[Podcast] How Portugal's Madeira Island became a Digital Nomad Hotspot with Gonçalo Hall Transcript

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Episode Summary

Learn how Gonçalo Hall transformed a random island in Portugal into a digital nomad hotspot, in the middle of a pandemic. In this episode, we talk about how countries are embracing remote workers, how Gonçalo convinced the community of Madeira Island to get on board with becoming a digital nomad hotspot, what digital nomads and remote workers can expect when visiting Madeira, how to enter during COVID and his secret to creating a top remote work destination.

In this episode, we talk about:

  • How Gonçalo took a random island in Portugal and transformed it into a digital nomad hotspot... in the middle of a pandemic 

  • Gonçalo’s personal story of how he got started as a remote worker 

  • How countries are now embracing remote workers 

  • How countries can attract remote workers and what they look for when choosing a destination 

  • How he convinced the community of Madeira Island to get on board with becoming a digital nomad hotspot

  • How he created such a strong digital nomad community in Madeira

  • What digital nomads and remote workers can expect when visiting Madeira

  • How to enter Madeira during COVID and their safety protocols 

  • Future remote work hotspots that Goncalo is working on developing

  • The positive impact this project had on Madeira Island

Resources Mentioned:

Connect with Gonçalo

→ Connect with Gonçalo on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/goncalohall/
→ Connect with Gonçalo on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gonzohall/

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Connect with Kate

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→ Follow Remote Career Coach, Kate Smith on Instagram @theremotenomad

Speakers

Gonçalo Hall, Kate Smith

Gonçalo Hall, Remote Work Consultant, and Evangelist

Goncalo Hall is a remote work consultant and evangelist. He’s the man behind The Remote Work Movement, Future of Work Conferences, Remote Portugal and Remote Europe in order to help the remote work movement grow and spread. The Digital Nomad Village is Gonçalo’s most recent project, being developed in Ponta do Sol, Madeira island, where he is building a community of digital nomads focused on positive local impact and connections. He is also the host of the Remote Movement Podcast where he interviews people making a ruckus in the remote world. 

→ Connect with Gonçalo on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/goncalohall/
→ Connect with Gonçalo on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gonzohall/
→ Learn more about Madeira: https://digitalnomads.startupmadeira.eu/

Kate Smith, Remote Career Coach, Speaker, and Remote Work Advocate

Remote Career Coach and industry thought leader, Kate has helped countless professionals break free of the 9-5 and create more freedom in their lives by showing them how to successfully land a remote job. Her expertise has been featured on BBC, Fast Company, CNN, Atlas Obscura, GlassDoor, and many other major publications and podcasts. She was named 'The 100 Most Influential Remote Experts' by remoteweekly.io, and she’s even worked with the country of Estonia, as a digital nomad community representative, to create the world’s first digital nomad visa! After breaking free of her corporate 9-5 job in advertising, she landed a full-time remote job doing online marketing before launching her business. After successfully going remote herself, Kate's now on a mission to help other ambitious professionals create more freedom so they can live life on their terms too!

Follow @theremotenomad

Transcript

Kate Smith 0:02

Welcome to The Remote Nomad Podcast. This is your weekly escape from the nine to five grind. Every week we interview industry experts from around the globe on remote work, landing a remote job, the digital nomad lifestyle, and mastering your mindset. Prepare to be inspired as you learn how to create a lifestyle with more freedom and flexibility. I'm your host and Remote Career Coach, Kate Smith.

Kate Smith 0:26

Before we dive into today's episode, if you've been struggling with creating a resume for Remote Jobs, then make sure you download the free remote resume checklist. It's going to show you how to create a talk to your resume so you can transform it into an interview-generating machine. See the link in the show notes to download this free offer or head over to theremotenomad.com/freegift.

Kate Smith 0:47

Our guest today is a remote work evangelist. He's a driving force behind the growth and spread of the remote work movement across the entire world. With the digital nomad village he's essentially taken a location not common for remote workers and perhaps even unknown Madeira Island in Portugal and transformed it into a digital nomad hotspot ranking number four on Nomad list. He's here building a community of digital nomads focused on positive local impact and connections. He's the man behind remote work movement future where conferences remote Portugal and remote Europe and the host of the remote movement podcast. I'm so excited to welcome our guest today Gonzalo Hall. GonzaloWelcome. How are you?

