Frequently Asked Questions

HACKER PARADISE is a community of international remote working professionals that travel the world together for weeks or months at a time. We make remote working fun, fulfilling, and fearless.

Let us help you spend more time doing what you love (working and traveling differently) and spend less time doing what you hate (logistics, planning, building a community from scratch every time you switch locations).

Anyone with a project they can do remotely, a positive attitude, and an adherence to our #NOASSHOLES RULE is welcome to join us. We’ve had participants of all ages, from 6 continents, some families, some companies, and even a dog travel with us!

Maybe you have a full-time job, or work freelance or spend time building out a passion project. Maybe you just had a crazy life change and are on sabbatical, figuring out your next big thing. As long as you have something to work on during the day, we’d love to have you join our community and come work and travel with us.

As far as gender ratio goes, it varies from trip to trip, but we do average a 50/50 split and it’s never further from 40/60 either way.

We strongly believe in diversity of all kinds, and age is one of them. The majority of our participants are in their 20s, 30s, and 40s, but we’ve had people on our trip ranging from 18 to 60 years old plus a few families who brought their kids before. Our community is warm and welcoming–we all know age is just a number. But don’t take it from us, here’s what some of our participants HAVE HAD TO SAY.

 

We’re big into inclusivity, diversity, and community. We know what it’s like to travel solo and instead, WE PREFER TO WORK AND TRAVEL IN THIS GROUP of like-minded professionals. We are always available for all night game nights, early morning coffee runs before a video call in another timezone, and weekend side trips to a neighboring country.

A typical trip has two facilitators who arrive at the location before you and leave after you to ensure check-in, coworking, wifi, and check-out is a breeze and everything is up to snuff. On trip, they plan weekly activities, post daily schedules of optional events such as Monday weekly lunches, Tuesday night potluck, and Thursday night workshops.

Workshops can be on anything our participants are experts in. We’ve had everything from chair-dancing to crypto-currency workshops. We also pair participants randomly for a weekly ‘donut buddy’ so they can get to know each other in a one-on-one setting.  Many usually grab coffee or lunch together, but some have gone parasailing or snorkeling together. And we are happy to say after 5 years of business, we have also had OUR FIRST #DONUTBUDDY WEDDING! Seriously.

To see and read more about our trips, check out OUR INSTAGRAM or PROGRAM PAGE.

Engineers, graphic designers, entrepreneurs, project managers, data scientists, and marketing specialists are among the more common remote-working industries, but it doesn’t stop there. Our members includes translators, copywriters, a sex toy creator (yes, really), recruiters, illustrators, and photographers.

From our experience, the tech industry is generally the most open to remote work, but we have a ton of members who work in other industries and have made remote work possible for themselves.

We also have partnered with companies to bring entire teams or small companies on trip with us or even as a subsidized perk for an employee. CONTACT US if this sounds like something your company might be interested in.

Not a problem at all. There are lots of tools out there to help you do your job remotely. In fact, we made an entire GUIDE ON HOW TO PITCH YOUR EMPLOYER to let you work remotely. Feel free to use however you wish.

Most companies understand that remote working isn’t just for freelancers and entrepreneurs anymore, but if there is anything we can do to help your employer feel more comfortable with this, PLEASE REACH OUT.

ENTER YOUR DETAILS HERE and grab a time slot for a 15 min Zoom call with a Hacker Paradise facilitator who can answer any questions about  joining the Hacker Paradise community.

OUR COMMUNITY is what makes Hacker Paradise as strong as it is and the interview process is the first step in creating this comfortable and productive environment for everyone. It’s also the perfect time for both sides to get all their questions answered, and to put faces to names.

We also want to make sure that you understand that while Hacker Paradise is a place for people who want to travel and have fun, it is mostly a program for people to work, grow and develop themselves. If both parties think it’s a good fit, you’re in! You tell us WHICH TRIP YOU WANT TO GO ON and for how long.

Groups are typically 20-30 people. There is enough diversity within the group to find people who are interested in the same things as you, but the group is small enough that you still know everyone and the community doesn’t split into cliques.

Honestly, the member network is one of the best perks that no one really understands until after they go on a trip. You are going to meet people who are your people. Knowing these people has a lot of benefits. When you join a Hacker Paradise trip, you become a PART OF OUR member NETWORK spread out across the world.

We stay in touch via our member Slack channel where we post jobs, banter about reality tv, and organize meetups all over the world. Members travel together, COLLABORATE ON PROJECTS, hire each other, and debate endlessly about useless things. People share resources about new cities or cool tech to travel with. They connect you with other people in their network.

Clean. Close by the apartments. And with fast, consistent, and strong internet.  Co-working space specifics vary from location to location, but one thing that doesn’t change is it’s a place for you to be productive and get sh*t done.

The coworking spaces we partner with generally have the fastest internet in the city. Sometimes we find ourselves working with a beach view and other times we’re in the heart of the city. Our co-working spaces have a range of facilities and setups for you to find something that will suit your work style.

Unfortunately, we don’t provide jobs for Hacker Paradise members, but there are a number of remote job posting sites that a quick Google search will find you.

Once you have secured a job, or a personal project to work on, GRAB A TIME SLOT to chat with us so we can figure out where you’ll join us!

