1 Week with Digital Nomads in the Swiss Alps
At the beginning of September, I attended Swiss Nomad Fest - a 1-week coliving event that brought together ~30 digital nomads for programming, "unconferences" (workshops & brainstorming sessions), nature hikes, thermal baths, and social bonding activities.
Although I'd been traveling on my own for 5 years now, this was an entirely new world to me! The concept of Nomad Fests, however, is not as new; the biggest event of the year is Bansko Nomad Fest, which is located in the mountains of Bulgaria during the last week of June. Most of the attendees in Switzerland had already met each other in Bansko prior. All of them were remote workers — mostly CEOs — in their 30s, European or living in Europe.
I was a bit of an outlier, because I wasn't exactly making a living 100% from my laptop, and unlike everyone else, I am currently tied down to a location (Paris). Oh yeah, and not to mention that I'm the youngest participant by at least 15 years. So you might be wondering - how did I end up at Swiss Nomad Fest? The answer is that I work part-time remote for a travel company. My job is to develop programs with new orgs in Europe to host our group trips, and my newest partnership just happened to be the lovely people who ran Swiss Nomad Fest. Thus, I was invited to stay for free as a "Host visit" and check out the place, resulting in the official launch of our 1st Swiss partnership!
A few key purpose of Nomad Fests:
Bring together remote workers, since it's harder to make friends when you don't have an in-person office
Help people develop & get feedback on their business ideas / "being your own boss"
Inspire travelers to be adventurous and social in a new place, where we all live together in a hostel-like setup, sharing 3 communal meals per day
Teach people how to achieve financial independence via infinite ways that you can make money from your laptop, allowing you to travel the world while still being self-sufficient
Jobs/industries of people I met (to give you some ideas):
Travel companies (leading and hosting group trips, which allows you to build a good network abroad & travel for free, rent out your place year-round, etc)
Niche language translation (ex. I met this guy who translated for big companies from English into Danish, which you can't always rely on AI to be correct at)
Startup bros (hardware/product and software/tech)
Selling online courses & communities
Building a real estate empire & living off of passive income from rental properties
Day trading / investing crypto & bitcoin (this one I'm a little bit sus about but it seemed to work for one Japanese lady who made $400K in a month)
Design/illustration/web design
Content creators & travel bloggers
The thing about events and conferences like Swiss Nomad Fest is that you always get a million great ideas from talking with cool people - but how much of that do you actually implement in your life moving forward? For example, I don't feel the dire need right now to become a millionaire from my laptop, but I would eventually like to be able to design my own path and not have to submit to a corporate boss. Similarly, I enjoy having my Paris apartment as a "home base" to come back to, but I also want vacation homes abroad and the flexibility to live in multiple different cities throughout my life.
It goes beyond networking - for me, this was event was helpful because it showed me all of the different ways that people have "made it", per se. That there are options beyond a purposeless 9-5, and ways to achieve your dreams and have time for hobbies while still making sufficient income, and that money isn't everything. In the age of AI, it's more important than ever that we build our own world where we can't be replaced.
Of course, the friendships were very refreshing as well. Even though I was 22 in a space filled with 30 and 40 year-olds, I felt as if we were on similar levels of maturity and understanding. Or maybe it's more accurate to say that I received a lot of wisdom from people with more experience, but similar goals. Many people who attended Nomad Fest had regrets of spending years waiting for their dreams to happen, always saying "after this" and "after that", rather than taking a leap of faith. It reminds me to not get complacent. Just because I'm satisfied right now doesn't mean that I can stop here.
In terms of actionable "key takeaways", I can't give a clear answer. But it was definitely interesting, eye-opening, and fun, to say the least. Liddes, Switzerland, was also a perfect choice of location because it's entirely local, very affordable, and has pure, untouched nature. I would like to go to Bansko Nomad Fest next June to see some of these people again, and hopefully learn more things. It will probably also be more useful at that point in my life because I'll have finished with my Paris project, and most likely will be looking for my next "big thing".
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