Remote Nation Meetup in Lima
This past weekend, Remote Year (the overhead staff) organized the first Remote Nation — a meetup of all the current Remote Year groups.
Luckily, the 3 active groups are all in South America at the moment, so about 150 people were able to attend. RY1 is currently in Lima, for what is now their last week of their Remote Year, RY2 Battuta (that’s me!) is in Cusco, Peru (the last month of our South America leg), and RY3 is in La Paz, Bolivia (their itinerary is essentially following RY2 a month behind). We had to cover our transportation to the event, but from there RY had hotels + conference center + events lined up.
Remote Nation was definitely one of the more professional-focused and best events we’ve had thus far on RY. I hope it inspires us as individual communities to do more of these kinds of activities as the people who participated really enjoyed learning and skillsharing with each other.
Day 1
Friday, May 21, 2016
The weekend kicked off with an RY-sponsored welcome party at Cala, and although it started after sunset, it was still nice to feel a warm ocean breeze after two months living in the mountains at high altitude.
I was honestly a bit overwhelmed by the number of new faces (flashback to arriving in Montevideo), but everyone was pretty friendly and excited to be there and meet each other.
RY had us RSVP to one of several restaurants for dinner and had vans waiting to take us to our various locations. We had to buy our own dinners (I think mine was around $25 including wine, though), and then we walked over to meet up with the larger group again at a bar.
- 7:00 pm — Oceanview Cocktails — Cala Restaurant + Bar
- 9:30 pm — Family Dinners — I went to Punto Azul with 8 people, a mixed group of RY 1, 2, and 3 and a staff member, and we ate some delicious octopus + olive sauce, parmesan scallops, ceviche, and squid ink risotto.
- 11:30 pm — After-Party — Bazar Bar
Day 2
Saturday, May 22, 2016
On Saturday, we had a full day of sessions + panels + workshops lead by various RYers, which I really enjoyed (in spite of being a bit tired).
This was the schedule of events that I attended on Saturday:
- 9:30 am — Launching a Business on Remote Year
- 11:00 am — How To Blog Good (and Do Other Stuff Good Too)
- 1:30 pm — Welcome & Thank You from Team RY
- 2:00 pm — Come Get the V(ideography)
- 3:30 pm — Fixer Upper: Website Edition
- 4:15 pm — Food for Thought
- 5:00 pm — Magic Show
- 9:00 pm — Nation Dinner & Drinks
Launching a Business on Remote Year
This session was a panel with several members of RY1:
- Gaurabh Mathure & Anuja Joshi — Pikkabox
- Geetika Agrawal — Vawaa
- David Arvan & Stephen Silber & Nissa Szabo — Out
- Joe Matta — Salt Eats
Gaurabh and Anuja are actually married and came on RY together — even without knowing them very well, I can already say they are kind of a spirit animal dream couple that I can only hope to aspire to be like one day. Both are designers and foodies, and they decided to found Pikkabox as a way to curate & send cool local items back home and to people around the world.
Geetika is another impressive creative type who left her design + creative direction job in NYC to come on Remote Year. In her travels, she enjoys finding local artists and craftspeople and creatives, so she founded VAWAA (Vacation with an Artist) as a way to facilitate more people making those connections + having unique creative collaborative experiences. This is live, so head over to her site to book a session — she has artists in Argentina, Japan, Vietnam, Malaysia, India, Slovenia, and the Czech Republic.
David, Stephen, and Nissa all met on RY and over the course of a few months of incubator discussions and personal experience trying to manage social outings, they decided to create an app to solve their problem. They have a site for their page + have done beta tests, but are moving back to the US as their RY ends this summer to really focus on accelerators, investors, and launching their app.
Joe came from a financial + business background but wanted to focus his time during RY on starting a new business, ideally one centered around food, helping entrepreneurs, and building community. He organized some dinner parties and events during RY and has now partnered with a woman who specializes in startups, events, and is a former chef to bring Salt to life as a “platform to support food entrepreneurs and help rebuild local communities and economies.” One of the Friday night Remote Nation dinners was organized by Salt.
All the panelists discussed the idea of “starting stupid”, which is that whether you start your new business with a lot or a little planning under your belt, there will be so so so many hurdles & challenges, and knowing them might dissuade you from ever beginning. But if you “start stupid”, you start and just figure them out one at a time.
For me, a terrible procrastinator, this was (and always is) a helpful reminder.
