@nycitycoffee

I have traveled a lot and had heard good things about Remote Year. I decided during a year of travel while working remote on my own I would sign up for a month of RY. I’m going to be honest about my experience because I don’t really feel like most of these reviews are reflective of the true experience (RY encourages city and trip leaders to have people fill out reviews and most people end up reviewing the leaders rather than the company and experience itself)

I had high expectations - usually when I’m traveling I meet people with similar values of learning different cultures. I’ve always made lasting friendships through experiences like studying abroad or solo travel. However, the vibes on this trip were off. Sadly I haven’t really kept in touch with anyone I met through RY.

For context, RY offers both year-long trips and month-long trips. On my month-long trip, they had us combined with a year-long group in the same city at the same time. I would have thought this would be a good thing because there wouldn’t have been many participants without both groups. However, I learned quickly that this makes for an awkward dynamic. The year-long group had already been traveling and meeting new people from the month-long trips for about 9 months. Some of them admitted that they really didn’t want to meet new people or put in any effort at that point. This led to the year-long participants creating an “inner crew” because they had already gotten to know each other and solidified friendships. I understand that perspective but honestly the value as a month-long participant drops significantly if they don’t feel others are truly open to making friendships.

Other people I met on the trip were there more to party than to learn about a new culture. There wasn’t really much that the leaders did to teach us about the new culture other than a short culture intro (30 min) at the beginning of the month. I had talked to some of the year-long participants about past trips they had taken, like in Cape Town, and was shocked to learn they hadn’t really learned anything about apartheid or visited the ample history museums in the city. I learned that the RY culture skews more towards partying than it does soaking up and learning a new culture. I’m sure some people are looking for that in their experience but I was not.

Lastly, I agree with the reviews that talk about all the add-on pricing. Although I do think the base price is fair and I like the new flexible options, the add-on experience pricing was a bit ridiculous (ie $50 for a hike with the RY group that you could do on your own for free). However if you don’t pay up for the add-on activities, there won’t be many opportunities to get to know everyone in the RY group.

In conclusion, there are a lot of cities (like Mexico City), I would encourage people to travel on their own and meet other travelers through coliving rather than the RY program.