Gonçalo Hall 1:31

Hello, thank you so much for the invitation. I'm so happy and so happy to be here and speaking with you are always amazing.

Kate Smith 1:36

I am so excited for our talk today. You have been up to some impressive stuff. I remember we first connected years ago it's been some some time now. And I remember way back when you reaching out being like okay, I want I'm going to I want to go remote. I'm going to go remote. And now here you are just leading this movement and I can't believe just even all this stuff that you've you've been doing in the in since then. We have so much to cover today. And I'm so excited to just dive into it all today. For those listening that aren't super familiar with you. Why don't we start with just your journey of going remote and then we can dive into everything that you've been up to since then.

Gonçalo Hall 2:15

Perfect. So since I'm a kid, I always wanted to move from place to place I started in seven schools out of 12 years I studied in three universities out of five years. And my driving force was always to find out how is life there there being Croatia, Bali, etc. I was always curious even when traveling, how it should be live here was what about what if I just lived here for six months. And back then I had no idea about digital nomadism or about remote work. But then I read an article while I was working for a sports betting company about digital nomads. And for me it was like mind blowing experience what these guys can work from a computer and travel. So I don't have to find a job anywhere I go. That's perfect. And so yeah, just dig deep into it. That's when I found you as well. Meanwhile, I actually moved to Germany I had a very good job offer for going to Germany to restart my life. I'm Portuguese salaries are not great in Portugal, but they were much better in Germany. So I moved to Germany got the nine to five job but I got bored and and my 30th birthday. I was like super depressed because I had this corporate job. I think a lot of people just to go with this message. I had a corporate job. Life was good. I had microphones thought about having kids. But that was sports. And so I decided to quit everything then change my career going to Poland as an expert's learn them all about email marketing, but then I was in the email marketing company called get response. And then yes, I started as a freelancer I free myself fire myself, but my ticket to Bali were worldwide crazy story. And everybody do the same, but my ticket to Bali. Meanwhile, I got two jobs. And as soon as I bought my ticket to Bali, suddenly I had two job offers full time, so I could be safer. And yeah, so that was my journey to start working remotely moved to Bali, working remotely for a remote startup, got bored after nine months, once my own thing. And after two years here we are now with way too many projects for the number of hours we have in the day. I cannot believe all of the things that you've been up to recently.

Kate Smith 4:19

I think your story is I think a lot of people can relate to that just really wanting to explore and see new places. And a lot of times that comes with restrictions of vacation time or having to get a new job and you've not only made this work for you, but you've really been a driving force behind this movement now. So tell me about this digital nomad village that you're creating and that you've created. And and I'm really excited to to hear more about this because for a really long time remote work wasn't super popular or known and there were only a few key locations where digital nomads could really go and thrive and now to see countries not only recognizing remote work but embracing it, and the fact that you have got this whole city on board to embrace digital nomads and it's really taken off. Tell me about this journey and and the digital nomad village that you've created.

