One of the most important parts of a digital nomad lifestyle is finding a sense of community. Without people who understand your life setup and choices, it can be a lonely road….and hard to continue.

So I recently sat down with Ash & Rosanna of the Lisbon Digital Nomads Meet Up group to learn more about their process building a community and turning Lisbon into the digital nomad hub that it is today. They share their process & mentality over the past 5 years, as well as how anyone can setup their own digital nomad community in a place they love.

I’m very excited to share this interview -- and hopefully inspire some of you to take steps someday to build your own nomad communities. After all, it’s only thru lasting relationships with likeminded people that we make this lifestyle sustainable and enjoyable for the long term.

Happy reading!

You guys turned Lisbon into a well-known digital nomad hub very intentionally; and I’m curious, how does one go about setting up a digital nomad community?

Rosanna: I started nomading myself about 5 years ago and I’m half Portuguese – so I had not gone to Lisbon for 6 years and I went back for the first time since working remotely and saw a totally different city. It had such a positive vibe, much more opportunity….historically it’s been a country with a lot of economical problems. There was a big start up community. And it’s always been beautiful. I fell in love with the city I knew before all over again and loved the positive vibe.

My Portuguese friends weren’t going to hang out with me everyday and I felt kind of lonely. That’s when I decided to set up the first digital nomad meetup. I was kind of nervous, I didn’t know how many nomads there were. There were maybe 3 cafes you could work at with wifi at the time.

Now it’s obviously exploded. Ash has one of those cafes by the way. There were 2 coworking spaces at the time, now there are 40 or more.

Ash: There’s like 80.

Rosanna: Also those coworking spaces weren’t great at community. I would work there and occasionally meet people. But I wanted to find likeminded people.

The first meet up, I probably waited 4 weeks to put it up so I had time to prepare. I didn’t know what to say to the venue. I didn’t know if we would be 5 people or 20. I’m a marketer myself – so I was just like, how can I reach people and let people know this is happening.

I got in touch with Nomad List – and they were big at the time – and posted it as a meet up which obviously helped a lot. I also put up a poster in those cafes – super old school style. And I tried to get in touch with people to get the word out. First meet up had 50 people show up. We had a few talks from people who were living online….a travel blogger who was making money and living off it, a day trader, and a real estate agent from New York who was doing her work remotely.

It just felt like such a great vibe to have so many people around you with a similar lifestyle. I did it 2 or 3 more times before Ash moved to Lisbon. He reached out to me because he wanted to do meet ups too. Then we were a team of 2.

Ash: I was a nomad for about 6 years before I moved to Lisbon in 2017. I was living in Dubai but then I left to travel. Digital nomad wasn’t really a term back then – I was just a guy with a laptop. But it got really lonely along the way, it’s hard to meet likeminded people.

Most of the people you meet can’t relate. Some are curious and upbeat and others think it sounds awful. So every new place you go to, it’s hard to find people you relate to and have things in common with.

When I got to Lisbon, I knew I needed to make some friends. I looked into organizing meet ups and that’s when I saw Rosanna had done a few events….but after she left Lisbon no one continued to do them. So I reached out to her for ideas and to see about continuing it. She was excited someone else was interested in running them.

I went and checked out some venues. First meet up was like 45 – with barely any promotion. The Lisbon meet up group had like 1000 members – even though there were no events happening. I started doing events once a month. The second meet up was 80 people – and I knew I needed to do more meet ups. So the next month, I did 2 meet ups and there were still 80 people each time. When Rosanna came back we moved to once a week because people couldn’t get enough of it.

Rosanna: That summer it completely blew up. I think it was a combination of word of mouth –and a natural trend in terms of tourism – more people looking at Portugal to visit. Funny enough, I had a shitty start to the summer, lost my biggest client, boyfriend, and had just committed to living in with the boyfriend – so I really needed to keep busy.

