Whether digital nomads contribute economically to local villages is a fine question.
But - what is happening to Spain? It has among the lowest fertility in Europe and has only avoided collapse in population through migration form LATAM and North Africa. Why is spain suffering from this?
What's happening in the villages is a symptom of something larger.
As I understand it, these attempts to use digital nomad money to revive impoverished areas tend to become controversial when the impoverished locals realise what it means to compete with (from their perspective) extremely wealthy blow-ins. Maybe in particular circumstances it can work, like if the locals actually get most or all of the money spent by the newcomers (rather than going into the pockets of absentee landlords or large corporations).
The article opens by noting fears about Spain's "vibrant culture" dying out. Needless to say, this won't help with that problem and may well accelerate it, unless Spanish culture is coding workshops and padel (per the article).
> (from their perspective) extremely wealthy blow-ins
Iâve had some friends do the digital nomad lifestyle. One thing that stood out to me was how many of them were not really doing that well financially. The stereotype is someone with a $100K per year job living like a king in a place where the median wages are 1/10th of that
Most of the people in their digital nomad groups were actually not full-time employed. They were trying to do contract work and then stretching out their earnings between jobs so they could travel. Living in these cheap locations was almost required to allow them to work the way they wanted.
There were people who were lucky enough to have the six figure remote jobs at companies that were okay with them not being available during normal business hours. Those jobs were at high risk of getting cut at the next economic down cycle.
It reminded me of how much the indie hacker scene all fantasizes about being like the levels.io guy making crazy money selling simple services to his giant follower list, but most of them can barely get a couple dozen sales for their SaaS if theyâre lucky. Everyone thinks of levels.io, but few people think of the long tail of people making less than theyâd get at any full time job.
> One thing that stood out to me was how many of them were not really doing that well financially. The stereotype is someone with a $100K per year job living like a king in a place where the median wages are 1/10th of that
The thing is, having a Western passport and earning $10k-20k a year (untaxed) in countries where the median household incomes (ie. 2 working adults) are at best comparable to that is living like a king comparatively speaking.
There's a reason western expats are looked down on derisively by locals across ASEAN and the only ASEAN state with a semi-functional democracy (Malaysia) is also one of the least budget tourist friendly - the middle class and above look at tay ba lo with disgust as losers, and the lower class only look up to them for the opportunity to get a more powerful visa. The high rate of "passport bros" also doesn't help.
It's like that scene from Futurama when they all accidently age backwards: "Oh, so this is the famous Fry. What is he, like, the biggest loser on the surface, so he has to hang out in the sewer?
Fry: They're on to me!"
The reality is, most kinds of tourism only lead to the development of extractive economic institutions at the expense of human capital development and higher value economic sectors that would benefit from that.
And in the case of this specific village and town in Andalusia, this will only exacerbate anti-tourism politics which has helped both Vox and Podemos because rural Andalusia is absolutely not equipped to support a sudden influx of transitory high income outsiders.
I was just the sort youâre talking about.
I did contract work so I could stay traveling and lived on money I made in previous full time jobs. It was a very nice way to live compared to the 9 to 5 even though I made less money.
Having enough money to live the way you want is all you need. Hostels are fun.
But in the free time I had, I did end up making a SaaS that set me up very comfortably for the rest of my life.
Cynicism will keep you in your 9 to 5.
This must be a troll.
Even if your story is true, you can't believe that's generally good advice.
> when the impoverished locals realise what it means to compete with (from their perspective) extremely wealthy blow-ins
It's also more socially acceptable to complain about this stuff when the newcomers are seen as wealthy. We saw this in Canada when Chinese nationals started buying up houses in Canada. To the point the government started limiting foreign ownership of residential real estate.
https://www.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/professionals/housing-markets-da...
In Canada , it wasnât limited to areas with economic struggles/lack of investment.
Most of the investment was in major metropolitan cities, leading to a statistically significant percentage of residential housing stock being bought up with foreign(imported) capital. Many of these units were subsequently used as store of investment (left empty)
Since policies did not support building at the pace that met increased demand(mainly immigration), and many foreign buyers were comfortable bidding up housing: this was a significant contributor to housing prices inflating to mutiples that were much higher than previous trends (i.e. upto 20 times median salary vs 5/7 times previously)
And the foreign buyer ban did lead to a measureable decline in prices
Anyway,
See also money laundering through Canada:
Complain about what stuff? Isnt he saying the complaints are specifically that they are wealthy?
The primary thing cornering Canadian real-estate was investor corporations, rather than Chinese nationals. But it was easier politics to highlight Chinese nationals, esp. coming up to the Canadian election.
> As I understand it, these attempts to use digital nomad money to revive impoverished areas tend to become controversial when the impoverished locals realise what it means to compete with (from their perspective) extremely wealthy blow-ins.
I donât see it like this, it may as well be that digital nomads are bringing much needed cashflow to the local community; of course this phenomenon should be monitored but digital nomads are so few that they canât have a meaningful impact in sectors like housing or good prices.
You havenât lived in Medellin, Colombia if you donât think digital nomads can have an effect on housing prices.
My experience is from 2015-2024. I did the digital nomad thing for 9 years and lived in Medellin 4 separate times over that period for 6 months to a year each time.
I saw rents for normal folks, not furnished and not Airbnbs, do a 4x in that time period. Laureles was a middle class suburb for locals in 2015 and was just overrun by nomads by 2024. Poblado, Laureles, even as far as La Estrella saw a really noticeable impact.
Clearly I contributed to the issue and nomads did inject money into the economy but it also had a really visible effect on housing. I donât have any ideas on how to do it right but it is something that should be approached carefully or locals get priced out.
EDIT: I believe they started more tightly regulating things in 2024 with required registration for <1 year rentals. Not sure how that has played out. Also added the specific neighborhoods that I saw things shoot up.
How do you assign changes to: ânomadsâ, expats, retirees, and even local gentrification?
It matters more than you think when it's a rural area with limited housing supply...
And the nomad visa is not so cheap, by yourself it requires âŹ2850/month which I believe is a LOT more than rural workers are earning, this is exactly how people get squeezed out of housing.
In Cuenca, EC you have a lot of retirees and a few digital nomads. Most people donât make a big move to spend more money than they would in their home country. So they frequent all of the same small local businesses and markets as the locals. No one learns Spanish so some money funnels into interpreters and facilitators. I ended up spending a lot of money on restaurants started by immigrants because I donât like Ecuadorian cuisine that much. All of this to say that the money is distributed more than one might think.
The town: BenarrabĂĄ, MĂĄlaga province, Andalusia.
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