How To Blog Good (and Do Other Stuff Good Too)
Mike Sholars (RY3), blogs editor for The Huffington Post Canada, led this talk on what it takes to write a blog that people want to read & share. He had notes projected (and shared them with us afterwards), and he was very funny + informative, so I really enjoyed his talk.
Some of his main takeaway points:
- Most blogs are written around a 4th grade reading level, and that’s intentional
- “The ideal blog has enough personal touches to be uniquely your own, but speaks to an issue that will resonate with a wider audience!”
- A good blog should contain at least one of the following: novelty, entertainment, and/or informational value
He also dispelled common misconceptions (having your own website, WordPress blogs as the only right way, needing to be a great writer, knowing your focus already, etc).
Welcome and Thank Yous
Greg got up and said some words, then Trish gave out chocolates to each person speaking on a panel / leading a session with a couple words about who they were.
At first, I had an “oh no” moment, but it turned out to be a great way to pair names and faces and learn a bit more about my RY community. So thanks, Trish!
Come Get the V(ideography)
Starring RY2 Battuta’s very own CUP OF TJ & NOMAD DRONE. I love my RY2 family, and these two in particular are impossible not to adore. TJ is a future YouTube star and Tiago shoots incredible footage via his snazzy new drone.
They each gave a presentation — TJ talked about how to make a vlog and Tiago taught us how to make timelapses + hyperlapses using our smartphones.
Tiago also told us how to shoot aerial footage and showed us some of his amazing videos of the Rainbow Mountains of Peru and Machu Picchu and Death Road in Bolivia, but so far he’s the only one with a drone.
If you feel the need to have your heart strings tugged at, watch TJ’s Don’t Quit Your Daydreams video (below). I mean, watch it anyway. I love and admire and appreciate TJ so much for her attitude + her making her dreams happen.
Fixer Upper: Website Edition
Panel: Katelyn Smith (RY1), Andy Simon (RY2), Zoe Bjornson (RY3), and Leah Dungo (RY3).
Each panelist talked about one aspect of website creation, including strategy, content, design, and promotion. Then they opened it up for questions, and we had a discussion for about 30–45 minutes about best practices around SEO, recommended platforms, reaching out to people for opportunities, etc.
Leah also made the Yapp app we used for our Remote Nation meet up, which was helpful and a pleasant user experience.
Food for Thought
Because Anuja and Geetika (from the RY1 Business panel) weren’t impressive enough, they also ran a second project during their Remote Year called Food for Thought.
They created Food for Thought to facilitate experiences of having locals + travelers come together at a local’s house to share a home-cooked meal (prepared by a RY1 traveler).
The point was to share cultural experiences, so they had the cook make a cuisine from a culture they were part of — this way the travelers are sharing their culture with the locals, instead of the more common opposite dynamic. Check out their website for pictures from their dinner parties around the world.
I love cooking + hosting (and attending) dinner parties, so I was excited that they are looking to share their platform with us so that we can continue to host dinner parties with locals as we travel with Remote Year.
Magic Show
Charles Du (RY3) put on a close-up magic show with 3 card tricks for us. I hate magic because I pay attention + am not a total dummy, yet I can rarely figure out how they’re doing the trick.
I talked to Charles on Sunday afternoon (after he attended my yoga class), and he told me more about his business teaching online courses on being a product manager and, now, being a digital nomad.
Nation Dinner + Drinks
Remote Year sponsored dinner for us at Sukha, which as is kind of a theme with this year and us overwhelming the resources of the cities we visit at times, probably wasn’t ready for us. But we had a good time chatting and everyone ate and got drinks eventually.
Day 3
Sunday, May 23, 2016
RY only planned a few things for Sunday as most people were traveling back to their respective RY cities. I taught a 12:30 yoga class to a handful of people, which was really great.
Yoga
I did my yoga teacher training last April with my mom in India, primarily for the experience but also to grow my own practice. Since then, I’ve taught a handful of classes, mostly to my RY2 group on various rooftops and empty rooms in Montevideo, Buenos Aires, and La Paz. It was great to actually get to teach in a real studio with nice mats and props.
Hopefully I can find more spaces to teach in Europe — Say hello in the comments below if you’re in London, Prague, Belgrade, or Split!
After Remote Nation ended, I stayed a couple days in Lima but didn’t do much besides hang out at a cat park (aka heaven) and catch up on life + work at this cute little surf-themed cafe with healthy snacks.
Katherine is a digital nomad, working remotely while she travels the world — on the road since June 2014. She’s a member of Remote Year 2 Battuta, living around the world with 75 other digital nomads from February 2016 to January 2017.
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