Female Digital Nomads Rules + Guidelines

Hi! First of all, welcome, welcome to the group! We’re at 48K+ strong with wonderful women all around the globe. We’re pretty proud that the main thing members tell us is that our group feels mature and respectful, and we’d like to keep that way whether we’re 48 thousand or 1 million members strong!

Accommodation

If you have a place:

Whether you have a place to swap, host, or own a hotel/hostel/bnb, please post it in the designated monthly threads. You can find them in the pinned announcements section, and we post them for up to a year in advance. You can find more directions there.

If you’re looking for a place:

  1. Look in the monthly threads in the pinned post section to see if they match what you’re looking for.
  2. If you don’t find something there, feel free to post in the group about what you’re looking for and where. It’s helpful to include a rough estimate of what you can afford and any details (ie allergies, preferences, etc).

Our Posting Schedule:

These are threads we post. This doesn’t mean you can post on the wall but you can post in these threads.

  • Monday – GOALS: share what your goals are for this week and cheer each other on!
  • Tuesday – COLLABORATION: this is the place to find people to collaborate on unpaid projects! It’s also the place to post your surveys.
  • Thursday – STRUGGLES: What are you struggling with right now? Share it here, and other members may pitch in with advice!
  • Friday – ACCOMPLISHMENTS: What did you achieve this week? Did you smash your goals? Let’s celebrate together!
  • Saturday – WHERE ARE YOU NOW: Share where in the world you are, so you can meet up with other ladies in the same place!
  • Sunday – SELF PROMO: go wild! This is where you can share your business, blog, or anything else!

First and foremost, some disclaimers:

Besides gender, we do not discriminate based on race, sexuality, politics, or ethnicity.

Everyone who identifies as female is welcome into our community! But yes, we’re ladies only, sorry guys.

We do not take responsibility for any transactions that occur within the group.

While we encourage members to post job offers and love it when two members can collaborate or swap accommodation, that’s where our involvement ends. We strongly encourage members to do their due diligence. Please let us know if something truly fishy is going on, and we’ll do our best to investigate on ourselves, but we’re not here to referee should two members get into a disagreement over their exchange.

While this is a closed group, please be careful in posting sensitive information. While we work really hard to keep this place positive, there is the occasional troll that might have negative intentions.

Now for the Rules

We apologize if this section is long and strict, but we’ve learned from trial and error what works and what doesn’t. For example, we’ve learned that as moderators just being “nice and reminding people” doesn’t work, and we get taken advantage of very quickly and very easy. You know that saying, “Give someone an inch, they take a mile.” Unfortunately, we’ve found it to be true, which is why we’ve create these rules and made them as detailed as possible.

If you have any issues or questions about the rules or why your post may have been deleted, we encourage you to PM either Milou or Samantha on Facebook. Please do NOT message other moderators as they’re volunteers, and we don’t want them to have to deal with any extra work. 

Please also keep in mind that we do not give warnings to rule-breakers. We simply don’t have the time or patience to warn someone to delete a post and have to follow-up to make sure they did.

First and foremost, RESPECT is the name of the game.

This is probably the driving force behind most of our rules — RESPECT! If you can’t be respectful, you have no place in this community.

That means everything from respecting cultural differences to reading someone’s post carefully so you’re not commenting something unrelated.

Things to keep in mind:

  • Not everyone’s first language is English
  • Not everyone comes from a first world country
  • If you don’t know someone’s personal life and they’re not asking for advice, keep your opinions to yourself
  • Never give medical advice if you’re not a licensed professional
  • Stay on topic.
  • As frustrating as some things can be, remember to be polite when you reply or get involved in a discussion.

Let’s create a positive environment where EVERYONE feels welcome to ask questions, whether you run a multimillion dollar business, or a blog with 1 subscriber (your mom). Does someone have a question you can answer? Help a sister out, yo! If someone being rude or a troll? Please message or tag Samantha or I and we will take a look and take action if necessary. We DO NOT condone bullying.

Anyone who’s seen as bullying or harassing will not only be removed from the group, they’ll be blocked and banned for life.

Examples of Disrespect:

  • Post: “Hi ladies, I was wondering if anyone had an experience working with a virtual assistant and tips for hiring one.”
  • Reply: “Hi! I run my own VA service, you can check it out here at  www. i didn’t read the post and am just trying to promote my business . org
  • Try this instead: “Hi! As someone who runs my own VA business, here’s some advice from a VA perspective. (And write some tips out)”
  • Post: “I had an upsetting experience with some men in the city I’m visiting, and I’m so frustrated that this keeps happening.”
  • Reply: “Get used it. Life sucks.”
  • Try this instead: Reply with something sympathetic or, if you can’t, move on and don’t reply at all!
  • Post: Hi ladies! I was wondering how you got started on your digital nomad journey?
  • Reply: UGH, this has been asked SO many times already! Just do a search.
  • Try this instead: Hey! I started it x way. I remember seeing a thread about this before, so you might want to use the search bar and try reading some answers there. Good luck with getting started!

