Hi everybody!
Go figure! I'm late to my first
scheduled livestream. This is actually the first one that I've put a time on and I'm late.
But if you have a good excuse and it's because I was hanging out with digital nomads friends here in
Sofia, Bulgaria.
So that's what we're gonna talk about today. How to meet people and how to make friends as a digital nomad while you're
traveling around the world, working from your laptop and
well by coincidence, that's what this channel is about.
I'm Kristin and you're watching Traveling with Kristin where I show you behind the scenes in the digital nomad lifestyle and
help teach you how to
work and travel all around the world working from your laptop.
So, I don't know if anyone's here today. Hello. Is anyone here yet?
Saturday, um
Well, just get right into it. This is day number 12 of
90 live streams in a row.
So a lot of 90 chances to teach you something new about the
location-independent digital nomad lifestyle. And
so yeah, let's just let's just talk about meeting people. Sorry. There's a light right here. Come on scoot over. Um,
Block that hope that's not distracting. This is not optimum lighting. I wish I had one this way, but it's just an Airbnb so a
$17 a night Airbnb. I might add which I will
link the other video to for the Airbnb tour. But yeah, so let's talk about this.
One of the questions that I get most frequently
in my Facebook Group, Long Term Digital Nomad Success,
in my workshops and my talks at digital Nomad conferences and events is
how to
meet people, how to find your tribe, how to become a part of a community.
So something that is quite intimidating for people because
like
when you're in your comfort zone
in the place that where you grew up or were you into school or where you go to work
you already have a network of people. But when you take all of that away,
when you take away your friends and your family that you've had your whole life,
your workplace and
your home country then what do you do?
So I have put together a few tips of how I've met a lot of digital nomads
and hopefully it can help you guys too. So full disclosure.
Even though I've been a digital nomad or an expat or
location-independent or a self-employed in some way shape or form
since
2005, I
only learned the term digital nomad in 2013 and it wasn't until probably
this last year,
2018, that I actually met other digital nomads. So it is possible to even
go for many years
working and traveling all around the world without
identifying as a digital nomad or without making digital nomad friends. That being said
because I
identified so strongly with this group of people.
I made it a priority and a goal in
2018 to me as many digital nomads as possible and guys, I think I've met
thousands of them in one year. How did they do it? I will teach you. So
there's three main ways that I have found. Our most effective for meeting other digital nomads,
first and foremost would definitely have to be conferences and events.
There are tons of digital Nomad events these days. I mean in 2019. I was looking at the list. I think I found
15 or 20 different conferences just that are announced in January. So there's probably going to be more coming throughout the year
the way that I did it. in 2018 was
attending two separate Nomad cruises and then going to additional
conferences and events and a few other things that are going to talk about in a second.
But there are
like a some pretty famous,
well-known
conferences and events are a Nomad Summit which I also attended in spoke at in 2018.
I gave a talk and a workshop there on how to create your digital Nomad
Relocation plan and how to sustain the digital Nomad lifestyle long term. We're talking 8, 10, 15, 20 years.
I'll link those videos as well.
But between the Nomad Summit and the 2 Nomad Cruises there were over a thousand digital nomads
or aspiring digital nomads in attendance and the main difference and the reason why I
think that digital Nomad conferences are a bit different from regular business or marketing
conferences is that the people who are going there are not just going to network for business purposes.
They're going to network for life purposes,
so you can connect with people from all over the world who are like-minded people. And
also, they want to make friends ,they want to make
long-term
lifelong friends as well. So that's something cool about the remote work
lifestyle is that so many people are in the same boat.
They all want to find their community, but they also want to work and create things and be productive. So when you're put into that
situation in that environment,
you can end up meeting a lot of people
really quickly and bonding on a level that is unlike anything I've ever experienced before.
Even at Nomad Summit which was just a weekend event in Las Vegas.
And I know that they're having the one in Chiangmai coming up very soon.
I think there were like two or three hundred digital nomads there and we just hang out for a good. I
think in total, I was there for about five days, even though the event only lasted two day. There were plenty of
smaller events before and after the conference so I really
just hang out with the same couple, hundred people every day for five days.
And now
I've already seen some of them and in a different country. Just a couple months later and they've just really become fast friends.
I hired my new accountant this way so it's like mixing business and pleasure and I even have
planned future trips with some of the people who I've met on that conference and as well as the Nomad cruise when you take
500 aspiring digital nomads and put them all together on one boat for two weeks.
You go deep really quickly. So when you're not in
talks or workshops or
unofficial meetups, you're
going to meals with different people, you're working out with them.
You're drinking wine with them or whatever pina coladas and it's a really interesting.
They call it a social
experiment basically
because I don't know, we don't know if there's another event where you take that many people,
put them on a cruise ship together and create like a business mastermind around it.
So these are two really great ways to meet other digital nomads. And I am
completely 100%
convinced that if you go to even just one digital nomad conference in a year,
you will meet some lifelong friends at least a handful of them.
But more likely than not, you'll meet more people than you can even
develop those
friendships with because you'll just
so my second way of meeting people in addition to conferences and events is through Cola Inc.
