

In Bali, one of the earliest and most enduring digital nomad destinations, local politicians have been viewing nomads with an increasingly skeptical eye. In March, just five months after the country launched a digital nomad visa, Portugal curtailed licenses for Airbnbs in an attempt to calm rising housing costs. Some governments are making moves to defend against similar concerns.
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But the income differential between the nomads and the Colombian professional class is immense. Laureles, in Medellín, is a tranquil barrio with a university, clean streets, and middle-class inhabitants. Within these cities, nomads cluster in safe and prosperous neighborhoods. “If you can see a surf break, you’re not getting work done.” “Beaches are bad for nomads,” one remote worker told me.

The nomads I met preferred established, urban destinations with thriving business communities. Of the workers I spoke to at Semilla, most intended to leave Colombia within a month or two. The typical nomad might visit 12 or 13 countries in a year, all the while holding down a corporate job, usually in the tech sector. The list also features less-expensive European cities in Portugal and Romania, as well as Latin American destinations like Mexico City, which share time zones with the U.S. Southeast Asia remains the preferred destination for nomads - on popular website Nomad List, four of the top 10 cities are from the region. Medellín is one of the latest hot spots to join a global nomad circuit that spans tropical latitudes. The Semilla is their oasis.Īs their name suggests, digital nomads move around a lot.

This is the mobile, location-independent lifestyle of the digital nomad. Most of the workers here are employed in the U.S., but relaxed post-pandemic office norms permit them to work from anywhere. Upstairs, in the dedicated office space, an American wearing an Oculus Rift headset attends a meeting in the metaverse. Downstairs, in the coffee shop, a stylish woman with a ring light on her laptop chats with a client thousands of kilometers away. Coders and digital marketers crowd the tables, drinking pour-over coffee and enjoying loaded avocado toast. It looks as if it were picked up in Silicon Valley and dropped into Colombia by a crane. The Semilla cafe and coworking space sits in the heart of the upscale Laureles neighborhood in the city of Medellín.