Gonçalo Hall 5:19

I'll tell you even the backstory meaning three years ago, I wrote this project three years ago, not from a data for a small village in the mountains of Italy called panna villa. I was there in Erasmus plus project called entra hudl. ship. And it was about how to restart villages that were completely empty all around the world. Specifically, in Europe, we have 1000s and 1000s of empty villages where people just love to work in big cities. And on the other side, as a digital nomad, I always travel between communities. I say always, people don't believe me, I don't travel to places I traveled to communities. The reason I went to Canggu and I love Canggu in Bali is not because Canggu is amazing. It is it's because there is a great community there. There is a lot of amazing places, I'm not going there. Because there is no communities. On the other side, Chiang Mai like super basic place. It's amazing because of the community and all the other places, even Lisbon, although I'm from Lisbon soil and let me be biased about Lisbon. So taking this into consideration, I believe that we should use remote work. And digital nomadism is just a percentage of remote work, we should use remote work to allow people to move back to the villages where they can leave into communities, being happier, etc, etc, etc. And this is normal. This is the first step to achieve this goal, to be honest. So it's digital nomads are just usually very early adopters of anything we do. And in on the places we go. So I went to use digital nomadism to repopulate the village to restart to make them understand that the master is not the way there's actually a sustainable way of tourism that can help your village both economically but socially as well. And if you could own the whole impact we have in the education of the people around here. These people here never heard about remote work and I work for the US. No, I have to get the job or I have to immigrate to the US or to Portugal mainland. And now they are hearing all these crazy digital nomads working from here to companies all around the world. Well, if these guys can do I can do so. So that's the whole idea behind it using remote work and digital nomadism to repopulate villages. The only way to do it sucessfully is to create communities. That's it. That's the only secret I have, which is not a secret anymore. I tell this to everyone. It's not about creating digital nomad visas. And I know you were very involved with a stunning one. But this is just the guest. That's just amazing. That's a startup country. They're doing great. But all the other countries that created these digital nomad visas like Croatia like Barbados, etc. What they means is that it's not about the visa, the visa can help. It's not about the visa. I'll give you the example of Croatia. I love Croatia. I've been there four times, I think they have a huge potential. But again, it's not about the visa, you go to Croatia, you as an American or Canadian will do the visa to go in Croatia. And then what Where are you going wherever you meet? Where are you working from? There is no communities yet they have to work on that. So we did the other way around. We don't have any visa. So we just created the community in the place that was built around community villages were nothing less than built around the local community. That's how the villagers are made. And they'll even let the the bell go because it's part of the village we have a bell it's a Christian villages, Portugal, it's beautiful. And it comes with it. And it's okay. So, yeah, just the thing I did from the beginning was focusing on community I want to create a community where I would love to move into. And I have several great examples where I'm not a genius at all. I just follow the examples in the places I love the most. I love Canggu, as I said, as you know, I love outpost. I love dojo. I think those guys are incredible community leaders making Bali what is today, on the other side of places like Bansko Bansko is a small village in the mountains of Bulgaria that created an insane community that Mateus is managing. And the guy is really really good in managing his community. And then all these other places like the Canary Islands we're not sure how to do you guys. Also with nomad city conference, all these people are inspired me to put everything together To be honest, I just took the best of them all, and created everything and my vision into this village here in Madeira called Ponta do Sol.

Kate Smith 9:14

Yeah, and you've also done all of this during COVID, which is also extremely impressive, because this has been a huge success this, this whole this whole take off, and it's really been well received. What was that like? launching this? Did you did you What were you thinking doing this during COVID? Like, how did you manage that? And yeah, what was that part like?

Gonçalo Hall 9:38

There's two sides to it. On one side, there's a positive side which is COVID was an accelerator for many people. Before COVID we had 10 50% of full time employees inside the community now in here have 50 to 60% of the people here are employees and that's okay. But just there is a huge shift in there. A lot of new people that wanted to start trying it out. And they chose a community to start because they know that it's a safe place. So that was the positive side actually call it was accelerator probably to be very hard to start these and to have the big welcome that we had from the local community if there was no COVID. And things will take maybe five years like it took materials to start bands going to be successful in bands calm. So that's the positive side, of course, on the negative side as well. First, there's a pandemic which is not very good for everyone. People are a bit scared of being in parties. And so and the even the locals are, some locals are a bit scared of these people coming here. But to be honest, we are very, very lucky to be in Madeira because my data since the reopening back in June has this amazing system of welcoming meaning. If you can hear directly, you can do the free test on the rival they will offer you a PCR test on the rival to make sure that you are negative. So you have to quarantine for 10 hours, you received the test. Hopefully it's negative and you can go out to your life and enjoy my dad free of charge. And they did this is back in June. Well, most of the countries never apply this. Their Altima data when all the countries hell now have a look down in Europe, the Madeira said we are not closing again, we are doing a curfew instead. So instead of closing the economy, like Portugal did, for example, with the same number of rise on cases, but that decided no, we will keep the economy open. But we'll create new rules. So they installed this curfew at 7pm to avoid the big parties in the evening to avoid the big social gatherings. But the economy is working. So you can still eat lunch outside, you can still go to the beach, you can still enjoy life just need to be home at seven, which for me, it's a very good trade off to be honest, instead of being close to my apartment in Lisbon, I can enjoy life until seven then I go home, I can have a calm dinner, and enjoyed the next day which is perfect. So we were very lucky to be mother, I think this will not work as good if you were for example, in the mainland in Portugal in Lisbon, where there is it's there's so much instability, and that they change ideas every week that it becomes hard to plan anything again. But that is very stable. The only rule they changed from June was due to the high rise of cases because of Christmas, we had a lot of immigrants coming in. So they had to create this curfew to make sure that cases go down which they are. And hopefully they will actually reopen soon. But it's super stable. So I never had issues with changing rules. The rules were always the same since I signed the contract back in December, never the rules change. And this stability allows people like like as intrapreneurs to actually create something remarkable because people are not afraid of coming here. They understand. The rules are not perfect. You still need to go home at seven. But hey, the rest of the world is looking down. So it's quite good. It's a quite a good deal. So yeah, COVID I think it was accelerator. And to be honest, like we spent zero euros in marketing, it was about all about word of mouth. And so it was just an accelerator of these guys are not just creating knowledge visa, they are creating a community during COVID. And it's being successful. But it was with the old the positives and the negatives, it ended up being a huge opportunity that Madonna knew how to take. And they were very smart in investing in the project and the returns are insane.