So not necessarily co-working on its own
although that is also a way of meeting people depending on the co-working space like you're going to meet a lot of
digital nomads in a small intimate co-working space that has a lot of regular activities somewhere like
Co-working Bansko. For example in the mountains of Bulgaria, you're going to need a lot more
digital nomads in an environment like that
where they're having barbecues and game nights and going to the hot springs and things like that
versus if you go to a we work in New York City or London or Amsterdam
where you have people divided into different floors and some of them are nomadic. Some of them are entrepreneurs.
Some of them are just working with regular local companies. It's a lot harder to
make friends in that environment where even though there's a lot of people.
And I've even worked in we works that have 24 floors of
startups and entrepreneurs but everyone's quite segregated in a traditional office environment.
So it's a lot harder to meet people compared to in a smaller more
casual environment of a
local co-working space for example.
But that's why I like co-living as a way of meeting people. I
started the year
in February, actually, I moved to Rome and Tokyo. Rome is a co living
organization that has locations around the world. And
Tokyo is one of their flagship locations, I would say and it's a few different floors of
short and long-term
apartments for digital nomads,
travelers,
local expats or even local locals,
startups. It has like an incubator,
sort of vibe going there and
I met a lot of people from Japan. A
lot of people from all over the world living there for about six weeks and
it was a nice blend between co-working and
just living. So that's what Co-living is. It's basically providing a residential living space
and also a work space as well.
So there are a lot of regular not a lot but there are starting to be more and more
regular residential,
condo developments or apartment complexes that are
integrating a co-working element into them
which is great news
because I think that the co living concept will really disrupt this entire industry in the future and you can read more about that
in a few blogs that I've written that I'll link in the...
But um
Cola is a place that are is a way that I have been able to make really
deep friendships and a lot of the people who I met in February and March in Tokyo.
I have actually hang out with on the Nomad Cruise later in the year or I met up with them in Amsterdam or
another place around the world.
So this is all you guys all of this happen like meeting over a thousand digital nomads in just one year or less than one
year
between
February and
November.
Really and the third way that you can make a meet people is virtually, right?
So there are a ton of online communities. I actually have one myself.
I have a Facebook Group called Long-Term Digital Nomad Success, and I've already met up with
people who are in the group who I met online on Facebook and then we've connected and I've gotten to meet them in real life
and even a lot of retreats and different like
in real life events can come out of these virtual events.
So there are a lot of Facebook groups for digital nomads where you can connect with other digital nomads traveling around the world,
as well as
non digital Nomad groups. So
meetup is a really good way to just meet people who are living in the same area. even if you're just traveling through.
Internation is a nice website for
it's intended for expats and they have a lot of
local events with an international mix of people.
Let's see, there are also a ton of other websites that are and forums that are dedicated just to digital nomads.
Nomads List comes to mind,
Be Nomad is another one and now there's also digital Nomad
Community which I believe is connected in some way to the founders of TMX
where they're trying to create basically a block chain community of digital nomads.
So I actually wrote a blog on, I think it's 13 different online communities for digital nomads.
And there's more and more every year. So I will link to that one in the description below. But if you are
working remotely,
working from home feeling lonely because you don't have that typical
co-worker
interaction on a day to day basis. I would say that the most impactful thing
that I have done in the past year is attending digital Nomad conferences and events.
And then, it's I mean, it's really hard.
These are my top three, right but a close second would be a tie between Co-Living and
the reach that you can have in online digital Nomad communities. But it's really, I
think from
modern day, like looking into the future. I think that we're really looking at a hybrid model of
interaction where it's not all asynchronous. For example,
like you need that face-to-face connection with people and this is becoming a pattern of digital nomads meeting
offline but staying in touch online.
So those are my tips for you guys on how to meet people
and make new friends as a digital nomad and you really never know. What's going to come out of these relationships could be
professional could be personal could be friendship could be romantic and even here in Sofia Bulgaria. I
just had dinner with a digital Nomad friend and his girlfriend
who I met at co-working Bansko last summer. We stayed in touch
online.
This is a really good example actually, so this is my friend John.
We became just friends, platonic friends.
Then I hired him to build a new website for me.
And then we remained friends online and now I'm house-sitting for him while he's away in the Canary Islands.
So these are the kind of multi-dimensional, very dynamic
friendships and connections that you can make with people all around the world. And even if you don't see them
on a regular basis or even on the yearly basis you can still stay in touch online. No worries. Everybody's on the same page there.
We all live in the digital world as well and you never know. It's going to come out of these friendships.
It's usually a mutually beneficial
win-win, very enjoyable and fun
relationship that you can make so.
Let me know if you guys have any questions on this video. And if you're interested in the digital nomad location-independent
remote work lifestyle, make sure to subscribe
because I'm doing 90 days of live streams on different travel and digital nomad related topics. And
you can tune in to my weekly show, Digital Nomad TV, which includes interviews with successful
entrepreneurs and digital nomads travel videos and vlogs from my normal life all around the world.
Thanks for watching and I will see you tomorrow or on another episode of Digital Nomad TV. Bye from Bulgaria!