Wood for digital nomads: come and work with us

And big, Gonçalo Hall – a remote work consultant who is helping to launch a new digital nomadic community in a small village in the Portuguese autonomous region of Madeira – actually means small.

When the pilot project opens on February 1 with the support of the regional government of Madeira and StartupMadeira in the red-roofed village of Ponta do Sol, it will be ready to host up to 100 remote workers in a shared workspace and in the homes of surrounding village. Expansion plans for other buildings – in the village and elsewhere on the island – are also underway.

As with everything in Covid-19, conditions are constantly changing. On January 29, in response to the dramatic intensification of the Covid-19 outbreak in the country, Portugal extended its blockade and closed the land border with Spain. Citizens are prohibited from traveling abroad for 15 days.

Plans for the launch are underway and that leaves project organizers waiting to see how things go: if they build, will remote workers come?

Find more freedom and follow passions

So far, about 75 digital nomads have committed to being one of the first to start working in the picturesque village of about 8,200 inhabitants, squeezed in a green valley on the southwest coast of Madeira, with a pebble beach by the road.

Hall, who is in Madeira and has already met with some of the digital nomads, said that about 40 should be in place on February 1, with Germany, Holland, Spain, Portugal, Poland, Ireland and the Czech Republic among the nationalities represented .

The co-working hub is located within the John Dos Passos Cultural Center, and accommodation in 40 different houses has already been guaranteed, as well as a hotel in Ponta do Sol for remote workers, said Carlos Soares Lopes, CEO of StartupMadeira, a company incubator involved in the project that offers support to companies based in the islands.

American Jenn Parr, who lives with her husband in Porto, in mainland Portugal (and may travel to Madeira as she arrives from an EU country), signed up in the digital nomadic village of Madeira and arrived in Madeira on Sunday.

The educator, attentive to 37 years old from Maryland, said that “she is not a very urban person” and is attracted by the nature of the island and the walks, the mild climate (winter peaks reach 60) and the chance to be close to a fellow independent worker.

“The shared workspace appeals to me,” she said. “It can be inspiring to meet people who are entrepreneurial or have found ways to create more freedom in their lives and follow their passions.”

Parr and her husband interviewed possible roommates they met through the project’s Facebook and Slack groups to share a three-bedroom apartment located between Funchal (capital of Madeira) and Ponta do Sol, which costs € 1,800 (about US $ 2,200) a month.

Gabe Marușca and Ralu Enea, a Romanian couple who have been working remotely in Madeira since September 2020, recently heard about the nomadic village and are thinking of getting together to meet other remote workers.

After jumping between places like Bali, Cyprus, Malta and Spain, Marușca said the 34-mile-long island, very popular with UK tourists, offers “the complete package”.

Marușca listed access to the mountains and the ocean, affordable prices, friendly inhabitants and “extremely fast internet” among the advantages of Madeira, in addition to its manageable size, which he considers more conducive to finding a community and staying longer than bigger places where you’ve been.

Small place, big dream

Hall, the consultant who is helping launch the project, said the idea of ​​starting a digital nomadic village on the island best known for its eponymous fortified wine hit him during a visit in September 2020.

After spending much of 2018 and 2019 traveling the world and working while chasing waterfalls in Bali and tasting street food in Thailand, he found himself visiting Madeira for a work conference for the first time since he was a child.

“The landscapes are like something I have never seen before,” said Hall of the archipelago, which is made up of four islands (only two of which are inhabited) and is just north of the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean, near Morocco from than the European continent.

“I thought, ‘I know the digital nomadic community, why don’t people come here?’ ”

Ponta do Sol was selected to test the project, which is expected to expand to other areas around the island, said Lopes from StartupMadeira.

The shared workspace is being prepared with room for just 22 indoor tables and chairs to start (with some covered outdoor seating also available). According to the social distance and the Covid-19 rules of the island, co-workers will use the space in shifts, with access to strong wi-fi, a printer and the all-important coffee machine, Hall said.

The hope for the project, even before expanding to other areas, is that digital nomads will spread across the island to live and play, injecting money into a local economy affected by the pandemic that presented “great challenges” for the locals whose livelihood they depend on tourism, said Lopes.

During the initial deployment phase, from February 1st to June 30th, there will be no charge for using the shared workspace and being part of the community, although a minimum stay of one month is required.

Networking events, skills-sharing seminars on topics like cryptocurrency, yoga classes and hiking are already being considered group activities for the community.

There are no plans to charge people to be part of the community in the future, said Lopes, adding that the aim of the project is to prepare the local community to develop new businesses around the market niche.

Collaborate – but first you have to get there

Residents of the European Union and Schengen countries are allowed to enter Madeira, but must consult the authorities of their home countries for travel guidance and be prepared to submit a negative Covid-19 PCR test upon arrival on the island.

For now, most Americans living in the United States who want to join the digital nomadic village in more than just Slack will have to wait, with non-essential trips to Portugal and the European Union still restricted because of Covid-19.

“Although there are currently many countries with travel restrictions to Portugal, such as the USA, Canada and Brazil, we welcome the registrations of these nationalities, as we believe that although they cannot currently travel to Madeira, they can already know our island and plan your future, ”said Lopes.

Locals welcome the prospect

Lopes said the reaction from local island owners, companies and even lawyers on the island has so far been “very positive”, with many expressing an interest in being part of the initiative, adapting their housing prices to monthly rates for digital nomads and offering offers of long term car rental rates.

For a fee, island attorneys can also help digital nomads stay longer on the island, guiding them through non-tourism visa applications, including Portugal’s Golden Visa and D7 residence permit.

Luís Vilhena, Portuguese architect who has lived in Madeira since 1989 (he arrived for a six-month job and never left), said that once he is here, the island is easy to love.

“The landscapes are inspiring, it’s safe – you can swim in the sea in the morning and go hiking in the mountains in the afternoon,” he said. “It is also close to Europe (continental).” The flight from Lisbon takes about 90 minutes.

Ponta do Sol, he said, seems to be a natural place for the digital nomadic village with its easy access to mountain biking, sailing, surfing and other adventure activities.

Francisco Fontes, who is from Madeira and recently returned to the island with his Italian girlfriend when his financial job in the United States became remote, said that Ponta do Sol, with its winding alleys, roofs and pebble beach, resembles ” villages along Italy’s Amalfi coast. “

“It is very small. When you think of a nomadic village, it really is that,” he said. “A place where you would go out and run into other people on the project.”

Fontes said that his grandmother, who was from Ponta do Sol and no longer lives, would have loved to see a new life blowing in her village.

“She always said she would love to see the city’s cinema come back to life as it was in the 1930s, when her father built it,” he said.

“I think this kind of initiative can really bring back some of what Ponta do Sol was originally built for,” he said. “And I haven’t heard anyone say anything bad about it either, so it’s always a good sign.”