A Digital Country on the Internet is Coming Soon (Here's What You Need To Know)

Introduction: Welcome to the Traveling with Kristin Podcast, your destination for travel tips, living abroad, advice and insights that help you experience life in foreign cultures. If you're interested in slow travel, living abroad or a digital nomad lifestyle, you're in the right place. I'm your host, Kristin Wilson, the author of Digital Nomads for Dummies and the host of Traveling with Kristin on YouTube. Thank you for traveling with me today and let's see where our journey takes us.

Kristin:     00:00:37    Hi there. Kristin Wilson here from Traveling with Kristin and welcome to episode 268 of podcast. I am so excited to welcome our guest, Lauren Razavi. Today. Lauren is the executive director of Plumia, an innovation lab that aims to build a country on the internet. They've been featured in Time Magazine and this lab is part of SafetyWing, an all remote tech company where Lauren works across media strategy and investor relations. Lauren is a technologist, political scientist and global citizen, the child of an Iranian refugee. She was an early adopter of remote work and has lived and worked as a digital nomad since 2013. Lauren is the author of the Global Natives book, which is an essay collection about the past, present and potential of borderless work and she is working full-time now with SafetyWing, helping to create this first country on the internet, but also on a lot of other initiatives to help solve the larger problems of global mobility.  

Kristin:     00:01:46    They have an idea for a concept called the Nomad Border Pass, which will give people between 60 to 90 days to live and work remotely in a different country, actually multiple countries. So this is a type of pass for you if you ascribe to the same ideology that global mobility should be a human right and you don't wanna have to apply for different visas everywhere you go. But that's also for you. If you are born in a country with a weak passport that does require you to apply for visas wherever you travel for tourism with Plumia and the Nomad Border Pass someday, hopefully that will no longer be an issue because they aim to negotiate bilateral travel agreements with different countries on your behalf, making it easier to travel internationally. But in the meantime, as Lauren will explain to us today in the interview, the first version of the Nomad Border Pass will be an application hub where you can see if you qualify for different digital nomad visas around the world and apply for them in an easier, faster, more efficient way. This is a fascinating conversation. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Sit back, relax and allow me to introduce you to Miss Lauren Razavi.

Podcast Interview:

Kristin:     Lauren, I am so excited to welcome you to the podcast today. Thank you so much for being here. I know we've been in touch over email for a while, so it's great to finally speak with you.  

Lauren:    00:03:20    Absolute pleasure to be here. Thank you so much for the invitation.  

Kristin:     00:03:24    And we were just chatting before we started recording because I was asking where you were and you said that you were in Amsterdam, one of my favorite cities. Um, so can you tell us a little bit about what brings you to Amsterdam and kind of the places that you live around the world?  

Lauren:    00:03:41    Sure. So I would say that I have kind of three home bases, London, Amsterdam and Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. And I guess I'm like a migrating bird. I like to be in Europe during the summer and then I like to migrate south Southeast Asia ish for the winter because uh, I'm not a fan of the colds. And so yeah, I'm here in Amsterdam right now, one of my favorite places in the world. I really, really love this city, like being able to walk around the kind of innovation culture, the fact that everything works so well, beautiful parks. Yes, it's a really great place to be, especially when the sun is out. I think there's something really special actually about uh, coming back to Europe in the spring, which is what I did this year and just kind of seeing everybody come out of their winter hibernation. I think that's a really like special time of the year. I always try and be here for that.  

Kristin:     00:04:28    Yes, last time I was in Amsterdam, I left in November and everyone was going into hibernation, but I was there last May and it was beautiful weather, like so sunny, it was hot and it just had a different energy to it. Do you keep a base there or do you just rent a new place every time you come back?  

Lauren:    00:04:51    I tend to stay with friends in London and Amsterdam, although I have had apartments at various points in the past. And then in KL I'm always renting a place.  

Kristin:     00:05:00    How much are the rental prices in KL?  

Lauren:    00:05:03    In KL I usually spend somewhere around a thousand US per month. And for that in KL you can get a one or two bed apartment in a building with a gym and a swimming pool, uh, in a really central location. So I think it's a pretty sweet deal.  

Kristin:     00:05:17    That's what I've heard. You know, there's a lot of buzz about Malaysia and I know that Andrew Henderson from Nomad Capitalist talks about it a lot. I think he loves it there. I actually haven't been, but apparently the cost of living is really low. People speak English, everyone's really nice. Do you find that there's also a nomadic community there or what, what brought you there the first time and what keeps bringing you back?  

Lauren:    00:05:47    Well, so the first time I ever went to KL, I guess was about 12 years ago now, 11 or 12 years ago. And essentially it was just because I was married to an Australian and so every time we went to visit his family in Australia, we would have to stop off somewhere. And I liked the idea of visiting KL, uh, rather than Singapore or Indonesia as kind of like the stop off point on the way. So we decided to give KL in Malaysia a go once, absolutely fell in love with it and then it became like our kind of regular place to go for a month or two each year. Um, and yeah, that's kind of how I got acquainted with it. I do think there's a growing nomadic community now. When I first started going, nobody knew about it. You know, Bali was the big destination in that part of the world, but actually now, especially with the Malaysian nomad visa, which I'm sure you can talk about a bit more, but I think is one of the best kind of offerings in the world right now.  

Lauren:    00:06:39    You're really seeing a lot more nomads circulate Malaysian cities, especially KL and Panang and yeah, there's just like a growing community. It's very easy to meet people. I also find that the kind of tech and innovation ecosystem there, it's sufficiently small that you can kind of like get very stuck into events and meetups and things and you end up sort of running into the same people quite a lot. So it's very easy to kind of expand your social network in Malaysia. I find, and as you said, everybody speaks English, it's kind of aling franca between the different cultures in Malaysia and that sort of opens things up a lot more than, uh, than some places. I also think Malaysia is like a place of internet people, you know, like Malaysians themselves are very, very engaged with what's happening in the world, what's happening online. And so it's very, very easy. You find you have a lot in common with people as well as being able to kind of share the language.  

Kristin:     00:07:31    Nice. Well you've definitely sold me. I mean, it's been on my list for so long, so I'll have to get over there. What would you say is the best time of year to visit?  

Lauren:    00:07:40    So personally, I think between like October and March is the best time, but that's kind of because there are other parts of the world that I like to spend time like Northern Europe, north America, that the weather is not so good at those times of year. So it's nice to be able to go somewhere where it's a fairly consistent, like 30 degrees Celsius hot and not a lot of kind of variation, uh, in the weather from day to day. There is a monsoon season for Malaysia, but I never really know when it's, it's just like sometimes you get wild tropical rainstorms and sometimes you don't.  

Kristin:     00:08:13    Okay. Sounds a little bit like Florida <laugh>.  

Lauren:    00:08:17    Yeah, I guess so.  

Kristin:     00:08:18    Well, what struck me about you is that I, I stumbled across a podcast that you did a long time ago. I can't remember the name of that podcast right now. And then I, I found out that you were working with, uh, SafetyWing and Plumia and I started reading a lot of your writing and you have such a depth of knowledge on the, the perspective of a location independent lifestyle. You know, there's a lot of people that have come into the lifestyle since the pandemic and it's a bit of a a different journey, you know, when you're in your first five years of being a nomad 10 years, 15 years, 20 years, it's, it's just like with anything, if you're learning a musical instrument or you're learning a new skill for work the first few years that you're doing it is a different type of learning curve than after you've, you know, been it for 7, 8, 9 years, however long that is. And so that's why one of the many reasons I wanted to have you on the podcast, but can you give us a little bit of background info on how you started out in this lifestyle, how long ago that was, and how that led you to your position and your career today?  

Lauren:    00:09:35    Sure. So I have been a digital nomad for a very long time now. The the term og nomad is, uh, sprung around me within the SafetyWing team for sure. So I started kind of a officially nomad ing, if you can call it that in 2013. And I'd already been remote working for a few years while I was at university during that time. And I basically graduated, um, and I was making sort of a, a career as a freelance foreign reporter and travel writer at the time. So I was already doing a lot of travel, kind of moving around the world, reporting on, on things that I came across and thought were interesting. And I decided to basically continue that lifestyle. So whereas I had a lot of friends who, you know, were moving to like London or New York, uh, to kind of start on the corporate ladder, I felt like that isn't what I wanted to do at all.  

Lauren:    00:10:24    I wanted to kind of go out and see the world. And even though I kind of like class that period as the start of my nomadic journey, it kind of goes back a lot further because my father is a, an Iranian refugee. He went from Iran to the UK in the 1980s after the Iranian revolution. And essentially he's like the youngest of seven children. And so my childhood was spent kind of traveling around to different places in the world to visit family because everybody fled to a sort of different country, but also sort of experiencing the Iranian culture like the Persian diaspora within those different locations. So in a sense, for me, a sort of choosing the nomad lifestyle was not kind of a process of discovery and kind of being like, oh my god, this is possible. It was sort of a continuation of um, aspect of how I'd grown up.  

