What destination research tools are available on Nomads.com?

Updated

Nomads.com offers a set of research tools for comparing places to live and work remotely: an Explore browser, ranking pages (Best value cities, Fastest internet, Fastest growing, Housing affordability, Best place now), finders and calculators (Climate finder, FIRE calculator), and research resources (Nomad stats, State of remote work, History of nomads, Network graph). Most of these are listed in the site's Tools menu and are aimed at helping you shortlist destinations by cost, internet speed, weather, and community activity. The site also states that joining the community is free, and its signup page mentions a free account plus 50% off by email; specific paid tiers or feature limits aren't described in the available page content, so check the Billing page before relying on any assumption about what a free account includes.

Browsing and shortlisting places

The Explore tool is the starting point for browsing destinations. The site describes its purpose as exploring places "based on cost of living, internet speed, weather and other metrics," which tells you the comparison dimensions to expect. A practical workflow:

  1. Open Explore and browse cities broadly.
  2. Note the metrics shown for each place (cost, internet, weather, and similar).
  3. Move candidates into the ranking pages below to compare them on a single dimension.

The homepage also surfaces a live list of cities with dates and "going" counts (for example, Bangkok Oct 25 – Dec 6 with 55,608+ going, and Chiang Mai with 27,622+ going). Treat these as signals of where members are gathering in a given window, not as a quality ranking.

Ranking pages for one-dimension comparisons

These pages let you sort places by a single criterion, which is useful once you know what matters most to you:

Tool What it helps you compare Use it when
Best value cities Overall value across cost and other metrics Budget is your main constraint
Fastest internet Connection speed by place Your work depends on video calls or large uploads
Fastest growing Places gaining traction You want to be where the community is expanding
Housing affordability Relative housing cost Rent is the biggest line in your budget
Best place now A current recommendation view You want a starting point without building a shortlist

Because each page isolates one dimension, the reliable method is to pick two or three criteria, check the same cities across those pages, and only then read the individual city pages. A city that tops Fastest internet may not appear near the top of Housing affordability, and that trade-off is the actual decision.

Finders and calculators

  • Climate finder — narrows places by weather preferences. Useful if you already know you want a specific climate band and want to avoid manually checking each city.
  • FIRE calculator — a financial-independence calculator. It's a planning tool rather than a destination filter; use it to sanity-check whether a lower-cost city actually changes your timeline.
  • Residence calendar — helps track time spent in places, which matters if visa or tax residency rules apply to you. Confirm those rules with official sources, since the site doesn't provide legal or tax advice.

Research and community data

  • Nomad stats and State of remote work — aggregate data on the nomad population and remote work trends. Good for context when you're deciding whether a destination's community is large enough for you.
  • History of nomads — background reading on how the community and locations have shifted over time.
  • Network graph — a visual view of connections between places or members; useful for spotting clusters rather than single cities.
  • Members map, Chat, Meetups, Friend finder, Dating app — community tools rather than research tools, but they let you check whether a shortlisted city has active members before you commit. The site claims 194 meetups per year in 100+ cities.

A workable research sequence

  1. Browse Explore to build a list of 8–10 candidate cities.
  2. Filter with Climate finder if weather is a hard requirement.
  3. Compare the survivors on Best value cities, Fastest internet, and Housing affordability.
  4. Check Nomad stats and the Members map to confirm each city has an active community in your travel window.
  5. Use the Residence calendar to track your time and verify visa rules independently.

Common sticking points: the ranking pages each measure one thing, so a city can look excellent on one page and poor on another; the "going" counts on the homepage reflect declared travel dates, not permanent population; and account features versus free browsing aren't fully specified in the available content, so confirm on the Billing page before planning around member-only tools.