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Remote Year Review
Hey everyone, please see a detailed post below about my experience and review of the Remote Year (RY) platform for digital nomads.
This information should be helpful for anyone thinking about joining Remote Year in 2020 and beyond.
This is a post I’ve wanted to write for a while, and I’ve also discussed reviewing the program on the FIRE Drill Podcast I was featured on.
I joined a 4-month Remote Year program in August 2019 and traveled throughout Latin America, living in Santiago, Chile, Lima, Peru, Medellin, Colombia, and finishing in Mexico City, Mexico.
It took me a while to process my experience, and I wanted to provide a somewhat objective interpretation of my experience, so that’s why I waited to write this until a few months after my program ended. Even though my Remote Year program has ended, my involvement with the community definitely has not, as you’ll see below, when I discuss the many ongoing Citizen or Alumni benefits of the program.
(TLDR)- If you want the short version here, it is.
I would Highly Recommend Remote Year, the program is awesome, and is an excellent investment for anyone currently living the digital nomad lifestyle or is interested in trying it out!
If you want more details as to how I determined this, keep reading below!
What is Remote Year?
Remote Year is a work and travel program. You pay Remote Year a set monthly fee in exchange for- accommodations in a city (private bedroom), access to a 24/7 coworking space, flights between RY cities (You have to get yourself to the starting city and “home” after the final city) and access the RY Marketplace a platform for booking local experiences and side trips. Those are the main things where its easy to quantify the value.
However, RY also offers other incredible things where the value may be harder to quantify.
Namely the community.
You are living, working, and traveling with a group of ~20-50 people. It’s hard to put a dollar amount on the power of community, but I found Remote Year an incredible value for the money in regards to this aspect, which I’ll speak in more detail below.
Who is Remote Year for?
Remote Year is for digital nomads. Whether that means you are a remote professional, freelancer, or online entrepreneur.
Even if your current position isn’t remote, Remote Year has a team of people to help facilitate a conversation with your employer to educate them about the benefits of remote working and what the Remote Year program can offer.
How was my experience on Remote Year?
Overall I had an incredible experience during my 4-month Remote Year program.
I also continue to be actively involved with the RY community as a “Citizen,” basically an alumni of the Remote Year Program, anyone who has completed at least a 4-month travel program with RY.
I started my Remote Year journey in August 2019 in Santiago, Chile.
The program started out with a lot of excitement meeting everyone in the group and getting in the groove of working online. I went on a side trip to Valparaiso on the coast to check out some beautiful street art, went snowboarding in the Andes at La Parva Ski resort, and tasted some delicious wine in the Casablanca region.
I spent September in Lima, Peru.
And although the weather was brutal at that time of the year in Lima, I still had a blast. I enjoyed running along the beautiful cliffs of the Miraflores neighborhood with incredible ocean views. I visited Hauacachina Oasis and did some sandboarding and had a fantastic trip to the Cusco area, checking out Machu Picchu with my dad, who came down as well as fellow RY peeps.
October was spent in Medellin, Colombia
But first, a group of about ten of us made a side trip to Cartagena, Colombia, on the coast and spent a fun night at Casa En LA Agua.
I loved Medellin and can’t wait to go back there- perfect weather, delicious healthy food, and pretty cheap cost of living. I also celebrated a birthday while in Colombia and rented a Finca “country house” with most of my Remote Year group, which was amazing and a birthday that I won’t forget for the rest of my life.
RY ended for me in November in Mexico City
But, not before another adventure-packed month of celebrating Dia De Los Muertos, hot air balloons over the Teotihuacan pyramids, a final farewell trip to Las Estacas Natural River, Thanksgiving with many friends, and a taco and tequila bar crawl!
Then I made a small side trip to Cancun to check out some Cenotes and Isla Mujeres before returning to the US to spend the holidays with family.
I did all these things while traveling with a group of 28 people and becoming life-long friends with people along the way. I packed so many experiences and so much life into 4-months it’s honestly incredible looking back. Remote Year was a fantastic experience that I’ll remember for the rest of my life.
Positives of Remote Year
Community
Let me start with the #1 positive of Remote Year, in my opinion, and the main reason why you would want to join.
The community!
Remote Year does an absolutely tremendous job of fostering an accepting and supportive community of fellow travelers. I’ll cover a few specific community aspects below.
Friends on the Program
Most Remote Year programs currently are somewhere around ~20-30 people. The people you are traveling with while on a Remote Year program are probably the ones you’ll be closest to. I made some lifelong friends just getting to know people over only 4-months, I can’t imagine how strong the bonds would be on a year-long program. You are spending so much time with the people you are traveling with as you are living, working, and traveling together the entire time.
Besides seeing awesome places, eating delicious food, and generally enjoying spending time with people on the program, the community of people on my program was also incredibly supportive and helpful.
