s Cheapest Destinations.
Nomad Resources in One Place
When people ask us for a resource about this aspect or that for being a successful location-independent earner, we just send them to this page from my old friend Jodi Ettenberg. She is one of the original nomadic travel bloggers and it would be hard for anyone to top this thorough article: Resources for Digital Nomads and Remote Workers.
2022 Data and Cashless Transactions
Every year the Pew Research Group releases its “striking findings” from the past year and at least one of them will probably surprise you. Apparently, 41% of Americans said this year that none of their purchases in a typical week were in cash, a huge increase. Are you getting free travel out of all those electronic expenditures? I like the Chase United Explorer card because it gets you a free checked bag on all flights (not just domestic ones like AA and Delta) and two free lounge passes per year upon renewal, easily negating the Year Two onward $95 annual fee.
The Madeira Digital Nomad Experiment
One annoying media deficiency that will probably never go away is the lack of follow-up stories that answer the question, “So then what happened?” Wired rectified this recently with an in-depth story about what transpired after the Portuguese island of Madeira tried to set up a village for remote workers in a town with a population of 4,300 in early 2021. The story is still in progress, but this hits a lot of the inherent struggles of trying to introduce a deluge of newcomers to a local established community, including housing and communication.
Where NOT to Go in 2023
This time of year, every big travel pub is trying to tell you where you must go in the next 12 months. Kudos to Fodor’s for being one of the few mainstream travel publications willing to be a necessary buzzkill amidst all the hype. In their 2023 No List they’ve highlighted a few spots we might want to give a rest: Lake Tahoe, parched parts of the American West, Amsterdam, the Amalfi Coast, and Ko Phi Phi for a start. And is there a really good reason besides bragging rights that you need to visit that narrow little icy peninsula that qualifies as Antarctica?