We started a weekly coworking day, meet up dinners – we were basically doing 4 events a week. We never had any ulterior motives with this; for us, it was always about:

1) not be lonely

2) connect likeminded people

3) let them fall in love with Lisbon

Ash: We always kept everything very open. When people made suggestions – we were open to doing new kinds of events.

Rosanna: And I think it’s important that this was never about selling ourselves. There was no other agenda besides connecting people and have them enjoy the city. I’ve always had this desire to connect nomads with locals - or at least the local startup community – which we’ve tried to incorporate in everything we did.

It’s funny because that summer the meet ups blew up, as well as the coworking days. We’d go to a different coworking space each week – they’d invite us for free and then in exchange we’d promote their spot. People would try it out and if they liked it, keep going back or maybe tell their friends. So it was a win win for everyone involved.

A coworking place reached out to us about doing a coworking meet up but our next date wasn’t available until August – the summer had seen a HUGE spike. But she said she would be closed in August [a lot of Portuguese businesses close in August for the summer – to go on vacation or take time off].

So then we did something fun – we asked if we could take over her space in August. We ran a 1 month coworking – that we called Nomad Takeover.

We did daily lunches, talks twice a week, all kinds of things. We had the fastest internet ever and packages for nomads who were interested. We tried to make something of it. It was a headquarters for everything we wanted to do. At the end of that summer, we had a new addition to the team – so now we were 3. Ash was based in Lisbon but I was still planning to travel – so it was great that another person wanted to join!

Ash: We had a lot of people come to Lisbon because they found love and then they break up and leave. That is pretty common lol.

But I think that summer, we tried to conservatively grow the team. We wanted to add more people to do events, but we wanted to continue the direction we had started.

Rosanna: Yeah we wanted people who had no other intention besides doing this for the community – helping to grow and connect. I think that has always been the key – we were very clear about people joining the organization team. We have a document that shares what we do and why we do it.

We make zero money off this. Indirectly, a lot of my clients I’ve gotten thru people I met at the meet ups. But that’s not the reason I stepped into this. When your goal isn’t to get leads, you can’t be disappointed if that doesn’t happen.

When I see people try to replicate what we do, they often times are trying to promote themselves – show people what their services are, and if they don’t get leads fast enough, they lose motivation. We never lost motivation because it was just about enjoying ourselves.

We like showing people a good time and showing them the city. We are now a minimum 100 people ever time.

And we’ve had an impact on the local bar scene. They hope we come back because it means good business on a Thursday night for them. We don’t just want to benefit one bar – we rotate to different bars. We go to different type bars too – really cheap to more expensive. We’ve done rooftops to shitty bars where we don’t even fit inside.

Ash: One of our goals is to introduce people to new places they wouldn’t have found otherwise. We promote local new businesses in Lisbon. Many of the places we chose, nomads may not come across on their own if they were new in town. We’ve had business owners reach out and say they are having a difficult month and ask about doing a meet up there. A great Thursday night can help make or break the month for a business.

We’ve been clear with the community that it’s not been about us making money, but about the businesses making money.

Rosanna: At the same time, we’re open. If someone wants to DJ reggaeton, go for it. If you like to cook, organize a dinner. Everything we do, we have loads of people show up. We have a lot of good will from the community. In terms of where we are at now. We now have 10 different organizers.

Ash is really into stand up comedy and there was no English standup comedy before and he started doing comedy nights -- and it blew up. People fucking loved it.

Ash: Yeah the first one was 2018.

Rosanna: This was the first English comedy night. It became so big that it’s now like a spinoff from the nomad meet ups. They are popular among expats and Portuguese people. It stands on it’s own now. Ash is now juggling both.

We get famous Portuguese comedians showing up because they finally have a place to practice in English. We see other people copying our ideas – running their own comedy nights. And that’s totally fine, we’re not doing this for any reason other than having fun. It’s not a business and if there’s more places people can have fun and practice their comedy – that’s great.