As I transitioned to an entirely new venture, they provided me with advice and words of wisdom.
A few examples off the top of my head- I sat down with a friend to learn keyword planning, a graphic designer friend in my group designed the logo for this blog and podcast, and people shared their knowledge on a variety of topics. Many people were very supportive and wanted to be interviewed for The Nomad on FIRE Podcast !
I genuinely believe RY is one of the best ways to form deep connections as a digital nomad.
No need to worry about meeting people that are headed to another destination in a week or so, you’re with the same group of people the entire time. Just the sheer amount of time you spend with people really allow those relationships to develop and grow.
Remote Year Staff and City Teams, plus experiences you can’t get anywhere else
Another fantastic community benefit of joining a RY program is the staff that they have.
Each RY group has a Program Leader (PL), which facilitates group activities, fosters the community, and generally makes sure everything is going well for all people in the group. I have met a few different RY program leaders during my travels, and all of them are generally pretty awesome people to be around! But, I’ll always have a special place in my heart for Juli, our RY Abeona PL.
In addition to each group having a PL, each RY city you visit has two city team members.
City Team members are usually local to the city.
First, there’s an Operations Manager- generally responsible for transportations to and from the airport, ensuring all of the accommodations are in order and have everything you need for your time in the city, among other things.
There is also an Experience Manager who is basically responsible for all of the fun things to do in that city. Both of these team members working together in each city really help to facilitate a great experience. Ensuring everything is set with your accommodations, giving a brief history of local culture and customs, and answering any and all questions to ensure you’re enjoying their city.
I truly enjoyed getting to know the RY city team members in each city and have so many fun memories with them. They also set up various activities in each of the cities so you can experience the best the cities have to offer!
My favorite activities were always the ones you can’t find anywhere else, not on Airbnb Experiences or TripAdvisor. There were many activities where RY staff family members invited us into their homes to cook a local meal. Those types of experiences are incredible, and you wouldn’t be able to find them outside of RY.
Slack Community
Another fantastic advantage of joining the Remote Year program is access to the “Remote Year Nation” as they call it through the Remote Year Slack channel along with ongoing RY alumni or “Citizen” benefits as they’re called.
While you’re on RY and then continuing after your program ends (for free as of now), you get access to a Slack community with access to all RY staff and ANYONE that has ever gone through the program (2500+ people and growing).
This is incredibly valuable.
Whether it’s networking for business opportunities or just asking about the WIFI in various travel destinations, this network of people is very active on Slack and incredibly supportive. Having a network of people across the world with the RY experience in common is a great way to meet cool people while traveling the world.
Citizen Benefits
Another community benefit is ongoing citizen benefits.
Besides continual access to Slack and RY resources, they also have a variety of offerings specific to Citizens. There are Citizen Houses open only to RY Citizens, which are essential a co-living/co-working setup where they rent a huge house, and people can come to stay for weeks or the entire month. I haven’t personally done a citizen house yet, but it sounds incredible!
Citizens can also choose RY offerings al la carte in any RY city.
So, for example, last month in Chiang Mai, Thailand, we purchased a Work+ Connect package, which gives us access to the Remote Year coworking space and access to various activities with the current RY group in this city!
This is something I plan to use continually. Kelsey and I will probably do a Work + Connect package again in April of this year when we visit Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Again, I think this is a fantastic benefit giving you access to RY resources and an instant community of like-minded travelers anywhere you go!
Personal Development
The personal development opportunities available on RY go along with all of the community benefits above. I can’t emphasize how powerful it is to be surrounded by a supportive community of like-minded individuals.
As stated in James Clear’s excellent book “Atomic Habits”
“One of the most effective things you can do to build better habits is to join a culture where your desired behavior is the normal behavior. New Habits seem achievable when you see others doing them every day. If you’re surrounded by fit people, you’re more likely to consider working out to be a common habit.”
Learning from others in your industry or from different backgrounds is great, and I took full advantage of this opportunity while on my RY program.
My group had a weekly entrepreneur meet up to share ideas and best practices, people did various presentations on topics they were experts in, and overall people were just very willing to help out and collaborate on projects.
I led a Personal Finance knowledge drop for my group and was able to interview many fellow RY Abeonas for The Nomad on FIRE Podcast!
Logistics
This benefit is pretty self-explanatory.
Having all travel logistics taken care of for you is fantastic. Not having to worry about flights, finding accommodations, or a workspace removes a lot of planning and mental energy as a digital nomad and allows you to focus more on getting work done or having fun and exploring your new home!
Marketplace
Remote Year has an excellent Marketplace where you can book local activities as well as side trips through their platform.
This is another great benefit as you don’t have to worry about the safety or reputation of the tour company you’re using as they’ve already been vetted through RY. RY also ensures that they’re using sustainable partners to ensure minimal impact on the environment and fair compensation for the tour operators.