Lauren:    00:11:14    And as I mentioned, I was a foreign reporter and travel writer working mainly with the Guardian newspaper, but also with like NPR and the Atlantic, like doing quite a lot for UK and US publications at the beginning of my career. And in 2015 I became the first UK journalist to report on digital nomads. So I wrote a story for The Guardian about digital nomads and kind of coworking communities and that sort of, I guess started a process of me becoming quite embedded within that, that kind of global digital nomad community that was just emerging at the time. So maybe to try and set the scene, it was people like Peter Levels and Mark Manson and Steph Smith sort of indie creators, author types who was sort of pursuing this lifestyle and beginning to commentate on it a little bit back then. And I just kind of found myself in the heart of it and for me it was a really interesting process 'cause I'd focused a lot at university and then afterwards on like work and craft kind of like, uh, perfecting my craft of writing and trying to build a good career.  

Lauren:    00:12:17    And I sort of had this moment where it was like the intersection of my work and my lifestyle kind of coming together with a story for The Guardian. And I just knew that I wanted to kind of go deeper on what was happening. And then, so I sort of, I continued in journalism for a few years. I went over into tech editorial, I worked for Google in a couple of different roles, one on Google Maps and then one as managing editor for the future of work and was just kind of like, I guess straddling these two worlds of media and tech and learning as much as I could along the way. And I think it was in 2018, I was first approached to write a book. I was approached in the same month by a publisher and an agent completely independent of each other who were like, Hey, you should, you should write a book on digital nomads.  

Lauren:    00:13:03    And the book that they kind of wanted at that stage of things was how to be a Digital Nomads, the kind of how to guide. And I personally had like a really strong reaction to that. I was like, I don't really have anything to say about that. You know, my opinion on kind of how to be a digital nomad is essentially get on a flight, book an Airbnb for a month, see how you get on. I don't really have like a book's worth of like insight and knowledge to offer on that topic. But that's really when I started to think a lot more deeply because as somebody who had written for a long time sort of worked in the kind of journalism world and had also done a creative writing masters, I knew that I wanted to write a book, but I didn't wanna write that book.  

Lauren:    00:13:42    So it sort of set me on this path of like, what is the book that I wanna write if it's not how to be a digital nomad? And that sort of led me at the end of 2019 to leave my job at Google to write a book. And the book that came out of that period, it's called Global Natives, it's on Kindle and all that if people wanna check it out. I was of a substack newsletter of the same name. But what it kind of ended up being was an exploration of I guess like the, the past present and potential of borderless work. So trying to kind of get beneath the skin of like what an individual can do and the kind of how to of how to do it and instead really looking at like what's happening in the world that has enabled this kind of lifestyle and what are the implications for the future?  

Lauren:    00:14:26    So for me it was a sort of a process of I guess learning more about my own identity as somebody who comes from this kind of family that's a diaspora family with a refugee background and then kind of recognizing my own passport privilege in the ability to kind of live this lifestyle that I was living. And so yeah, I wrote the book and the book kind of led me to SafetyWing, Sondre, CEO of SafetyWing and read the book and essentially said, Hey, you've done a great job at articulating problems around in this sort of area of global mobility. Do you wanna come and join the company and start building solutions to some of those problems? And I mean, how do you say no to an offer like that? I was obviously completely on board and, and that's how I came into Safety Wang, where I'm executive director of Plumia, which is essentially their innovation lab, which is focused on building a country on the internet as the ultimate mission, but for now is very focused on this global mobility portion. So trying to unlock more global mobility rights, more ability to move freely around the world for as many people as possible.  

Kristin:     00:15:27    That's so fascinating and I love hearing how you felt called to write this specific book. I think that so many people are, they know that they're on the planet for a reason, but it's very difficult to discern what that reason is. And that's for a lot of other reasons how we get disconnected from our purpose for being here. And if you had written the book on how to become a digital nomad, it's unlikely that Sondre would've reached out to you. You had to be talking about these other bigger questions and problems. And then on the other side of the spectrum, I had implanted in my brain that I had to write a book on how to become a digital nomad from back in probably 2012, 2013. And so it was like, that was my path to write that book and your path was to write this book.  

Kristin:     00:16:20    And now here we are having this conversation. It's so funny. And I also followed Peter Levels and Mark Manson and Steph Smith. We actually have an interview with Steph on this podcast I can link to in the show notes, but it's because there were so few people talking about it and I wish I would've seen your Twitter <laugh> back then or found your book because I would've been following you for the past, you know, 10 years. But let's talk a bit about Global Natives. What are the biggest problems that you presented in that book? And have there been any solutions? Have you and Sandra and SafetyWing, I know you're working on a lot of solutions, but what are, are the solutions that you're working on to the problems that you presented in that book around mobility?  

Lauren:    00:17:08    Yeah, so I'll start by just saying something about what SafetyWing does, because I think it sort of sets the context for, for the rest of what I'd like to say. So SafetyWing's Company Mission is to build a global social safety net. So we started with travel insurance and then we moved into health insurance and probably towards the end of this year, maybe the beginning of next year, we're gonna be launching actually the full global social safety net product. So that's including things like uh, health insurance, unemployment disability, um, parental leave, all of these kind of things that in at least good countries you sort of have a provision for based on the, the taxes that you pay, the kind of social welfare provisions. We are building that as a global subscription service and obviously our early adopter kind of customers are digital nomads and remote workers within that remote worker category.  

Lauren:    00:18:00    Many of them are ex-pats, so, you know, have a need for, for these kind of borderless products that we build. So that was very much the mission that SafetyWing was on when I joined. I think the company was around 20 or 30 people at the moment that I joined. It was founded in 2018. I joined in 2021 and essentially I came in to start developing solutions around global mobility issues. So fundamentally the thing that we wanna do with our global mobility work is sort of unlock borders to stop the world kind of operating on this principle that the coincidence of your birthplace determines your life opportunities and instead to kind of like open up that space so that more people are able to pursue the digital nomad lifestyle and are able to kind of like have the same rights given that they have the same internet connection.  

Lauren:    00:18:52    That's kind of the, the group, the area that we're kind of working on the ultimate sort of 10 year vision, which we have in our roadmap slated for 2032. So that was 10 years after 2022, we sort of set this as a goal is to develop a new global passport that works at Borders worldwide. But I kinda came in needing to get to know this new company and with that it's a very big mission like on the horizon and was like, all right, how are we gonna do this? You know, it's very good to have the like long-term vision, but how do you start today towards that vision other than talking about it, which I think is useful as in to do the thinking and then do the kind of like sharing of, of what you've discovered is great, but you do actually need to build stuff as well as in bring it to life.  

Lauren:    00:19:37    And that's something safety wearing is extremely competent at already, you know, it already brought to life this new kind of travel insurance for digital nomads and then a truly global and borderless health insurance. So I did a lot of learning to understand the kind of very product based framework that SafetyWing builds within. It's a very like Why Combinator kind of thing, which the company went through Y Combinator, um, before I joined. But the idea of, okay, how do we, how do we develop a product that is relevant, kind of what people need, what people want today, and then how do we, how do we sort of turn that later into a, a fully functioning passport? And the concept that we kind of came up with is called the Nomad Border Pass, which we're also expecting to, to launch early next year. And essentially this is a tool for people to be able to apply in one place, kind of a one stop shop for digital Nomad visas.  

Lauren:    00:20:34    And the vision is for us to be able to convert from being an application portal for existing nomad visas into actually being sort of a, a membership that allows you access nomad to many countries. So our first kind of MVP is to be that application portal for digital nomads to be able to sort of submit their information once in order to access a nomad visa and then be able to apply for many other visas. But then we really want to kind of develop that out to sort of be a package, like a subscription, a membership that allows you to move around the world with more flexibility and fluidity. And so that's kind of our, our central product, the product that I'm responsible for at the company. And as part of that work, as part of that project, we have been going quite hard this year so far on policy work.  

Lauren:    00:21:26    So one of the projects that we have, and I can give you the link to sort of add to the show notes or whatever, but one of the projects that we have is creating an international standard for nomad visas. So I'm sure like many of your listeners are gonna be going, yeah, oh, nomad visas because if you are going for like one individual country, the processes are kind of fine, but if you're a nomad and you're looking at 10 different countries over the next two years, suddenly the visa process becomes extremely like bureaucratic and arduous. Like there's so much friction involved and it's so confusing. Like the term nomad visa is thrown around really lightly, but actually countries between themselves don't have a great understanding of what a nomad visa is at this stage of things. And so what we've done is essentially we created a policy paper with a former international diplomat who is a like international lawyer, like trade envoy for like 20 years.  

Lauren:    00:22:22    We worked with him to create a policy paper that's basically proposing what the international standard for nomad visas should be. And the idea is that countries that already have visas can try and bring their visas in line with this international standard so it becomes easier for nomads to understand what they're getting into and their products, the kind of visas themselves become more appealing. And then there's this other group of countries who sort of know that they should do something about nomads but perhaps haven't launched a nomad visa yet. So we kind of wanna give them a framework to be able to do that. And so we're really just trying to like bring some order to the chaos that has emerged post pandemic in this global mobility space. Um, and if I'm gonna add one more thing, I'm aware that I'm waffling on at this point, but um, but continue, this is great <laugh>.  