We just want to keep this city a place we love. There’s loads more opportunity for us to keep doing that sort of stuff. Using the nomad meet ups as a springboard for an idea we have and see where it goes.

Do you guys have plans to start nomad communities in other cities?

Ash: If we move there! One of the things that is important is to be consistent. So to grow the community you need regularity – doing consistent events. In order to do that, you need to be there to facilitate.

So in a way the nomad lifestyle isn’t compatible with building a nomad community ha. We’re been building the team so that we have people who will always be there to run events…maybe they stay for a bit and then go off and travel – then come back. We built the team so there is always a person on rotation to organize.

Most people fall in love with Lisbon though and have just stayed. We say that Lisbon is where nomads come to die. They love it.

Rosanna: Let’s call it retire. Let’s not talk about death!

We give these talks on how to setup digital nomad communities because we want to help other people find community – not because we necessarily want to set them up. We don’t want people to be lonely anywhere. So I’ll definitely put together a nomad meet ups anywhere I am in the world; but in terms of continuing it, I usually try to find someone local who wants to take over.

For example, I was in Buenos Aires – and I knew there was a guy who had done meet ups before, so I kind of helped him get back into it and become consistent. Because that’s how growth happens.

If someone is interested in setting up their own digital nomad community, what do they need?

Rosanna: Anywhere can be a good nomad community. But there are qualities that you see across the board with digital nomad hubs like Chiang Mai, Lisbon and Bali:

Good weather, good wifi, great food, access to beaches, and they are relatively cheap.

Our team works like a little startup, we have a slack and google drive that’s available for everyone and have different people responsible for organizing different meet ups. It’s how we stay motivated and helps it not become too time consuming for any one person. We keep records of all the places we’ve been to in the past, so we can easily reference.

While it’s not my ambition to grow other communities myself, it is my ambition to help other people grow other communities. If you’re in love with a place that you think more people should go to, more power to you! We want to share what we’ve learned so that other people can do the same thing.

How you noticed any types of specific events that worked really well?

Rosanna:Honestly I don’t think we’ve ever put something in on in the last 3 years that wasn’t well attended.

Ash: Just the standard meet ups always do really well. You just show up, have a drink and meet people. It’s casual and everyone can mix. Thursday meet ups are most popular and it’s a ritual for most people now. People look forward to it!

People also love shitty comedy night – people can come up and try standup out…they usually bomb. Lots of people from the local community show up. There’s no pressure because we already named it shitty comedy. So it’s a very open space.

Rosanna: We’ve done boat rides…speakers….everything in the last couple years. It’s interesting to see different people show up for different events. Lots of locals show up for the talks as well. And that’s our goal. We want to share skills and knowledge with the local community too. We just giving a stage to people who have something cool to share.

Did you take any steps to incorporate the local community and make them feel welcome?

Ash: We did take certain steps and the biggest was to have beers that are 1 Euro.

Rosanna: Every time we have beers for 1 Euro – we have a lot of Portuguese people show up.

Ash: Portuguese people don’t want to spend a lot of money on drinks. Foreigners still think 3 Euros is cheap for beers. We get complaints if beers are like 4 euros so we usually try to offer a discounted rate on beers. This also helps people show up earlier to events. If you have a San Francisco remote job, you probably make more than someone who is local. So we try to keep things affordable so everyone feels welcome.

We do a lot of food related events too. Especially when Rosanna is here because she loves food and sharing that aspect of Portuguese culture. Portuguese people love food in general and sharing their culture - so those events are popular for locals too.

Comedy is also where we’ve had a lot of local people come out. They know that doing it in English is good practice for them to perform in other countries. English comedy is booming in Europe right now. Amsterdam, Berlin, London – these all have big English comedy scenes.

Rosanna: In our communication, we always say everyone is welcome. We did a survey a few years ago to see who was coming to our meet ups. There is about 15-20% local, 25% ish expats, etc.