Kate Smith 13:12

Absolutely. So yeah, this is making me think of so many questions I have we talked about community a lot. So to you what what is required to create this great sense of community for digital nomads.

Gonçalo Hall 13:27

Just first having the community manager is essentially get someone to lead the community like in in Bali, you feel the same like the Co-working spaces are leading the community in the right direction, and everybody follows it. And here's the same we have a very good community leader that hopefully will get other people into word but it's just creating events, creating opportunities for people to connect, introduce people to the space help people any questions they have around Madeira visas, etc. Or even if you don't know, you don't have to know everything. I'm not from Madeira, just direct people, my partnerships to people that actually know what they're talking about. And to be honest, just that just the ability to connect people that bringing people together then creating things that people want, like, we have Skillshare events, we have yoga, we have CrossFit, we go for swimming every day, and whatever people ask I will try to do. So the key is just being very, very people centric and make sure that you deliver and then it just connection. And after one two months, you go to that very beautiful period of community builder, which is they are organizing the events by themselves. So if you want to organize an event about remote work or remote, a remote company or whatever Bitcoin, whatever it is, you just talk with us and we will make it happen. And now they are organizing events for themselves getting together and brainstorming and creating amazing events that I'm just there at twist to just watch and it's beautiful. So that's where you want to go. Make people build their own things what they want to see they are building which is exactly what I did with the whole community. So it's it's surprisingly easy.Whoa, just a lot of work and you need a person in the center of all the process.

Kate Smith 15:04

That's amazing. It really seems like you've set up a place where there's that ease of transition for digital nomads to know, okay, I have the support, I have the guidance. I know the communities there, I have these experts that can help me navigate life here and coming here as a remote worker. And I think that's really huge. Because, especially for for so many years, there's been so many gray areas and lack of clarity, which is why these these digital nomad hotspots have have come up because they're the easiest to integrate into. And so you've really, not only just had that community, but that ease of integration. And so it seems like it's been well received from the local community. What What has that been like? What is what's the impact have been like for Madeira since bringing all these remote workers in? And how is it being received? what's what's that? Like?

