Remote YearReviews of remoteyear.com

I am so happy with my decision to take a leap of faith and join RY. It was a lot of anxiety and stress to put all my worldy possessions into storage and make a ton of changes to travel and work remotely for the year, but it was so worth it! I'm amazed by and grateful for the wonderful relationships I have gained! I have had more fun in the past month than the past year! I am growing, exploring, and loving life.

Great intro conversation which might gave been worth the 1 k I lost. Poor follow through and unable to book a travel slot due to their lack of response and unwillingness to communicate in anything other then emails which get sorted into junk mail so are easily missed. They have learned how to convince the credit card companies that they are not scam artists so there is that.

Love it, live it, share it

I joined and left the program very quickly. Pros: -- The staff were very nice and really cared. -- Other members also were very warm and caring. -- Wide diversity of opportunities & new experiences. Cons: -- You pay a flat fee and then they pay for your housing and travel. This puts you at a direct conflict of interest. In general you get what you pay for and so you'll be spending your time in 2nd and 3rd tier cities in countries with poor infrastructure, smog etc.etc. Some people don't mind, I hated not having the ability to improve my living standards, being stuck in the loud, busy centers of poor-quality-of-life Asian cities. -- The group was 60% Americans, and not the cool independent kind that I used to encounter on my solo travels, but the kind that very much likes to operate in groups. I felt like I was back in high-school trying to fit into a clique.

I highly recommend Remote Year for any Digital Nomad who is interested in living abroad while pursuing his/her career. RY makes it really easy and painless to work from overseas, while providing a built-in support group of 30-odd like-minded individuals, all of interesting and varied backgrounds.

I have just completed a one-year itinerary with Remote Year, and want to say to anyone and everyone who is considering it... it's a must-do! Yes it's a big commitment, but every minute and every experience and every new friend is totally worth it. It's a life-changing experience that I believe everyone should do in their lifetime. I felt completely supported the entire time, and I cannot imagine ever again travelling solo. Highly recommended!

Great program to travel the world. It's incredibly well planned and the people that run the program in each city are amazing! Highly recommend for both experienced and new travelers.

Let me start by saying that I want RY to succeed as a company. I want lots of other people have the amazing experience RY offers. There are a lot of reviews here that are fully on one side of the positivity spectrum or on the other extreme. I want to provide review with BOTH the pros and cons, since that’s what I would want to see. There is nothing in this review that I wouldn’t tell a RY team member to their face and, frankly, I have provided most of this feedback along the way. It is SUCH a personal journey that I want to stick with more broad-policy facts that could apply to most people. I’m going to start with the cons, in the form of lessons, because they are easier to quantify and list out: Lesson 1: Nothing is a guarantee. My journey had a rocky start. The original itinerary I signed up for was cancelled due to lack of enrollment two moths before departure (surprise! this can happen!). The RY team was amazing at providing emotional and logistical support, but I didn’t have any wiggle room in my departure date. That means I ended up having to piecemeal together two itineraries - one of which I joined at the 6 month mark. It was scary and exhausting and not what my experience was supposed to be at all. That said, I got to meet TWICE as many friends and be part of TWO amazing communities so I tried to look on the bright side and make it work for me. Lesson 2: RY can (and likely will) implement new cost-cutting policies on you (see Lesson 1). My first ittn included three super fun “tracks” a month, all included in the program fee! Two weekday tracks, and a weekend track. They were all a wonderful way to explore and experience local culture and spend time with remotes you might not otherwise hang out with. Halfway through the year they stopped including weekday tracks. Same cost. Less fun. Less culture. Less community. Those same weekday tracks were now “plus” events you have to pay for, and were often cancelled due to lack of enrollment because similar experiences could be found on Air B&B, sometimes for less. Nothing replaced tracks. So, unless you’re prepared to shell out more $$ to the company you’re already paying monthly, they offer less than they used to and I do think the experience and the community suffer for it. Lesson 3: Their team is amazing, but overworked, and very human. And RY is cutting back on staff. My first program had two program leaders (PLs); one for experience and one for logistics. It was helpful. You had two people with two personalities working together, bouncing ideas off of each other, supporting each other, and focusing on what they exceed in. They had time for us. They had time to sleep. They could pick up the slack for one and other in the case of an emergency. Fast forward to now and each group only gets one PL. So they are tired, overworked, and if they have an emergency or god-forbid want to go on vacation for a week, then you are without your go-to support system. It just doesn’t make sense. For the most part they’re not seasoned travel professionals. It's true, your PLs and city teams might get drunk, make you mad, mess up royally, hook up with a remote, ignore you when you need help, even quit after your first few months. They’re trying, they really are, and they are gems, but they are just people who have been thrown into this crazy thing with barely enough support, and it’s hard. Go in knowing that and manage your expectations. Now the positives; Lesson 4: It really is SO nice to have someone else do the logistics. I’ve traveled on my own before and OH MAN does it feel great to have an apartment pick up, airplane ticket, apartment drop-off, and city orientation all planned for you. During my travels these logistics were all handled very well. There were a few extra-long travel days that did not have the best layover, but RY warns you of that, and the days go by quick because you’re hanging out with your friends in a lounge. Lesson 5: You’ll live comfortably (most of the time probably). The accommodations were for the most part nicer than I expected. I had balconies in all but two of my apartments and elevators in all but one. I often had my own bathroom! One month I even had my own apartment. There is a cleaning service! The locations are safe, central, and walking distance to the workspaces. It’s all true. They’ve generally got that part pretty well sorted out. Of course, I’ve heard rumors RY is going to start charging more for “premium” apartments (see, Lesson 2) so this might all go down the drain but at the moment it seems like it all evens out over the course of the year. Yes, sometimes you’ll have construction outside your window, or a terrible pillow that ruins your neck, or a hot water heater that gets fussy, but all in all it’s not too bad. Lesson 6: The community and experience are worth it. I generally agree with all of the glow-y positive feel-good reviews! Obviously traveling for a year, working remotely, living in a new city every month is an AMAZING opportunity and it’s probably a good idea to go for it if you have the chance. Despite some of my grievances about RY’s business decisions, I don’t regret it for a heartbeat. It will be what you make of it. There will be gorgeous days, horrible days, and a whole lot of mediocre days. There will be people you love, people you cannot stand, a lot of people you casually connect with. In that regard, it’s like any other year, but, better!