Downsides of Traveling with Remote Year
Cost and Traveling as a Couple
At the time of this writing, Remote Year has a deposit of between $3500-$5500 USD (dependent on program length) and then costs $2,000 per month, plus whatever you spend on food and additional travel activities.
Now could you live the digital nomad lifestyle cheaper than this?
Absolutely, but with the many benefits discussed above, I found incredible value at this price point and don’t regret joining Remote Year in the slightest.
My only issue with costs comes down to my experience traveling with my girlfriend as a couple.
Now let me be clear there is a “couple” discount on RY, $1600 per month per person as of the time of this writing, $3,200 total for two people per month. However, I just don’t believe this is enough of a discount for what you receive as a couple.
Most of my issues with the couple cost topic revolve around housing. Sometimes RY does provide an individual/couple with an entire place to themselves, but mostly the accommodations are larger apartments shared with roommates (EX- 3bed/2bath APT in the city center).
So this equates to $3,200 per room for a couple vs. $2,000 per room for an individual.
On my program, one month, my girlfriend and I did have our own 1-bedroom apartment, but the other months we shared an apartment with roommates.
Remote Year also doesn’t assign specific rooms in the accommodations. This was not an issue since all of our roommates were amazing people and gave us the biggest room and/or the one with an attached bathroom, but I would like to see a slight preference for couples in Remote Year room assignments.
The $3,200 per month is very steep as many couples living the digital nomad lifestyle want to take advantage of the low-cost opportunities of Geoarbitrage. Most of the time, couples can easily find a 1-bedroom apartment in the city center of many places on Airbnb for much less than $1,000 total per month.
I’m still incredibly grateful for being able to share this experience with my partner, and Remote Year made our transition to the digital nomad lifestyle much more seamless and continues to provide a fantastic community of like-minded people.
However, I would like to see Remote Year address some of the concerns listed above for future couples that join the program.
Distractions, FOMO and a Prioritization on Fun
Again, this is just my personal experience. You may be much more disciplined and less likely to give in to peer pressure than me.
Remote Year was a massive transition for me where I went through many changes and struggled with my identity of shifting from a high paying W2 job to becoming a digital nomad entrepreneur so that definitely played into my experience here.
At times I struggled with getting into a good, low-cost, productive, healthy routine vs. partying, spending more money than usual on meals at restaurants and travel experiences.
Most of the time, having FUN won out in my internal struggle.
With so many activities going on and being surrounded by fun and adventurous people, its difficult not to feel FOMO- Fear Of Missing Out or peer pressure to go out with friends or spend additional money on side trips or experiences.
All of that being said, I had an absolute blast during my 4-month RY experience and have zero regrets about my decisions.
Now there are two sides to this coin, as I discussed above in the positives.
Sometimes I felt more motivated and productive by being inspired and supported by like-minded people. It’s much easier to go to a gym you’ve never been to if you go with a friend (especially if their Spanish is better than yours) or you’re more motivated to put in a few extra hours working when you see your friends doing the same for example.
I simply want to convey that if you are starting a new venture or are going through a hectic time at work, you may experience plenty of FOMO and have similar struggles with saving money, eating healthy, and exercising consistently. However, again this is just my personal experience, YMMV.
Group-Specific Recommendations for Remote Year
Here are my thoughts on Remote Year as a platform for specific groups of people.
Financial Independence Retire Early (FIRE)
If you have achieved or are pursuing Financial Independence (FI), you may shy away from Remote Year due to the price point. But, as hopefully, I articulated above, I think there is incredible value in joining RY at the $2K per month price point. Especially if you’re interested in or wanting to try out the DN lifestyle, than RY is the perfect place to start, in my opinion.
Digital Nomads
Similar to FIRE above. If you’re beginning your digital nomad journey and want to start with an awesome community of like-minded travelers as I did, then start with RY. If you have been living the DN lifestyle and find it challenging to form meaningful relationships, then check out RY. The people you meet on your program and ongoing citizen network will absolutely help you connect with people and build long-term, meaningful relationships.
Couples
It was an incredible overall experience, and I’m grateful to be able to share it with my partner, but if the cost is a significant concern, you may want to pass.
Other Great Resources
- Aaron Radcliffe of Nomads Nation interviewed 7 Remote Year Citizens and asked them about their experience, check it out here
- Women Digital Nomads has another great Remote Year Review Post interviewing past participants, check it out here
Conclusion
If you read the entire article, thank you!
I hope you enjoyed my Remote Year review. And, I hope I answered any questions you might have had on Remote Year as a platform.
If you have any additional questions, please reach out to me via my contact page.
If you’re convinced to join RY, you will have a fantastic experience!
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