Gonçalo Hall 15:55

I think it's important to say that it was well received because it was well prepared meaning before we just come here, we spoke with all the local entrepreneurs. And I mean, like door to door. Hello, I'm Goncalo we are doing this business. Digital nomads are these these kind of people they are looking for this. And small things like for example, well, it looks like 20 to 25% of our community happens to be vegetarians or vegans, which is not great. If you come to Portugal, we love our meat, we love our fish. So most of the restaurants don't have or didn't have a vegetarian option. And now they all have vegetarian option. The prices of the houses here they never met students. They never met people that rent places per room. And the prices were for normal Airbnb tourists for short term. So we had to educate them on what are the prices that digital nomads are willing to pay? And what is the flexibility we want, how long we stay? What can they offer the internet, for example, amazing upgrades on all the local internet. So there was a huge work on preparing all the local businesses. So when first they get the most money from it also, of course, but also on the other side digital nomads have what they are looking for in a nomad destination. And it really helps that I am a nomad and not just some government trying to attract people. So that part was really really really well prepared. We had a lot of time a lot of work a lot of troubles, making sure we really advocate to the local community, and to be honest debt paid off. And that's just it like when the local sky when the nomads came, there was vegetarian options everywhere there was restaurants, they knew that they can work from the cafes and from the restaurants. And they are really really welcomed there which I love to work from cafe sometimes it's like a gray area. Can I work here, can can I? and now here they are welcome everybody's welcoming. And they embrace it. Sometimes the court case for people just go for the cafe's, you can watch the ocean is really cool. The impact, of course, in the village, imagine, we have around 150 people here in the village. So basically, the center is basically as every single day. I came here in December, restaurants were completely empty. Right now the restaurants are for most of the day, the same for everything else supermarkets. And yeah, we are very, very welcome because the the economic impact was huge. We are now going to the second stage of the impact. And we want to have also the big social impact. So now we are starting to work with NGOs and other people to actually create events to help the locals. The first one, we did the beach cleanup, I think that's the basic as everybody do. But for example, we have a dog shelter, animal shelter, shelter that will will help on taking the pictures of animals are very bad at digital marketing, it hurts my eyes. So we have to go in there taking pictures of the guys making sure there is they go to social media, we will walk the dogs and everything and we will do a week off, we will collect food from the whole village for a week. And making sure that the numbers no right to give the foods. So this is the second part where we will want to give back and nomads giving back from Tarek is a big inspiration from this, we really want to give back to the community. And of course when they see these guys are not just tourists that these guys, at least part of them really want to make an effort to give back to the community that are willing to go to the schools talk about remote work that are willing to go clean up the beaches walk the dogs make events for we are planning 2021 three is hopefully my which is insane. And all these adds up to the perspective that the locals have from nomads. And this is very important. We don't want to be the advisors. We want to make sure that we are really well integrated in the community and our standards and if there is any issue and of course there will always be issues. If there is an issue that we can really work on that first to make sure it's worked out and everybody understands its perspectives. And this is again, community manager is key for all this to happen.

Kate Smith 19:46

Yeah, it really seems like you've taken a very collaborative approach instead of just ushering in a ton of digital nomads to take over this small town and locals like what's going on. I think it's really amazing that you're working together collectively so that it can really be when when you know the restaurants are full now, like you've said, there's been consistency in dealing with COVID with just that curfew, and still thrive and have people coming into this town and not and having the locals feel like it's not just being taken over and really leaving an impact and making it a positive experience for not only the remote workers and digital nomads, but the local community, too. So what is Madeira like? It is beach town is it's on the beach used to talk about a beach like what is it like in the town? What can people expect in terms of coming there? What is it like?

Gonçalo Hall 20:33

Well, for Americans and people in the North America, it's cheap, our meaning people say I have the American selling but it's not me. I never been to Hawaii. But people here people Americans that came here say well, it really looks like a high but 10 times cheaper. So it's like the only place I know away from the Korean space. You can go to the ocean in two minutes walking. And you can go to the mountains and be very high in the mountains in five minutes. So and climbing the mountain like amazing green nature 85% of the island is protected. So there is this amazing hikes. Everywhere full of green full of waterfalls, I did a hike with more than 25 waterfalls. And yeah, just a lot of nature to be honest nature activities and then the ocean. So you have the best of the two worlds, you can literally walk into nature or 1500 meters high, doing amazing hike there, and go finish the day swimming in the ocean. And there is not many places where you can do both in the same day. And then there is the whole Portuguese culture like the food is amazing, super cheap. The lunch menu here is eight euros with drinks, we can include a glass of wine, for example, eight euros for the full meal with wine, and 10 euros if you want to desserts and coffee. And the prices are insane. And all that together. Just makes it in my opinion one of the best places around the world to be. But definitely in Europe, there is no parallel to the offer of nature plus ocean that we have here. Probably the same with our way and don't know it that well. But it looks like it's a similar case.

Kate Smith 22:04

Yeah, that's incredible. Not a lot of these digital nomad hotspots... A lot of them are bigger cities. And what I love about this is for me personally, I love the beach. I love nature, and to have more options of going to a place like that. It sounds it sounds beautiful. It sounds amazing.