Make sure your passport is valid for at least 6 months after your arrival date in the last location on your itinerary. You also need your own flights to and from whichever location you are meeting up with us in. We can help you out if you need some advice for finding good flights.

You also should get travel health insurance and double check with your doctor/the CENTER FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION to see if you need any vaccines before joining us. Check out our blog on CLEANING UP YOUR LIFE PRE-TRIP for more info on how to make the transition a seamless one.

We structure our trip so you can easily walk between home, the coworking space, restaurants, bars, shops, and places of interest in town. We tend to travel to most places on foot, public transport or rideshare apps. Some places have local vendors that offer bicycle rental for people who like to cycle.

We provide you with a loaded SIM card at no extra cost! Just make sure your phone is unlocked so you can pop it in and use it! We also recommend downloading WhatsApp before coming on a trip so you can communicate with your friends and family using your real cell phone number, even while you will have an international number with a local SIM.

We stay in hotels and/or apartments where everyone gets their own private room. We never stay in hostels and would never make you share a room. We’re too old/fun for that. We make sure we have great accommodations with strong wifi in the best part of town because where and how you live is a huge part of the Hacker Paradise experience.

We also organize housekeepers to clean the apartments and change bed linen approximately once every two weeks.

Absolutely.  Unless specifically requested, the accommodation we provide is private. But If you’d like to share a bedroom (which can reduce the price by up to $1,000 USD a month!), all you need to do is ask and we can make arrangements.

Hacker Paradise trips are also great for giving your team a big thank you for working so hard. Talk with us to find out what kind of arrangements can be made and the discounts you can get for traveling and working together.

Once you’ve joined our community, you’re always part of our community, whether you are currently on trip or not. 

We’ve had people travel with us for a year and we have other people that come for several months, then go on their own for a bit, then come back to join us for several more months. Other people just come for one trip at a time before figuring out their next trip to join.

Our recommendation is to come for the entirety of a trip. Otherwise, it can feel like you’ve left the family party halfway through.

We’ve worked out our pricing structure to accommodate flexibility. The longer you stay, the cheaper the monthly rate is. That being said, if you’re only able to come for smaller chunks of time, we do have certain start and stop dates every two weeks from the beginning to the end of the trip.

Also, 75% of our alumni have joined us on more than 1 trip, so don’t be surprised if once you join, you don’t want to stop.

Generally 2-3 months in advance. We run out of spots for trips and want to make sure you get a spot before they are all gone!

Once you have paid, we start making plans for you to join us, which includes making down-payments for housing and coworking. In order to get the the best rates and set competitive pricing, we have to pay these in advance. As a result, we are not able to provide a full refund.

Prices differ from trip to trip and also vary depending on how long you decide to spend traveling. Monthly pricing starts at 2,490 USD per month. The longer you stay, THE BETTER PRICING YOU CAN GET.

You can pay for your trip(s) by credit card, bank transfer, Wise or with crypto currency. Payments by credit card are subject to a 3.5% credit card surcharge.

Many of our participants have been able to claim Hacker Paradise trips as a business expense on their taxes. We recommend you talk to your personal tax accountant to learn more about your specific situation.

We are well versed and trained in both, and have a system in place for facilitators to work with our on-the-ground partners to identify and execute solutions that keep everybody safe and in-the-loop.

We deal with these super rare issues as a team and with the safety and comfort of everyone in mind. Once again, our incredible local partners keep us updated on any natural disasters or unforeseen events and advise us the best course of action.

While in Korea, a rather large typhoon passed over. However, our local contacts gave us plenty of notice, we were able to stock up on food, drinks and board games and have a fun night in! This is also a huge perk of being on a Hacker Paradise trip – if something does happen, you don’t have to go through it alone, and you have facilitators on the ground there to take care of it.

Your health, wellness and safety is by far our highest priority. Here are some of the measures we will be taking to ensure that any virus-related risks remain low:

  • We have vetted and partnered with trusted housing and coworking facilities of a high calibre, especially when it comes to cleanliness. Professional cleaning staff will conduct thorough and regular cleanings of all apartments and coworking spaces. We will work with you to ensure that, where possible, cleanings are done when you are out so that social distancing standards are maintained. It is likely that housing and coworking facilities will also have their own additional guidelines. 
  • Where apartments are shared, inviting guests over will require the consent of roommates.
  • When requested, and where possible, we will offer contactless checkin and checkout procedures.
  • We will provide a list of recommended medical providers, hospitals and local clinics that you can use in the event that you need medical care or COVID19 testing. 
  • If anyone on-trip starts to show symptoms, we will enforce the procedure recommended by the hosting country. The rest of the group will also be notified without delay.
  • In addition to complying with universal measures such as social distancing, hand-washing, the wearing of masks, etc., we will also adapt to standards enforced/encouraged by governments on a local level. We will remain in close contact with our official city contacts to ensure that we have the most up-to-date and accurate information on health and safety measures. 
  • At the commencement of every trip, the group will meet to develop and decide on a set of internal guidelines as a community. These guidelines will shape our behavior for the trip so that every participant feels safe and comfortable. 
  • We will remain adaptable and modify our approach to COVID19 as things change.