Ash: People would visit the community while on their travels and enjoy it so much they kept extending their stay, and extending their stay. We now have a couple people getting married. A lot of people who live here, work remotely, but now maintain a base here and only move about occasionally.

Rosanna: It’s nice coming back and being able to hang out with the same people. It’s all smiles and it’s an amazing vibe. I think in that sense – it’s our motivation.

Why do you think community is so important to digital nomads in particular?

Ash: We’re fucking lonely!

Rosanna: Corona has a lot of new people working from home. And I’m disappointed that so many people with normal office jobs seem eager to get back to the office – I’m just like - have you learned nothing!? I can’t imagine wanting to go back to that broken system.

So that aside, it made me think – what does a normal life look like….you hang out with your family, people you went to university with, people in the neighborhood, people you work with. Digital nomads don’t have part of that – being far away from everything. It’s so important to have people who are likeminded and understand where you are coming from.

And you just want to not have every meal by yourself. You want to enjoy a coworking day with someone. I think the digital nomad lifestyle isn’t sustainable if you don’t know how to make lasting connections.

Another good thing about our community is you make friends that you then go travel with. You make friends for life. So I think besides the superficial meeting people, there is also a need for long lasting relationships.

Speaking of corona, how do you think the global pandemic is going to affect the community?

Ash: I think in the short term we’re going to see a decrease in terms of number of people moving around.

But in the long term, cats out of the bag, remote work is what everyone is doing. Most people working remotely are going to realize how productive they are and aren’t going to want to go back. Companies that formerly wanted butts in seats, aren’t going to be able to put up the same argument – because they’ll have seen how smoothly things worked with people working from their laptops. Perhaps even better!

So I think in the long term, we’re going to see a paradigm shift. And we are going to see remote work and digital nomadism are going to go up. This was inevitable but this is just a push to get there. I think we’ll see a massive increase.

Rosanna: I hope so. I hope people have learned they can be where they want to be. If that’s with family or traveling – it doesn’t matter. But that flexibility is key.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard people say – I’d love to have your life….and I’ve said, you work from a computer, you CAN. And they just deny deny deny. Now I think everyone is re-examining.

We don’t know what’s going to happen so it’s hard to say much about it. But we’ve never stopped organizing meet ups. We had our last meet up before the lockdown – it was a small one – we socially distanced. Ever since then we’ve moved online. We try to come up with a new idea each week.

I think it’s important because – it’s not that we think it’s equally as fun, but we want to be here for our community and stay consistent. People look forward to joining us on Thursday. We try to keep it going for them. We have a big responsibility because we are the biggest meet up group in Lisbon.

We aren’t going to be able to have 100 people show up again any time soon. But we also have a responsibility to figure out creative ways to get together.

Ash: Next week we’ll probably start socially distant coworking days.

Rosanna: I think people will be really happy to get out again.

Do you have any advice to someone who wants to transition to a digital nomad lifestyle?

Ash: Just do it and don’t look back. I think everyone has the tools today to figure out most of the challenges you face. The world is so different today – when my parents travelled they would have to exchange money before they left, take travelers check, etc. Now a days you have internet everywhere, there’s google maps to get around, it’s so much easier.

Come to Lisbon. You’ll find friends here and that will make it easier. You’ll find people to travel with and figure out where to go next. Although there is a risk, people come to Lisbon and can’t leave ha!

Rosanna: But going to a nomad hub as a first destination is a good plan. Because this lifestyle is fun for a while but you’ll start getting lonely – and then it becomes unsustainable.

Ash: Meeting people will inspire you and you’ll gain information on how to do it long term. You don’t need to know anyone or anything initially. It’s almost effortless in Lisbon because there are so many ways to meet people.

So go to Lisbon, Bali, Chiang Mai – go to a coworking space on your first day. Some sort of situation where you will meet other people to help you and inspire you!

As always, if you enjoyed this piece, please feel free to share!

How to Build a Digital Nomad Community with Ash & Rosanna