Gonçalo Hall 22:19

There is more than 200 hikes official hikes from the government that are taken care of by the government. There is more than 200. So we pretty much have one per day to do while you are here.

Kate Smith 22:30

That's amazing. And so if somebody is interested in coming there, what should they know? Do they hate they apply for the visa ahead of time, what's the process for somebody that wants to come.

Gonçalo Hall 22:40

As of now, because the Schengen zone is still close to everyone outside the Schengen zone. So if you're in the Schengen zone, you can just fly here, Canada, the test before and show it here on arrival. It's quite simple. You should go to digitalnomads.startupmadeira.eu registered there, everything is free. So just register, make sure we know how many people are coming and we can help them. When you register you have access to our Slack channel. On the section you can ask all the questions you can connect you can you can connect with the people that are already here and ask questions you always like see the crazy events we have we have. That's the second bell. We have around five events per day. And I'm not joking. So we have around five events per day around here only more than one thing from shall the main city from yoga, CrossFit salsa dancing, it's insane. So go over there register. If you're not from the Schengen zone, you would have to apply for a D seven visa or other type of visa that will be a little bit more complicated. I do think that the Schengen Zone will reopen by the end of my so we'll see that out the project will continue. We'll stop for the summer because it's high season in Europe. And of course the locals need to get money from the tourists instead. And that's completely okay, we should balance it out. But we'll be back in October. So even if you cannot come until the end of June where this first pilot project ends, please think about October they will continue being here the community will continue to open more places around the island with different proposals from guidester. From surfing us from their nature being in the village being as we in the bigger city will have all these around. Just go to the website, keep yourself updated. And you can also come here for six months with a D seven visa from Portugal. But we unfortunately not like Estonia, we don't have a remote work visa. I'm really really pushing as hard as it can the Portuguese government I don't think the guys can stand me there anymore. But hey, sometimes you need to be like these to get something done by the government. And this is a national government like Madeira government told me it was as far as I would have this and then yesterday, but it's national. So there is nothing we can do. But we are making a lot of pressure to have at least a remote work visa that allow anyone in the world to come here, regardless of nationality.

Kate Smith 24:49

Yeah, that's amazing. And I think even just with what you've started, you're showing the impact how it can really work in a collaborative way how it can really be a benefit to the economy and I think if anything. That's just going to help build your case to get the government on board to. So what do you what do you feel? Or what's your vision for? These I guess digital nomad cities moving forward, do you? What's your predictions in terms of what this looks like moving forward? Are there any other countries you have in mind or specific places where you want to bring digital nomads to how do you see this panning out in the future?