Lauren:    00:23:11    I think one of the most interesting things about nomad visas is how, you know, a lot of the policies that came originally sort of in response to the pandemic were quite like panic policies. They were just like, oh my goodness, like tourism is dying, we need to do something. Okay, maybe nomads will come. But one of the things that sort of happened, I guess in that somewhat like chaotic or panicked environment of the pandemic is countries began to like move the needle. It became less important what your country of origin was and more important what your income and profession was. And so that's something that, you know, is not, not total equality in one failed swoop quite obviously, but it is a step in the right direction because even though there are obviously like global inequalities and a lot of policy is kind of reinforcing them right now, things need to change nonetheless.  

Lauren:    00:24:00    A person has much more control over their profession and their income than they do over the country of origin. It's like you're not kind of like destined to to your fate just by where you were born, if actually that's not the fundamental criteria by which you, you have to navigate the global mobility system of the world. And so I think that's actually a really exciting aspect of nomad visas and one of the reasons that we're wanting to kind of like double down and help bring some order to the chaos of that arena because it feels like a step in the right direction. And for us at SafetyWing and at Plumia, it's been a really interesting learning opportunity to kind of interact with governments. Like I do a lot of collaboration very directly with governments to understand why they're interested in nomads and what they would like to achieve for like their local communities, for their kind of government KPIs in, in order to kind of like drive things forward and harness the momentum of digital nomads. So it's been absolutely fascinating, very optimistic. I'm very excited for us to launch, uh, the nomad border paths and, uh, get people moving around the world and the wild  

Kristin:     00:25:06    Yes, it's so needed and I love that SafetyWing is such an innovative company and I've been following them from the day that they launched. So I love the mindset of the executive team and, and everyone working there to take this to a more macro level of international policy instead of thinking small, like, you know, let's create, I mean there's a lot of services now that are making it easier to get digital nomad visas and you guys were like, let's do that, but then let's also create a global standard for a nomad visa and then lobby that to governments to help them align this process. Because a lot of it, they basically just took their regular residence permits and long-term visas and then put digital nomad on the name. There was nothing, there was nothing streamlined about how any of these nomad visas were rolled out ex with the exception of a few countries, you know, like Estonia in places, but very, very onerous as you mentioned. Um, yeah,  

Lauren:    00:26:16    Sorry to interrupt you. I just wanted to add one thing there, which is something that, something that we discovered really quickly working in this space was that, um, there's no, no country really has a legal definition of a digital nomad, which is wild. Like if you actually think about, okay, we're gonna launch a visa for this like group of people, but without kind of stopping to actually define, okay, who is and isn't a digital nomad, how do we understand what a digital nomad is within these kind of like frameworks, like these national and kind of legal frameworks in the world? That was so like surprising to me and it made the work feel so much more urgent, you know, in the sense that okay, with this product we can start with the definition and it can be a legal definition that makes sense within these kind of existing systems.  

Lauren:    00:27:03    And actually to standardize anything, you've gotta start with like a language that you're using, you've gotta understand what you're talking about, right? And so I've been very delighted with that so far. Like there's a story coming out in Business Insider at some point this month and that sort of talking about this issue of like the definition of digital nomads, but I've been really, really happy with the reception that we've had from governments and multilateral institutions on that because again, I have to reiterate that my colleague Graham Bod, former international diplomat who worked with us on this policy project has been absolutely phenomenal and really, really fantastic at helping us kind of bridge the gap between how, I guess you could say how remote workers, digital nomads tech people think about this space with how sort of status quo legal systems, governments, kind of how stuff works in the world today, like how these two worlds work and how they can interact. I always see the work that we do at SafetyWing and Plumia as really being about building bridges between the world that exists today and the world that we wanna create in the future. And yeah, this has been, uh, it's definitely been a lot of learning and hopefully a lot of good progress in that direction.  

Kristin:     00:28:18    Yes, it's also interesting that there's no legal definition of an expat or a person who temporarily lives outside of their home country. What is the definition that you guys came up with that is this, you know, new ideal, generally accepted definition? It's hard to define something that spans every age group, every country, every background of person and culture and job title. It, it's, it's really something else for  

Lauren:    00:28:49    Sure. So rather than doing some like half-assed response, uh, from memory, I'm actually getting the policy paper up so that I can, uh, I can share it with you because you know, when you do all this work you then wanna be accurate when you're asked the question. And thank you for asking the question. <laugh>,  

Kristin:     00:29:04    I have copied and pasted a lot from your, from the Plumia paper. We'll talk about that later, but Right, we'll we'll start with the, the definition of a nomad. This is so exciting. Yeah,  

Lauren:    00:29:15    <laugh>, it's exciting for me as well because this is the first interview I've done since we launched this. So it's the first time that I can actually like full on, uh, refer to it. This  

Kristin:     00:29:24    Is another thing before I forget to ask you this, well, we'll do the definition first, but I feel like no one knows what you guys are doing. Like I'm sure you have a plan for, for public relations and promotion, but, but is it intentional that you're doing this behind the scenes before getting like a bunch of media attention around it?  

Lauren:    00:29:48    Like yes and no. So like, um, we are great believers in SafetyWing at essentially like doing the work and then seeing what people make of it. You know, we are not, we are not a company that is trying to build like a really, really robust like public relations arm to kind of like, um, sorry to use the British, but you know, to like two tower in trumpet, you know, there's all three founders of SafetyWing and Norwegian and they have that like kind of beautiful modesty in humbleness that I really associate with like Norwegian and Swedish cultures. And so yeah, we don't shout about what we're doing a lot. Um, that's not really the focus. We'd rather kind of focus on like creating the value than promoting what we're doing most of the time. But at the same time we are actually very, very open.  

Lauren:    00:30:35    So, you know, in an interview like this, like I am under no restrictions in terms of what I can talk about. It's very much like down to own judgment and that's the case for everybody in the team. And so as much as like we don't invest a huge amount of money and try and get, you know, like, uh, lots and lots of like publicity for kind of our ideas or whatever, um, we are very, very open, whether it's in like a one-on-one conversation or a public conversation and basically telling, telling people like what they wanna know. So yeah,  

Kristin:     00:31:04    I, I'm gonna go out on a limi here and make a prediction. I think that we're gonna see the same tidal wave of attention around this as we saw with the first digital nomad visa. So when Barbados came out with theirs, and then it was like this media storm because it was such clickbait and everyone was talking about it, you know, live in Barbados and, and then it was every other country jumped on the bandwagon without this real background research or understanding of, of the visas they were creating. But, uh, that was such a media storm because once somebody picks it up every other, you worked for the Guardian, you worked for all these big like, you know how it works, you know, it's like breaking news and then everybody wants to have it. 'cause if you don't have the breaking news, then you're falling behind your competitor.  

Kristin:     00:31:53    So I don't know, I see like once this is fully developed and it's launched and it's out there, like the nomad border pass, the, the passport, even if that's in the 10 year plan, I think ev I think it's gonna blow up and it's gonna be like, oh my God, there's this digital country. You can be a citizen, you can get healthcare, you can get a passport, you can, you know, you can be from Rwanda and you can just travel the world as a nomad without having to apply for visas. I mean, it's so, it's a game changer. I know you guys know that and probably everyone listening to the podcast knows that, but like the mainstream doesn't know that yet. So I feel like that's, that's gonna happen. I'm happy to help. Like <laugh>, I've told Sondre this before, thank you <laugh>. I was like, let me know, like I wanna be involved, but you know, we can keep talking about it here on the podcast. But yeah, like if you need help with that content side, just let me know because I feel like it's part of my purpose to help distribute this or help, you know, spread the word to, to other people. So thank you. Sorry to get off topic everybody, I'm just so excited. If you have anything to mention on that, let me know. Otherwise we can go back to the definition of the digital nomad.  

Lauren:    00:33:17    I think probably going back to the definition, otherwise I'm gonna lose the tab and it'll be lost in the many open tabs. Oh no. In my brain and my world. <laugh>.  

Kristin:     00:33:23    Yes. Always at least a hundred tabs open, literally and figuratively.  

Lauren:    00:33:28    Yeah, for sure. All right, so it's six criteria. So number one, the individual relies on remote digital technologies for work. Number two, the location where the digital work is performed is different from the economic base of the work. Number three, the nature of the work is such that the individual has the flexibility to work and travel simultaneously. Number four, the individual has the flexibility to choose their location. Number five, the individual visits at least two locations each year outside of a home base or a friend or family's home. And number six, each change of location bulls crossing an international border. That is our legal legal definition of a digital nomad that has been very well received by all of the governments that we've spoken to so far. We're in conversation with around 40 governments.  

Kristin:     00:34:24    Okay, so the two things that stuck out to me are changing places. This is what's hard to really specify for people changing places two, two times per year and then also crossing borders. I like that you made that, that distinction because you know, being a digital nomad can be a phase where sometimes we're digital nomads and, and sometimes not. How did you guys come up with the idea that okay, it's gonna be, you know, two places per year, you know, some people change one time per year, some people change 20 times per year, but I'm sure a lot of thought went into that. And then also having it be international makes sense because we're talking about global mobility and travel, but then there's other people that might be nomadic, let's say within the Schengen zone or within, you know, a eu like their same country.  