Use the Search Bar Before You Ask

Trust me, things like “How do I become a digital nomad?” and “How do I start teaching online?” have been asked multiple times in the group with many, many, many answers.

Search before you ask! Even if you think your situation is unique, search first!

This Group is a NO SELF-PROMO Zone

Don’t even think about it. We have a weekly self-promo thread where you can link whatever your heart desires. IF someone is asking for advice, and you have the perfect solution you may, of course, reply with a link to your blog or article or product. However, just starting a whole new thread to promote yourself is a BIG no.

We’re both online marketers, we know all the sneaky ways people try to promote their products in a group, and because we know the sneakiest of sneaks will take advantage of everything, we’re super strict regardless of the message or purpose.

We’ll not only remove the post in question, but we’ll remove you from the group. Keep in mind that we don’t block you, so you can still rejoin. If you’re a repeat offender, though, you will be blocked. 

What is self-promo?

We get this question a lot, so here’s a list of all the scenarios we consider self-promotion.

  • Sharing your latest blog post
  • Asking people to sign-up for your email list
  • Selling anything, whether it’s a physical product or your Instagram account
  • Sharing any project you’ve worked on, whether it’s for yourself or another company
  • Sharing referral links (only when asked for them & always disclose they are referral or affiliate links!)
  • Give-aways or discount codes for your retreat/meet up
  • Follow for follow on social media
  • Basically writing your entire resume in the post
  • Linking to a Gofundme whether it’s for yourself or your friends or your family. As much as our heart goes out to anyone struggling, allowing one Gofundme means we must allow any Gofundme, and we all know how out of control that can be.

Basically, use your judgement. We’ll add to this list if we find more issues.

Also, to any coach out there, we’ve seen enough longgggg posts filled with a sob to happy story, emojis, and some posed, smiling photo of you to know when you’re trying to literally self-promote yourself and your services. We’re deleting them.

Remember, this group exists as a community for helping women connect. It does not exist for you as a free marketing tool for your business.

Do NOT link to 3rd party Facebook groups.

We’ve had too many people try to promote what would be carbon copies of our group in our group, so we’ve decided to put a total moratorium on any Facebook group promotion.

Instead, we’ve created a huge page with all the different Facebook groups you can join as a digital nomad, whether it’s local DN groups or travel groups or what have you. Have a group? Just let us know, and we’ll add you to it! We only refuse to promote groups that are exactly like ours (aka female and digital nomad).

If someone asks for group recommendations, we ask that you simply link that page or we will and close comments.

You may NOT post collaborations into the main group either.

We have a weekly thread where you may post your collaboration or exchange opportunities. Post it there. And if you can’t find it, search “Collaboration” and sort by “Most Recent.”

Whats a collaboration? 

Some examples:

  • any unpaid work including volunteering or interning opportunities
  • asking people for feedback on your website/channels or your client’s website
  • asking people to fill in your survey
  • asking for guest posts or offering guest posts
  • asking people to use a certain hashtag or cross promote on your social media channels (i.e. IG pods, Twitter threads, etc)

Absolutely no MLMs ever.

We are an MLM-free group. I’m sure there may be some great MLM companies, but the MLM-industry is so sadly rotten with scams and thus we’ve decided not to allow ANY MLM promotion and recruiting. Breaking this rule will get you blocked. To protect members from sketchy companies, brands, or MLMs, we also respectfully ask that you do not request people to “PM you” to find out more information on a subject. Share your information or opportunity publicly in the group

Example:

  • A: “I want to start traveling full time, but I’m not sure where to start for online work.”
  • B: “Hi, A, I work for a GREAT company that lets me travel the world. PM me for more details.”

Usually, when member A PMs member B, B will send her a referral link to some company that’s really a thinly disguised pyramid scheme. If you want more info to protect yourself against this, John Oliver has a great video on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6MwGeOm8iI&t=8s

Don’t post an affiliate link unless someone asks, and if you do, make sure it’s clear what it is.

We would also appreciate it if you didn’t post links that we use (such as SafetyWings).

Never, ever post screenshots from this group outside of the group

There’s a reason it’s a private group! Respect everyones privacy, please.

Responding to job offers

This group, thankfully, sees its fair share of job postings. That’s great, because it allows for a win-win: a business owner gets to advice their business, and a FDN-member gets to find work. We do have some advice on responding to job offers, though:

  • Please remember not every business owner in this group is from a first world-country and can afford to pay first world salaries if they are making local revenue.
  • Not every job opportunity is for you, move on, it may be right for someone else.
  • For the best success with responding to job offers, read the post and then follow instructions. If the posts asks you to email them with a CV, don’t just comment with “PM me” or “I’ve PMed you”. Not following instructions is the fastest way NOT to get hired because it shows you can’t read, are unable to follow simple instructions and make your  future employers life harder instead of easier.

That’s it! Simply said: don’t be a dick. If you stick to the above rules you’ll have a great time in this group. Enjoy and good luck on your (future) nomad journey!