Our New Patreon!!!

Posted: 03/18/20 | March 18th, 2020

Since mid-February, the coronavirus has spread uncontrollably around the world. Many countries are on complete lockdown. People are quarantined in their homes. We have an unprecedented shutdown of human movement around the world.

This is a “black swan” event, an unpredictable turn of events that will undoubtedly change the world. It’s going to leave a mark on society and reshape how we interact, work, and conduct ourselves (maybe people will finally start washing their hands more).

One of the (many) direct consequences of this rapid spread to pandemic levels is that it has shut down the entire travel industry, one that relies specifically on the movement of people to exist.

Right now, no one should travel. We need to flatten the curve, reduce the transmission of this disease, and ensure that we do not overwhelm our healthcare systems.

No country can afford to repeat Italy’s experience. We must all do our part, no matter how hard it is.

The world will be waiting for us when this is all over.

Like everyone else in travel, we here have been hit really hard.

I know it doesn’t always seem like it but this website is not just me. We have 5 staff (one with two kids) as well as freelancers we hire and pay. I’m not just sitting on a small stack of money asking for more.

Like everyone else in the industry, we are a small business trying to keep the lights on, pay our freelancers, bills, and employee salaries.

We turn to you, our beloved community, especially as a number of you have asked how you can support the site during this time of uncertainty. We had been working on this for some time and moving towards more community related events and projects and this only spurred us to do it quicker.

Today, we are launching a Patreon!

A Patreon is a members-only subscription service where you’ll get exclusive perks and content, such as:

• Monthly Q&As
• Signed books
• Access to all our events
• Planning calls with me
• Calls with the team
• Postcards
• Private Instagram postings and blog posts

This is a way to get more out of your “Nomadic Matt experience”. You’ll get behind-the-scenes access and content exclusive to you every month. Plenty of this site will remain free and open to everyone. But, if you want to get more from the community and the website, this is how you can do it.

Just go to our new Patreon page, pick your subscription level, and you’re in!

We’ll start sending messages and arranging everything next week. (And yes, we’ll keep this going even after the crisis has subsided.)

Situations like this make you look at things differently. We were already moving toward a more community-centric model with our events. The coronavirus is just expediting that process, and this new membership program is the next phase of that.

The team and I really appreciate anything you can do to help us ride out the storm. We’re going keep trucking on and creating content that you can use for when we can travel again.

Thank you so much for everything and for helping us get through this weird period!

– Nomadic Matt