Lauren:    00:35:28    Yeah, I mean you are right, like the Schengen zone probably isn't a great example in this, in that sense, just because it still involves crossing borders. Yes, the borders are very fluid. Yes, the borders don't have border checks invisible, but none nonetheless it's, it's still borders. But you know, there are a lot of American digital nomads, for example, who actually don't leave the US do travel around. I think on that end of things, you, you sort of have to dig down into what's the difference between a digital nomad and a remote worker, which is something that I think we sort of left aside from this project because of the emphasis on global mobility. You know, I think it's like there are many ideas that are relevant to any conversation that you're having, but it's kind of like, what's the outcome that you're going for? The outcome that we're going for is the standardization of visa policies.  

Lauren:    00:36:15    So it makes sense very much to focus on that global mobility aspect of things. So I think that's, that's kind of the number one thing that I would say. Um, in terms of the, the definition of like two locations per year, essentially, one of the things that we dug into quite a lot, um, and wanted to be really clear on is kind of like what is the ideal scenario for digital nomad within the current system. So within the current parameters and restrictions of the world that we live in. And the biggest contributor in, in that respect of like, what's the biggest factor to consider is taxes. So tax, global tax policy has not kept up at the times at all in terms of how people are living. You know, you find a lot of nomads in this situation where they're like, I'm paying taxes to a country I spend maybe seven days in per year, but like I have to be registered somewhere.  

Lauren:    00:37:08    Um, and you're sort of in the, yeah, this, uh, this strange zone with it where it's like, okay, so I pay my taxes to a place that I actually have very little connection to compared to other places. How does this make sense? The reason I bring up tax in terms of that defining of at least two locations per year is because generally speaking, and it's hard to speak generally about taxes, but I'm gonna give it a try, but generally speaking, if you are less than six months in a place, you are not automatically a tax resident. So that was a big criteria that we kind of looked at in terms of, okay, so at the moment, let's be real, most nomads are traveling on tourist visa still, like digital nomad visas are not the norm because they're complicated because they are sort of in a lot of cases designed for like a 12 or 24 month period, but actually most nomads are not really looking to spend that amount of time, especially all at once, sort of a continuous 12 or 24 month period in a country.  

Lauren:    00:38:05    And so we wanted to kind of look at, all right, what's the sweet spot between tourist visa and nomad visa, you know, what does it look like for nomads needs to be met, but also for countries to be able to kind of like gain the benefits of nomads being in their place. And so essentially we came to this all right, to move from, if you have a powerful passport, you generally get 90 days in a lot of places. If we could double that, that would resolve a lot of visa runs that would make nomads lives a lot easier and that would keep us below the automatic tax resident kind of challenge that's in there. So in terms of two locations per year, essentially that means that you are fitting this criteria of being a nomad rather than being an expat. So I would say if you're spending 12 months in one place or home basing in one place, that's sort of a more of an expat relationship with that place than it's a digital nomad relationship. So I feel like there was sort of a, a defining criteria that we had to come up with of like who is and isn't a nomad and this is obviously very important for governments and the kind of legal side of things to understand where nomads fit in. Um, so yeah, that was the, the rationale behind the, the two places per year.  

Kristin:     00:39:19    Okay, that makes a lot of sense actually with the 180 days and also that a lot of digital nomads aren't looking to stay somewhere for one year if you're staying for one or two year that does that, that does put you into the expat category in my opinion, even though there's no legal definition on that. What are some of the other elements of the ideal digital nomad visa as far as the process for standardizing it across countries?  

Lauren:    00:39:49    So on a very basic level, it is about standardizing it just in the sense that if you say I'm gonna get a digital nomad visa for it to not be, well that's six months in Argentina or six months in Uruguay, but  

Kristin:     00:40:02    It's or five years in Spain or yeah,  

Lauren:    00:40:04    Or 10 years in Thailand, you know, to try and like make it a lot more understandable what a digital nomad visa is like intuitively for, for those kind of visas to, to come with a set of rules that really kind of like make sense for a digital nomad. Um, I think that's like super, super important because at the moment we're in this situation where countries kind of national governments have come up with these policies without an eye on the end user who is completely global in their perspective. So they're not looking at one visa, they're looking at the, the whole kind of landscape of it. So that was really like kind of front of mind in terms of encapsulating, um, the, the goal I guess of the project in terms of the nomad visas themselves. So you wanted to know about the kind of, um, the features of sort of the ideal nomad visa that's kind of the direction of your question, right? And,  

Kristin:     00:41:02    And the application process, which I assume could be done online, but  

Lauren:    00:41:07    Yes. So, okay, let me speak to that point first actually. So we essentially looked at all of the digital nomad visa application processes and some of the like very janky moments where it's like, you know, for, for this visa you have to go in person with cash to a bank in the country to pay the fee to then get your visa or whatever. We kinda looked at all of this and we were like, okay, there's a lot of similarity between what all of these countries are doing with a few sort of edge cases that have weird extra requirements. So we sort of looked at everything, we brought it down to the basics. It's like, what information do immigration authorities want in order to admit somebody on this kind of flexible visa, like into the country? And then we designed that and we designed that in a very like SafetyWing way.  

Lauren:    00:41:55    You know, we created an application flow that is very, very intuitive that talks to you like a human that sort of guides you through this bureaucratic process that is such a, a kind of headache if you don't know what you're doing. Like I've been through a few different countries like visa processes and it is, it's just like a, it's done in its own language. It's like if you've lived in the country for 10 years, you understand how it works intuitively, but actually if you're a new entrant, it's really, really hard. So we wanted to make sure that that was like, again, really geared towards the nomad end user, the kind of global person who is used to interacting with Uber and Airbnb and Google and Meta, like all of these kind of like very, very slick tech platforms. We wanted to kind of like create something that was at that same standard, which I have to say the majority of governments have not been successful in creating that kind of standard of user experience and kind of digital interface.  

Lauren:    00:42:51    So yeah, we designed that from the ground up. We've also designed an eligibility checker for nomad visas. So basically the, the dream, at least for me as a nomad, the dream thing of being able to input a bit of information and then actually see which nomad visas you would be eligible for, which ones are may are maybe, and then which ones are a definite no. And so yeah, we've really kind of tried to bring that down to prioritizing the user, you know, what is the user experience that is not comparable to like government experiences right now, but is actually comparable to the tech that we're all using every day because we feel like citizenship services, government services should be hitting that same standard as Google, as Uber, as Airbnb. Like we're out of excuses now. Governments have not digitally transformed at the same rate as the private sector and it really needs fixing.  

Lauren:    00:43:42    So we're very, very sure on that of wanting to, to make it as robust and, and as you know, user-friendly as possible. Um, so in terms of designing the infrastructure, that's been super, super front of mind. And then on the leg, the more legislative kind of regulatory side, it's really about giving this definition. So if there's a definition of digital nomads, if there are clear parameters that makes that international standardization process much more likely, much more appealing and sort of giving triple wins. We talk about this a lot within Lumia project. We talk about triple wins, we wanna create triple wins for governments, for host communities and for nomad travelers. Like that's the, the kind of framework that we're working within. And so that's involved a lot of conversations and collaboration with both nomad end users, including people in our team, but also more broadly in the p premier community. And then with governments themselves to really understand, you know, what is your motivation for launching a nomad visa? Why do you wanna attract digital nomads? How are you gonna deal with these issues like gentrification, like property prices going up, et cetera. Like how, how can you deal with that on the ground? Are there areas that nomads should be gonna, which actually need revitalization and are underpopulated rather than having them come to your Lisbon or your barley that's already very, very saturated. Mm-Hmm. 

Kristin:     00:45:06    And what about the minimum income requirement? Have you found equation or formula that governments can use to determine what should the minimum income be as this is ranging a lot as you know, in some cases like Albania and Georgia, they really don't have a minimum income requirement or it might be a thousand euro per month equivalent, but other countries can request request a lot more.  

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Lauren:    00:46:58    Yeah, so I mean this is an area of huge complexity and it's something that I think is one of the more difficult aspects to standardize, at least as the first move. So our focus has really been on looking at what exists at the moment, the kind of range of nomad visas speaking to governments about their motivations behind the criteria that they've set, sort of seeing where there's flexibility and then seeing what like an international standard might look like. But I'll be really frank, for our MVP, the first version of the Nomad border pass that we launch, I'm almost certain that it will be in line with government's current income requirements and that will be different for different countries. So when I'm talking about our application flow, for example, when you input your initial information, we'll probably ask for the, uh, your kind of income and then we will have kind of on the eligibility checker indication of whether that's, that kind of meets the minimum requirement.  

Lauren:    00:48:00    However, a big part of our kind of move towards the passport ultimately and the sort of internet country vision more broadly is to actually be establishing diplomatic relations with other countries. So you know, right now we're collaborating as a private sector tech company with governments to kind of find these triple wins for the key stakeholders involved with nomads coming to a place. But then the idea really is that we're developing these relationships of trust and collaboration with governments so that we are then able to kind of like be a voice for the nomadic community to say, okay, do you know what Japan, South Korea, your income requirements are too high actually, you need to kind of think about, I'm not necessarily saying this, I should be careful what I say, I'm free to say anything, but I also like need to have taste over what I'm, uh, what I'm saying.  