Gonçalo Hall 25:26

So I think I have a lot of proposals and a lot of governments, which is always fun, to be honest. It starts very small like I did. So I want to call continue with Madeira. I just confirm at least two or three years I'll be here as a consultant, and we'll see the future. And so I want to expand to more places in Madeira, Madeira has actually two islands, the second one is white sand beach Island smaller, it's completely empty on the winter. So we can actually do some fun events that are for example, I will do a five day nomads, exploration, something like that normal experience on the islands called port science. And the idea here is like to level up and create more hotspots, because not everybody do a small Southern community, but some people might be into the nature. So we'll have a hotspot in the natural hotspot next to the surf destination in Madeira. And great, it's all different experiences. That's the future in Madeira. I just, it went well, let's grow it. And then yes, more countries. And there is one country specifically that I'm watching for three years now, that I think has the biggest opportunity in the world. And it's pretty much confirmed as of now. So I'll be probably working with Cape Verde. Cape Verde is a country with eight islands in the coast of Africa on the coast of Senegal if I'm correct. And those guys are just one of the most beautiful places in the world completely ended develop just very massive tourist, because going there no impact. So I think that will be the next huge number. This nation they have direct flights from the west, direct flights from Brazil and direct flight from Europe. So they can this be this huge hotspot even for people from outside the Schengen zone that come to my data to then have to renew for three months to place anywhere else. So imagine spending the winter in the African islands with crazy White Sands, and everything you would learn like like a little bit like Thailand Island, like more more sands, a little bit more desert in Thailand, but very focused on the beach. They have for example, the world champion of kite surf has a kite surf school there. And there's all these really cool activities that we as nomads would maybe enjoy. I would love to learn kite surf. So hopefully kk verted will be one of the big countries coming in the competition for digital nomads. But I think we'll see more and more competition. I think that's the future. I think most of the countries understand what is digital nomad is now they didn't and he did a great job with Estonia, for example, to help us to understand what are digital nomads, how they can win, why is it important, etc. And they understand. I think now, we'll see more countries in the competition, we have Croatia launching the Nomad fee. So we have Greece looking into it, things are really slower in Greece, Georgia, making a great work also in that arena. And he hasn't seen much value by much really know much effort yet. I think that will but things are slower. Because first they have to solve the whole huge health problem with the COVID. I think we'll see more and more of them coming into play. But then I think South America and Africa To be honest, I think South America and Africa will be the biggest winners of the pandemic. And the ones that work well. We'll just try an Africa when the opportunities without any doubt, give me a little bit just the first stop, but suffer America with all the conditions they have. I'm thinking Brazil, Argentina, Panama, I think we'll see specifically Brazil and Argentina and mar the south, South America have huge opportunities, lots of problems, lots of work in front of them. But if they work well, if we focus in communities instead of focusing on visas and just focusing, like we are very hard sell to be honest, digital nomads are probably the worst and the most difficult market in the world. We We demand a lot of information. We demand a lot of things. But the impact is also very well. So it's very hard to sell to a digital nomad, you cannot convince me with a Facebook ad to go anywhere in the world. You have to convince me with the community Do you have a great community so if once for one side, you'll see all these places competing for digital nomads on the other side, I believe that 95% will completely fail, because they will believe that knowledge visas and again, number of visas are important but only when you have community only when you have a very strong background like Please come here. We have a visa for you because we have these communities where you can jump in. This is the key. So nomad visas, great idea. missing the rest of the world is not about not visas and Instagram ads and speaking at conferences. You need now to create committees and you'll see a huge fight around the globe. And I think the biggest winners again South America, Africa, and hopefully even the area where I am right now which called Macaronesia which is Azores, Madeira, Canary Islands at Cape Verde. They're all part of this extra peripheral region. And I think they'll also be huge winners of the whole pandemic and of the whole war for digital nomads.

Kate Smith 30:07

Right? It's so strange, because everybody didn't really see that this was like a real thing. And now everyone's fighting to attract digital nomads. But it seems like a lot of countries, like you've said, have sort of been with this mindset. Oh, crap, our economy has been impacted by COVID. We need to bring people here. Oh, okay, let's try to get remote workers as opposed to being proactive and embracing and creating that community. It seems like it's been more of a like a transactional business approach to stimulate their economy when really, like you said, community is huge for digital nomads, and so important. And and I love that you're, you know, forecasting and seeing the, I guess, the diversity and in terms of locations and spots to really just keep things interesting for remote workers. And I'm really excited to see this pan out. And especially Africa. You know, Panama, all these places, like it sounds incredible. I there's been so many places I've wanted to go, but I'm like, okay, it's not really set up for digital nomads. So that's going to be a vacation spot. So it's really incredible to see this growing. So what are you focusing? What is your main focus? Now? Is there anything else that you're that you're working on that you want to share? I know you've you've been you've been very busy person over these years Gonzalo.