Lauren:    00:48:50    But you know, like, uh, with, you know, countries that do have the higher income requirements to examples being Japan and South Korea, I think that the best way to kind of resolve that for the nomadic community and bring those down is to essentially make the systems, um, and the incentives kind of more robust for everybody involved. So I'm sure there is flexibility for those income brackets for a lot of countries to be brought down, but a lot of that is actually to do with a tightening of strategy for that individual country. So the country doesn't know why it's trying to attract nomads or what success looks like, which is something we encounter quite a lot where countries have, you know, somebody in a government department has been told they're responsible for nomads and they've launched a visa and they've done amazing stuff with like very small budgets and very few resources.  

Lauren:    00:49:41    Um, like that's, that's great, but also there's like a lot more to, to kind of do to really kind of eke out those opportunities, especially for local contexts. You know, as much as we're advocating for international standardization of global mobility tools, IE nomad visas, we're not advocating for every country having the same strategy for nomads. So to come back to Japan as an example, Japan has a bunch of rural areas that are pretty much abandoned that Japanese taxpayers are not very happy about having to like pay for the upkeep of abandoned houses in rural parts of Japan. It's like, okay, that's a problem for that country. It's not a problem for every country in the world. Um, but for Japan that's something they need to solve. How do we get nomads who want to come to Japan, you know, according to Nomad List, Japan still nomads number one country in the world. How do we get people to come but not get them into the center of Tokyo or Kyoto and instead kind of get them into these areas where Japanese taxpayers can be happy, the Japanese government can be happy and nomads themselves can have an amazing experience. So just a little example of kind of trying to find those triple wins.  

Kristin:     00:50:51    Yeah, I was thinking that sounds like a triple win to me. Maybe creating digital nomad villages in places that need an economic boost and that would also mitigate a bit of the negative impact of the gentrification of very popular tourist destinations like Lisbon, like Bali because of nomads, which I think still as a percent of tourism arrivals, I don't think nomads are having a huge impact in these places, but long term we will, and that that will definitely be an issue. What's your perspective on the digital nomad gentrification? This seems like this is a question I've asked almost everybody on the podcast, and no one seems to have an answer because it's such a complex topic. I mean, there's definitely positive and negative impacts that nomads have when we go to places, but for sure we're spending more on rent, we're spending more on food, you know, we're just, we're acclimated to a higher cost of living in many cases when it comes to your stereotypical tech worker from Austin or San Francisco moving to Vietnam or somewhere in Southeast Asia, although there are digital nomads from all different countries. You know, you could be going from Kenya to Amsterdam and then you're gonna have a big jump in your rent and your cost of living. So yeah, what are the conversations kind of behind the scenes at SafetyWing about that and any, any ideas for solutions?  

Lauren:    00:52:31    Yeah, so as you said, gentrification is a really, really complex issue. But something that I find really interesting to think about is that, you know, a lot of the problems that you see now, you know, there have been controversies, I talk about one in Mexico City, uh, in the book in Global Natives, but you know, there have been these controversies where you have like, let's say an American or European going to somewhere like Mexico City and then tweeting about how wonderful it's to be a remote worker there. And then significant backlash from Mexican locals who are like, I can't afford to live in the neighborhood I grew up in anymore because of all these kind of like foreigners coming and essentially like taking up the, the property paying more, et cetera. Um, and in that kind of scenario, what I find quite interesting is that the majority of Europeans and North Americans, this was certainly the case at the, the beginning of the nomad movement.  

Lauren:    00:53:26    I think it's becoming less the case now, but it's still somewhat the case. But, you know, the, the OG nomads were rejecting the high property prices, the gentrification of cities like London and New York, Paris, San Francisco. That's what actually compelled them to go and give the nomadic lifestyle a try instead to begin with. And so now we sort of encounter the situation where the places that they've arrived, they've arrived in vast enough quantities in some places now that that's having an impact on local people and sort of bringing that gentrification effect to other places. Now, you know, you mentioned digital nomad villages before, like I'm sure you know Gonzalo Hall who created the first ever digital nomad village in Madeira. He's a good friend of mine. We have a lot of like ongoing discussions about what's happening kind of in the, the world of nomads.  

Lauren:    00:54:15    And I really agree with one of his distinctions, which is to make a distinction between digital immigrants and digital nomads. Because actually on the ground somewhere like Mexico City, the same in Portugal actually, the countries have been victims of their own success in opening up global mobility and in particular long-term residency to people from overseas. Now, part of the strategy for Portugal was to attract young people who'd fled after the financial crisis to other European cities back as well. It wasn't just foreigners, but nonetheless, you end up in this situation where essentially government policies that are designed to attract, not digital nomads, but digital immigrants, IE people who are gonna move, become experts and have a long-term relationship with that place. Um, the, a number of countries, Portugal and Mexico included, have been so successful in doing that, that actually almost too many people have come and local people are feeling the impact.  

Lauren:    00:55:12    Now, when I think about that whole kind of scenario, I just recognize that policies need to be designed really carefully to look after all of the stakeholders involved. So, you know, one of the problems, one of the reasons that we do see backlash in places like Portugal and Mexico is because the governments gave very sort of liberal policies to try and attract people. And then they were very successful, but they didn't necessarily do that next stage of policy work, of planning of strategy to make sure that actually the local layer, if you bring people from elsewhere, globally into your place, what actually happens on the ground? How do we create regulations that mean that local people can still afford to live in the place and it doesn't just become overrun with immigrants or, or nomads, uh, digital immigrants, digital nomads. And so, yeah, I just think that there's more work to be done there.  

Lauren:    00:56:06    I do think people like Gonzalo are doing really amazing work on that local lay part, you know, of like, how does this actually work on the ground? There are also like examples that we can kind of copy paste might be too strong, but like perhaps copy, paste and remix for different destinations. For example, here in Amsterdam, um, the city of Amsterdam regulated against Airbnb. So unless you have a license which has a cost associated, which means you have to be doing it as like a real legitimate business, et cetera, if you don't have a license, you can Airbnb your home for only 30 days per year. And that's something the city of Amsterdam negotiated with Airbnb. They literally got together around a table and said, okay, here's what we're trying to solve. Here's what you're trying to do. How are we gonna handle this? They came to an agreement, obviously took a long time as these things do, but they came to an agreement and now that is actually built into the Airbnb platform.  

Lauren:    00:57:01    So it's not like a, that's the law, but actually if you're an Airbnb host, you can just ignore it and hope for the best. It's like, no, within the platform there's a counter and 30 days max is like what you can do in the year. Um, and I think that's like a good example of a city going, we're already suffering from overt tourism. Actually, we don't want all of our city center, like every house by a canal to be converted into an Airbnb. We need to like look after our city. So here's what we're gonna do. Um, and I, I wanna see more of that happening in the world. It's something we really try and encourage and the work that we do with governments is like, okay, can you think this through as much as possible? Can you plan for some of the, the issues that are gonna come up?  

Lauren:    00:57:44    What do you need? How do you kind of create those triple wins that I keep referring to? And actually a lot of the time, governments are very, very receptive, especially if other places in the world have already found a solution. So I don't know how many governments I've spoken to and kind said, okay, what are you gonna do about gentrification if this is successful at the level you want it to be? And they say, we don't know. Do you know what Amsterdam did with Airbnb as an example? You know, there are other examples of other kind of sharing economy platforms and such to just basically like control how prevalent something becomes in a city. And you know, for example, I I think somewhere like Lisbon, if Lisbon implemented Amsterdam's Airbnb laws, a lot of the housing issues would not be as, as prevalent as they are.  

Kristin:     00:58:30    Yes. In Lisbon's case, in Portugal's case in general, I think it's really clear that they lacked some of that long-term planning that SafetyWing is doing because they seem to be trying to fix everything in reverse, which is not ideal. But there's still definitely solutions that they can implement, as you mentioned. But it is interesting how the, the golden visa boom is kind of conflated with the digital nomad boom. Now when a lot of the people that came were digital immigrants and not digital nomads and also a lot of retirees and also a lot of investors, you know, foreign investors from Russia, from China that are just buying passports in places. And that's why a lot of those golden Visa programs would be wide open for a couple of years. And then they were, when they got over their capacity, they had to be shut down because there were just too many people coming in.  

Kristin:     00:59:29    So it would be nice if they listen and it's really encouraging to hear that, that your team is, you know, going behind the scenes and actually lobbying on behalf of the digital nomads and being a voice of reason and just a consultant. It's great what Gonzalo is doing. And also other individual digital nomads who have been able to get open those lines of communication with different governments. I think Croatia is a good example. I can't remember that guy's name. I don't know if you know him, the digital nomad who basically pitched the, the digital nomad visa in Croatia. But it does, there are so many digital nomads now that there does need to be some kind of organizing body around us. 'cause it's just, we're millions and millions of people from all these different countries and having self-starting individuals going to the government of Brazil and the government of Croatia or the government of Portugal, like it's, it's not going to have as big of an impact as an organization or group of people from different organizations that are coming together with a coordinated strategy.  

Kristin:     01:00:44    And if anyone can do it, then it's definitely the digital nomad community because we get to draw on people's expertise from so many different backgrounds and people who have been individually affected by these policies because they were born in a certain place and they couldn't travel. And I've had people on the podcast who are from Vietnam and Kenya and all different countries that are just don't have the same opportunities. So definitely grateful that you guys are are doing this. And I was also curious if roving retirees have become a topic of conversation in with safe within SafetyWing. Because I've told people, you know, why not apply for a digital nomad visa? If you meet the requirements, you might not be working remotely, but if you're receiving a pension remotely or passive income remotely, then that could still count.  

Lauren:    01:01:45    Yeah. So I think retirees are not like a key kind of like target customer for us right now, but obviously we have some customers who are at that end of life. And I think we have enthusiasm for serving anybody who basically is living a borderless lifestyle. But we are having like a lot of ongoing, quite large conversations about retirement and about what retirement looks like for millennials and Gen Z and, and future generations. Because when you are designing a global social safety net, you know, an assumption is that you'll have some kind of pension or retirement aspect in there. We sort of work on that assumption. We're working to kind of build that into, to our offer. But at the same time, it's sort of prompted a lot of very philosophical conversations among our team about, but what does retirement actually look like these days?  

Lauren:    01:02:37    Because the majority of people you speak to in the world, certainly from like a North American and European country to like, oh no, I don't really expect like the pension system like retirement to exist. Like as an I'm not, I'm not betting on it. Uh, you know, social, social welfare systems in general around the world are sort of breaking down. Like they're not in a great state. Aging demographics is a very, very big kind of contributor to that. But it's really, uh, prompted a lot of conversation around what would we want as the end user for retirement? Does retirement as the model kind of actually make sense or is there like a new kind of product category that we need to figure out that meets that need? So just to give an example, um, very interesting, or what I thought was a very interesting conversation is, you know, is the, is the new model of retirement actually sabbaticals?  

Lauren:    01:03:28    So, you know, rather than it being a case of pay in for 50 years or however, however long it is, and then withdraw your money at the end of your life, if you survive that long, is it more like you go a certain number of years of work and then that sort of earns you some time off of work? Uh, I like that idea as a nomad myself because I think that when you are nomadic, when you're a remote worker, especially when you're a freelancer, you can be very bad at taking time off and you sort of have this idea floating somewhere out here that's like, maybe I wanna take six months off and write a book or like digitally detox or whatever. And then it's like, you don't do it. Like it's not an auto response. Yeah,  

Kristin:     01:04:10    No, it's so hard. There's now sabbatical coaches that are like teaching people how to take sabbaticals because there's so many moving pieces.  

Lauren:    01:04:19    Yeah. So exactly. So that, that's, uh, just to say something about retirement, I do think that that's a very interesting, um, poignant conversation and one that it feels very correct for nomads to kind of lead the charge on because I think like, you know, we were the early adopters of remote work and combining remote work and travel and it's like, all right, so there are other things, especially as we all get older, you know, like I was, I'm in my early thirties now in my early twenties when I started Nomad, and it's like you do start to think differently. You think maybe a bit more short term when you're younger, and then you start to think about, all right, so what does the next decade of life look like the next two decades as opposed to just what to the next, uh, two, two to five years maybe look like? So I am really grateful to be in a company where we kind of have these, uh, these discussions and when we have them in a very philosophical way because it's like, you know, fundamentally you have to know if you're asking the right questions, I think to make the right products. And sometimes that means not asking the obvious question of, you know, how how should retirement look? Okay, tick, tick, tick. But instead kind of going, okay, what is retirement for the internet era,  

Kristin:     01:05:25    Right? Because this traditional concept of retirement is also outdated and on a informal level, many people in the traditional workforce as well as freelancers and entrepreneurs, small business owners basically just figure they have to save for themselves. They have to create their own pension plans because, you know, I've never worked for a company as, as an employee, so I've never had that kind of safety net for myself. So when I graduated from college, I opened a Roth IRA, and then I just started learning about investing in everything on my own, just assuming I would never get social security or I would never have any sort of 401k or anything like that. And it is, it's kind of become understood like that unless you're from a good, a good country, quote unquote, that you probably won't get much. And a lot of people even in the US right now, of course, are struggling to live on their retirement, on their social security in that country.  

Kristin:     01:06:35    So you have a few different dynamics happening where, well, of, of course there's inflation, there's low average social security checks that are less than $2,000 per month, and you have a cost of living increase. And then on top of that you have gentrification just naturally that's happening within countries and cities that has nothing to do really with tourism or digital nomads. But being from Florida, especially since the pandemic, I mean, prices tripled and Miami became the most expensive city in the US because we have people from New York and all over the country coming here. But that's happening in California, it's happening in Austin, Texas. Anywhere that becomes like a hotspot, people get priced out and then kids can no longer afford to live where their parents lived and and had houses. So there's this, this bigger issue as well, but I'm also curious what SafetyWing has been discussing around taxes because I, I kind of figured, I wrote this article in 2019 where I was just thinking out loud about if there would be some kind of global tax for digital nomads at some point, especially if all of these countries have standardized digital nomad visas and are working together.  

Kristin:     01:07:57    Of course, there's a lot of people right now who are able to pay zero taxes legally in many cases, although I don't think that was intended by any governments to let people just pay zero taxes. So do you think that, will there be some kind of tax if you become a member of Plumia and that goes towards your retirement or sabbatical account? Or do you foresee from, from SafetyWing's perspective, do you think that countries are going to start to work together to kind of prevent digital nomads from being tax less stateless citizens?  

Lauren:    01:08:37    So I guess the first thing is that I think it's really important here to make distinctions between different types of taxes. So I think we're all guilty of this. We all talk about tax, like in the abstract as that, as if it's one thing, right? But  

Kristin:     01:08:49    Actually income, income tax, let's say, or as a tax domicile, like people that have a, they are, let's say they're from Germany and they change their tax domicile to a country that doesn't have a tax on foreign income and they receive their income in another country, therefore they Yeah.  

Lauren:    01:09:10    Yeah. I under, I understand the kind of point you're making and I'll speak to kind of both sides, but I just wanna make that distinction upfront because like income, there are income taxes, there are transaction taxes, there are corporate taxes and there are consumption taxes. And like those are just a few, right? There's actually loads and loads of tax infrastructure. Yeah.  

Kristin:     01:09:29    So many taxes.  

Lauren:    01:09:32    But essentially with income taxes, I think it's a really big thorny problem. And nomads are just one group within that much larger, how do we do global tax problem, right? um, I don't think that there will be a great solution for it. I think countries can band together and they can be like, okay, we're all gonna do the same stuff on taxes basically, and global people. And when I say that, I don't just mean nomads, I also mean like investors and entrepreneurs,  

Kristin:     01:10:02    Corporations  

Lauren:    01:10:04    And corporations. Sure. But yeah, it will be very, very difficult in the sense that all it takes is one country to not join that coalition of countries and all nomads, investors, corporations or whatever, just go to that country. Um, and as it stands in the world, there are an awful lot of incentives from different countries and governments for both corporate and individual tax structures. They, they are competing in this space. I don't think we're gonna see like global policy that like straightens everything out. I just think that like it's for reasons way beyond the nomad movement, but the nomad movement kind of gets like caught up in it. It's just not very practical. Um, so I think we will still see competing kind of jurisdictions for taxes and therefore we will see people able to kind of leverage that competition between jurisdictions to pay where they want and what they want.  

Lauren:    01:10:57    Sometimes 0%, obviously depending on a whole bunch of things, but how you, you structure your affairs. But yeah, I don't think there are easy solutions there. I think it'll still be quite a wild west for the foreseeable future. Yeah. However, on Nomad specifically, I think, so one of the things that we would like to implement in the future, and there's no kind of like date on this right now, but it's kind of there in the thinking around Nomad Border Pass is essentially nomad taxes that operate like tourist taxes. So at the moment, for example, if you come here to Amsterdam, you stay in a hotel, you are gonna pay, I think it's about three euros per night in addition to the cost of your hotel stay and everything, you are gonna pay about three euros per night that you stay in Amsterdam as a tourist tax.  

Lauren:    01:11:47    And so that's fairly common in like tourist, tourist centers worldwide, as in places that are popular with tourists. You tend to be paying that, that's collected at the accommodation provider level and then it's delivered to the government. So the accommodation provider just kind of becomes like the tax collector in that situation. But it means that if you're coming as a tourist, you're contributing something back to kind of that locality, that region, that local community. I think something similar to that for digital nomads would be great in the sense that some of the, so we've collaborated with a couple of universities to create like, it's kind of like do research, do surveys and things of nomads. And one of the things that comes up in that, and also with user interviews when we're speaking to people about our products, is that nomads want ways to give back to contribute to a community.  

Lauren:    01:12:39    A lot of folks talk about having been involved in, you know, like beach cleanups or hackathons or whatever, and they're like, this is great and I'm happy to do it sometimes, but actually I wish the infrastructure existed for me to be able to like contribute and not like contribute by registering and going through a horrible bureaucratic process in order to pay income taxes in a place for three months and then move on. No, much more like I'm staying in this place, you know, this town, this city, this area. I would like some of my money to be able to like go to this community to basically help with the issues of gentrification, perhaps create more infrastructure for me as a nomad or for the local community to be able to become nomads themselves. We've seen this huge like desire from nomads on that front. And in my personal opinion, like nomad taxes that operate like tourist taxes would be a really quite low lift and efficient way to give nomads the ability to pay into the locality that they're in.  