Gonçalo Hall 31:24

Well, that's hard, really like. So I really wanted to help companies, I believe that we should change companies to allow people to have more Remote Jobs and help you out also in your huge mission, which is getting more people to work remotely and combine basically forces with you, you'll help people, I'll help the companies. And we can all do this together. And we had an amazing example. So for example, I was invited to organize random remotes the biggest remote code conference in the world. And it was like, I'm, I'm a fan of all those guys. And they invited me to hang out with them. That's how I felt I was invited to hang out with the cool kids. And the crazy thing just between that is that the cool kids think I'm one of them, which is completely insane. So I have like, Guys, I worship calling me and treating me like one of them. That's crazy. So yeah, I want to keep I will push, I'll keep pushing on, I think I just divided myself into to be honest. On one side, I have my b2b side, which I will still help companies, I still have remote arrow, which is a job board for Europeans to find Remote Jobs because that was the thing about some websites where it says us only in small letters, which I hated. And actually just because of that I created IE you only just to piss everybody off. And while it's taking off, and then I have remote Portugal have the conferences, I'm organizing a new conference called coming soon the the normal world will be completely insane. We went really, to help more people to start this lifestyle, which you are a part of it. And yeah, just a lot of things happening. So now dividing myself into two or into several ones, when helping more companies helping more that culture that should have should be developed in comedies. It's not just about installed zoom and hope for the best. There's a whole culture, a whole synchronous communication, a whole documentation that needs to be done for things to work out and for people to have fun. While working remotely. On the other side, I really love to work with destinations, and I'm having a blast, developing weather I, I really think I can change or I can help change Cape Verde in three to five years with remote work, not just digital nomadism. But nomadism plus location plus impact, I think we can change. So my next big challenge. And the thing that keeps me awake at night is blue, can I change a whole country with nice digital nomadism in the remote work? So this is what I am really excited for like we change my data forever, for sure. And we'll want to keep the work here. But it's possible to change a whole country with digital anomalies. I don't know the answer, but I will find out in the next three years. And that gives me like everything.

Kate Smith 33:58

That's amazing. And I have no doubt that it's possible. And I have no doubt that it will be multiple countries that you have an impact for. And it's so great to see because it's exciting for remote workers because it gives us more options. But it's really exciting for these unrecognized locations and countries where you can really stimulate that economy and just have this collaborative approach that you've already done. So it's not like we're just going in and taking over but really working with local communities embracing that and just allowing their economies to thrive what you've just done here, like if you said like all these restaurants in Madeira are are full right now when everyone else is in lockdown and Portugal's all over the place with this and you've given and help support that consistency. They're amazing. And so going solo, how can everybody find you and keep in touch with everything that you've been up to and everything that you have going on?

Gonçalo Hall 34:56

I think the best place is still LinkedIn. I think that's the only social media, I really answer everyone and I try to be as active as possible because I think it's a very good platform to share knowledge. And this is I'm a weird digital nomad, I'm very bad on Instagram. So I'm really more into sharing knowledge and sharing impact and inspiring people to follow this movement. So LinkedIn is the best place to follow me. You can invite me I'll be happy then to speak with you. And if you want to try to follow me on the on the Instagram, I try to post sometimes it's @gonzohall. So Gonzo Hall. And of course, if you want to come to Madeira, digitalnomads.startupmadeira.eu And thenomadworld.com will also take off very soon. Just google it when you hear this because it will be it will be big, and it will be very, very fun as well. So yeah, that's, that's a lot of things happening. But LinkedIn is still the best platform to reach out to me.

Kate Smith 35:50

Amazing Gonzalo, thank you so much for joining us. It's so exciting to hear about everything you have going on and the impact that you're having for the digital nomad communities for all the local communities. And I'm just so excited to see how this all continues to evolve. You've done so much you've had such an impact for digital nomads, pushing this movement forward. And I'm just, it's been so incredible. And you've been such a voice and a leader for the digital nomad community. And I'm just so excited to continue to see all these incredible things that you do and the impact that you have for the community. So thank you for coming on today.

Gonçalo Hall 36:28

Thank you so much, guys. And again, you were part of the inspiration for all this, to be honest, you are the OG that inspired me and I was just listening to your content and seeing your videos and participating in the webinars. So you are a big part of all these. So if there is a Goncalo today, you are a huge part in it. Thank you so much for all the work that you did in the last five years, I guess. Like there is so much time and so much effort put into it so much inspiration that you are putting into the world. So I would also take the time in your own podcast to appreciate you because you are on this for a long time. And I really appreciate all the work you're putting into it.

Kate Smith 37:01

That's amazing. Thank you so much. I appreciate that. Thanks, Gonzalo.

Kate Smith 37:06

Thanks for tuning into this week's episode of The Remote Nomad podcast. Be sure to subscribe on Spotify, Apple podcasts and other streaming services so you don't miss an episode. Share this episode with a friend so they too can learn how to create more freedom and show your support by leaving us a review so we can reach even more people who are passionate about the remote work movement. In the meantime, you can find me over on Instagram @theremotenomad where I share more tips and insights to land a remote job. That's it for today. I'm your host and Remote Career Coach Kate Smith. Thanks for listening.