Lauren:    01:13:37    Maybe you think about from that, from the perspective of, of you or me, like the nomad end user. I don't think it's a huge, huge ask to contribute maybe somewhere between like one and three euro or one and three US dollars per day over the course of the year into the places where you're spending time. I think that the majority of nomads, obviously everybody always has financial considerations. We'd all like to less and aside conversation nomad to sort of give that contribution back to local communities. Um, and another way for local communities to actually be gaining something from nomads being there beyond what I still think are really valid, but what I would call soft benefits. So, you know, there are a lot of benefits to nomads coming in terms of knowledge exchange, in terms of like potential improvements to infrastructure to attract that audience, et cetera, et cetera. But I do think it's also really relevant to be able to like pay very directly into the places where you're spending time, give them more flexibility to be able to do stuff, uh, to prepare for nomads and to upskill their own, uh, populations.  

Kristin:     01:14:51    Yes, I think that would also help with just general cultural integration between locals and nomads. That that is very similar with tourists and locals or expats and locals. There is this divide because people are there temporarily or people live there permanently. And so this can maybe help bridge that gap a little bit and also foster more understanding of the locals of digital nomads so that there's less pushback and resistance and these, you know, media headlines that are very controversial. But I do think also to circle back to the taxes, I think you make a good point with a tourist tax or a nomad tax. I think most people would be on board with that and that seems like a good way to, to get started. And also, yeah, the global income tax situation probably will be maybe a hundred years or so on before they are able to standardize that, if at all.  

Kristin:     01:15:53    It, it kind of reminds me of the way that countries behave with regard to climate change. It's like kind of like a game theory situation. Everyone's in it for their own best interest. Like, like a country like India or China doesn't wanna pull back on emissions because at an island is going underwater. It's, it's kind of like that with taxes like certain, especially island nations and countries that are wanting to attract tax residents aren't going to stop because larger wealthier countries want them to <laugh> kind of thing. So it is kind of the wild west. Well, let's talk a bit about the practical ways that people can be a part of this. So we have, we have SafetyWing as a, uh, the kind of umbrella company I guess for the Nomad Insurance, remote health insurance. I know those are different departments, but I think a lot of people that listen to the podcast are probably familiar with, with those. And we can link to those in the, in the show notes. I know I've talked about it a lot on this podcast, the next project that you're working on. So as I understand it from reading your website, you have the Nomad Border Pass launching first and then long term is the concept of Plumia, which is the, the digital country on the internet. When can people start to be members of the the Nomad Border Pass? And then we'll get to Plumia after that and then I'll let you go, I promise <laugh>.  

Lauren:    01:17:30    Okay, so actually I have to flip it around from what you said because uh Okay. Actually people can become part of Plumia right now. Oh, true. So, yes. Uh, so we have, we have a community called Plumia Social Gardens and TLDR. It's essentially like geography or location and interest based WhatsApp groups. So if you're a digital nomad going around the world and you would like to connect with other digital nomads who are engaged with kind of what's happening in the space and interested in the future of the movement, um, we essentially offer like a free community interface for that. It's completely free to join. I'm gonna actually bring up just and share it with you now so that I don't forget later.  

Kristin:     01:18:12    And I think I'm a member of it. And you also have a great newsletter, so we'll link to that.  

Lauren:    01:18:18    Yeah. So,  

Kristin:     01:18:20    Okay. Sorry, go ahead.  

Lauren:    01:18:22    You go.  

Kristin:     01:18:24   Oh, I just realized we haven't defined what, what Plumia is. We've talked about it a little bit, but I can, I have just written in my notes, I can just read from your paper there. So it says, Plumia is a dream of a country on the internet, recognizing that country's are tools with a purpose. We aim to build infrastructure that supports freedom and opportunity for everyone. The mission is to cultivate wholesome citizens and communities in a borderless world. We have a direction and a purpose, but the path will be created as we move forward. For now, we seek to establish a founding chapter of the people who will walk this path and help build this cathedral. So is that kind of the, the way that people can be a part of this ideal of Plumia is by joining the the community?  

Lauren:    01:19:15    Yeah, so Social Gardens is really kind of our, our hub of people interested in the mission. So it's a very like near term like use case situation here, where it's like, if you wanna meet other nomads on the ground in a place, we are helping you with that. But the kind of larger idea is that community activities like this begin to build a sense of national consciousness. So there's a lot of meetups going on around the world through Social Gardens right now. So there'll be like dinners like going like bouldering, like all sorts of things, like whatever people wanna do. Um, but they tend to, you know, I, every time I'm in a place I'm like either hosting or participating in these kinds of meet meetups. And one of the things that I think is really remarkable about it is how often you hear other people's stories and kind of what they're thinking about in this space of where the digital nomads kind of lead us and what's this kind of, of concept of an internet country, how could it help us overcome some of the, the hurdles that we we face in the world today.  

Lauren:    01:20:14    And so yeah, community is really the way to get involved right now. There are a number of online groups within Social Gardens that are proactively working on some part of the internet country mission, like from their own vision, from their kind of like own interest or area of expertise. So there's lots of opportunities to kind of get involved, I guess with like the, the framework for thinking about a lot of this. There's a lot of really knowledgeable people out there who are nomads who are interested in these ideas, who are kind of coming together. So that's a really great way to kind of get involved Right now. We also have a couple of newsletters. So there is a Plumia newsletter, but we also at SafetyWing have a newsletter called Borderless, and that's essentially a newsletter for global citizens. Um, our tagline is that it's for people living across borders and working on the internet. Um, and there every week we're sending out kind of curated news about the latest nomad visas, about kind of what's happening in internet culture, digital nomad space, um, and we also have this really fun little map game in there where it's like guest the country, which has proven to be incredibly popular amongst subscribers. People get hired. I  

Kristin:     01:21:22    Love it.  

Lauren:    01:21:22    Yeah, you are, you are one of the people getting excited and enraged.  

Kristin:     01:21:26    <laugh>. Yeah, I I love the quizzes.  

Lauren:    01:21:29    Yeah, it's good fun. But yeah, those are two ways to kind of get involved with Plumia now and stay up to date with what we're doing. Um, and then the other aspect of things was, uh, Nomad Border Pass. So Nomad Border Pass that we're expecting to launch early next year. And one of the best ways to, to kind of keep up with that would be to join Plumia Social Gardens and or the newsletter or to generally connect with Plumia and SafetyWing on social media. So you'll find us on like, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, come and find us. We will try and do our best to shout about what we're doing, even though as we said at the beginning of the conversation, we're perhaps not as good at that as we, uh, we could be.  

Kristin:     01:22:12    Okay. And when, what will the first version of Nomad Border Pass look like? Do you have any info on countries that might be included in that pass or the cost or is it still too early?  

Lauren:    01:22:26    It's still too early. Like too much is still like under discussion for me to be able to kind of go, all right, here are three bullet points, but uh, maybe we can do another interview at the point where we're announcing all of that publicly and really get into the weeds.  

Kristin:     01:22:39    Yeah, maybe January sometime like that. Okay.  

Lauren:    01:22:45    We could even be in the same place. Kristin?  

Kristin:     01:22:47    Yes, definitely. Uh, Amsterdam is the obvious choice.  

Lauren:    01:22:51    Oh, not in January <laugh>.  

Kristin:     01:22:53    No, no. Oh yeah, true. Depends on the month. Depends on the month. Okay. What about as far as the, like a target maybe number of countries, just as I understand it, this could be something that people join and then Nomad Border Pass would give them access Visa free access to certain countries? Is that how it works?  

Lauren:    01:23:15    The, the first version that we'll launch the MVP will be much more like an application portal for existing nomad visas that will be like the first kind of iteration that we're able to offer to our members. And then we'll be sort of developing things from there. But okay, we're sort of speeding towards that MVP right now of like, okay, what is the world ready for? What is doable, et cetera, et cetera. And the idea is certainly for that application portal step in the, the kind of journey of the product, I guess, that we'll have as many countries as possible included there. So basically the vision is still definitely that if you want a nomad visa, if you wanna go anywhere in the world digital nomad, come here first and we're gonna hopefully make your life extremely, extremely easy compared to going like other routes to be able to do that.  

Lauren:    01:24:04    And then when you've used one Nomad Visa, be able to kind of go onto the next one without filling in all of your information again, et cetera, et cetera. So yeah, that's kind of the, the first MVP vision from there. Um, I mean there's, there's quite a lot in the works. I am actually having to be very careful right now at the end of our conversation about what I'm saying publicly and what I'm not, because we're not ready to kind of announce certain things yet. But let's just say that we're working on a lot of really fun, kind of added benefits for our members who'll be part of the Nomad Border Pass. And we will also be sort of developing basically as quickly as possible from that MVP of giving people smooth access to Nomad visas. Our policy work is still gonna be going on as well. Our hope is that in, you know, five years time, the what a digital nomad visa is, is very clear to everybody. Digital nomad visas are standardized and our product can go beyond, like far beyond just being kind of a, a portal for nomad visas and into being kind of new set of global mobility privileges for our members for digital nomads. So  

Kristin:     01:25:12    It's almost like a, a digital nomad, virtual goodie bag of perks. Can you throw yeah, platinum status in there with a few airlines, <laugh>,  

Lauren:    01:25:23    <laugh>, there are many, there are many travel benefits that we would like to, to add for sure. I'm very interested in this area as a very long term traveler as as you're  

Kristin:     01:25:34    Traveler. And then what would be the time horizon for Plumia? Is that still within the 10 year plan?  

Lauren:    01:25:43    Well, so Plumia today does exist as an innovation lab. Obviously the vision is to launch a passport and to, for Plumia to be one of the first countries on the internet. I think to come back to our kind of modest, humble approach to things in the very Norwegian style at SafetyWing, for us it's really about like creating the product, creating like the, the possibilities more than it's kind of a, a particular title or timeline. So, you know, we'd much rather do the work, make stuff possible and then have everybody else kind of like say, all right, now you're at the point where you're an internet country. I think the passport thing is a bit more clean cut. It's like, have you developed a passport that allows someone to cross a border? Like that is a yes no, right? Internet country. I sort of imagine the way it will unfold is that others possibly media, I don't know, people who know about things will, will call us an internet country and kind of tell us that we've reached that point, but we're really, I guess down in the details of like, what does it actually look like to deliver on a vision like that?  

Lauren:    01:26:49    And then really trying to do the work in those separate pockets to then kind of bring the overall vision of an internet country and being able to offer citizenship services holistically to life. But I do also, I should also say, I do also have to say that, you know, one of the thst parts of a country and building a country on the internet is in fact the social safety net. Like that's, there's a lot of very hard stuff to figure out in there in terms of like economics and what ifs, et cetera, et cetera. And actually within, within the next year we will have launched that, that will, that will exist. And the intention with our social safety net product is actually that it's sort of plug and play for other internet country projects as well. So, you know, we are one of probably around 50 projects in the world today that are in this kind of network state or internet country space.  

Lauren:    01:27:43    And our hope is since we're the only ones who have developed a social safety net, the only people working on that, that actually all of those other projects will be able to kind of plug and play our social safety net and offer that to their internet country citizens to their members as well. So it's my hope that we can kind of move the whole space forward through that innovation, through the social safety net. And that sort of opens up a lot more possibilities for other country-like things that you can do in both the short term and the long term.  

Kristin:     01:28:12    So it's like a social safety net, API  

Lauren:    01:28:16    Suppose so that's a good way of putting it.  

Kristin:     01:28:18    That is so cool. I'm curious, Lauren, how do you and the team think about this as changing people's global identities? You mentioned that that, you know, with people getting digital nomad visas and, and being a part of these countries that they're going to contributing to nomad taxes and, and joining Social Gardens, it's creating a sense of national identity that links nomads from all different countries and age groups and backgrounds. So yeah. How, how do you see, is this more than a subculture? Is this creating a national identity of people that are connected digitally and in their outlook and worldview?  

Lauren:    01:29:10    Yeah, for sure. You know, I think it's probably relevant to say that a conventional country is a group of people who share geography, who are connected by geography. An internet country is a group of people who are connected by ideas and beliefs and values, not by geography. And so that's really where I see kind of what we're doing fitting in is kind of like a, okay, what does this next configuration look like? Where actually we are connecting people based on kind of common values, ideas, beliefs, rather than on arbitrary geography. Um, and so I'm very excited for that. I do think, I think that nomads already have a sense of national consciousness. I say that as somebody who's, you know, been doing this for more than a decade and I'm always having like dinner or drinks with a nomad somewhere in the world and kind of always like taking in what I'm, uh, what I'm learning.  

Lauren:    01:29:58    But I do think that there are shared values kind of shared, um, perceptions of the world, shared perspectives in a lot of cases between nomads. It is like a distinct identity. Interestingly, none of the national political systems have any space for this. You know, show me the political party In most countries that represents people who would call themselves global citizens are pro-technology, think actually immigration should be looser, not firmer, you know, these kinds of ideas, like it doesn't exist as a political party. And I think that it's really vital that those views are represented. Otherwise we end up in a situation where actually, you know, a pro-immigration stance is considered untouchable by every political party. And so those ideas don't get promoted. We live in a worse world. Um, and so yeah, I think that it's, there's a really kind of unclaimed political space that it's really important that nomads come together and have a voice and are able to kind of like express the world that we're living in and the kind of value system that we're within.  

Lauren:    01:31:00    Um, so yeah, super, super important. Um, I think maybe the other thing that I'll say, and I will have to run in a moment, but the other thing that I'll just say on this is, so I can't give full details yet, but later in the year we are going to be running something in collaboration with a couple of other network state projects. And as part of that, we are essentially gonna gonna be bringing a bunch of nomads together, a bunch of Lumia community members in order to try and define a kind of manifesto or the shared values among digital nomads. So it's something that passively as background work goes on quite a lot already at SafetyWing, we're all very nerdy, you know, so we're like, right, write that down, like, oh, hang on, what do we do, blah? Um, but anyway, we're sort of already doing some of that work, but we really want to kind of bring people together in a format that's very like, well planned in terms of, okay, how can we get to the heart of this?  

Lauren:    01:31:57    And then how can we actually like take that kind of a collaboration and knowledge and actually create something that sort of represents and people nomad to feel represents their kind of worldview, et cetera. So yeah, that's kind of slated working title as Premier Manifesto and we're gonna be doing something live in person physical later in the year and then, uh, sort of creating that document from there to, to share with people. So hopefully that will give a little bit more kind of context and depth to the whole, uh, the whole set of concepts around national consciousness for nomads.  

Kristin:     01:32:31    I wanna go, I wanna go <laugh>  

Lauren:    01:32:34    And we'll make sure you're invited.  

Kristin:     01:32:36    Yes. I do feel like this brings up a really important topic to just kind of wrap things up here. There. We don't know exactly how many nomads there are in the world, correct? Have you guys figured that out?  

Lauren:    01:32:52    No, because without a definition, yeah, it's very difficult to count people.  

Kristin:     01:32:57    So we don't know how many nomads there are. We don't know how many expats there are, but there is this nomadic diaspora of our own, but we are almost on the sidelines because we don't, we haven't recognized or organized our collective power as a country or as a culture or a group of people. And I was thinking about this a lot because 95 to 97% of expats living abroad don't vote in their national elections, at least from the US It's probably similar with other countries because you just feel disconnected to those political parties, but they, we we're such a powerful group, we're just a silent group, you know, we're not really making our voices heard on these issues. So I love that that Plumia on and SafetyWing are creating a way to create change, but also to give a voice to so many individual nomads who, who really have a lot to contribute to this conversation. So thank you for that. Would you say that global mobility is a human right in 2024 and beyond?  

Lauren:    01:34:11    I definitely would. So interestingly, and maybe this is a nice point to end on actually, but like, you know, the, the UN Charter of Human Rights, it protects the ability to move within borders but not across them. And we are entering a time right now of climate change really creating new problems in terms of refugee crises. Like if we look at the next few decades, like this is 100% gonna happen. And not just in emerging economies, but also no advanced economies. We're entering this terrain and the idea that our human rights kind of infrastructure has not kept up with the reality that actually it's not, it's not meaningful for somebody's like, um, right to mobility to only be protected within borders. It needs to be protected across borders as well. It's really wild that we find ourselves in that kind of position, but it's a really pressing issue. So I do think that it's absolutely vital that Global Mobility is, I mean, so mobility is already considered to be a human right, but that it's global mobility that we give some sort of like today's context to that, that human right I think is really, really crucial.  

Kristin:     01:35:21    I just got chills. Love it. Thank you so much Lauren. I know we could talk for days about these topics, so really appreciate your time. We'll link to your book Global Natives, we'll link to Social Gardens,Plumia, everything. But where can people also connect with you directly, sign up for your newsletter, social media, all that great stuff?  

Lauren:    01:35:43    Yeah, so I guess I'll highlight two things. One is global natives.substack.com. That is my Substack newsletter, same name as the book. And the second thing is I recently launched a YouTube channel, so find me at uh, youtube.com/atLaurenavi, or I guess you can just put my name into YouTube. You can tell I'm new at plugging the YouTube channel. But yeah, you can find me on that. I'm sharing what I know about Borderless living after a decade of doing this. So maybe something helpful in this.  

Kristin:     01:36:10    Yes, I'm a subscriber, so everyone subscribe. We'll link to her YouTube as well. Well, thank you so much, Lauren. This was so enlightening. And say hi to the team for me. Keep doing what you're doing and we'll be in touch.  

Lauren:    01:36:26    Thank you so much, Kristin. It's been a pleasure.  

Kristin:     01:36:30    I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Lauren. I learned so much and speaking with her really made me think about a lot of different bigger picture issues that are facing nomads and all global citizens. So as usual, we will link to everything that we talked about in the show notes. Make sure that you sign up to Social Gardens and, and get on that email list for the Borderless newsletter. You'll receive it every week. Fascinating stuff happening there. And also connect with Lauren on social media. I just want to thank Lauren and the founders of SafetyWing and the whole team at SafetyWing and Plumia and Nomad Border Pass for all of the work that they're doing to create a global social safety net work that they've been doing for many years now. And I just have so much respect and admiration for everyone on the SafetyWing team. So thank you to them for all of their work. And thank you for being here today to spend time with us and being a part of this conversation. I hope you get more involved. Check the show notes also for our links to Unbound Merino and SafetyWing Insurance as well. And I'll see you here again two weeks from now on August 20th for another brand new interview.