American Culthoppers

They’ve been JUICERS, RAPPERS, EVANGELICALS.  One ALMOST GOT ELECTED TO CONGRESS  as a TEA-PARTYER. But no matter where in the world these brothers go, they can’t quite seem to fit in.

- Benjamin Wallace

THE HIGH SEASON in Chiang Mai falls between November and February, after the monsoon rains and before the burning season, when farmers in the surrounding valleys set fire to old rice stalks and smoke shrouds the mountains that ring the northern Thai city. For four months, when the air is cool and dry and clear, the city sees a surge in socalled digital nomads, migratory laptoptoting entrepreneurs who make their livings online and can work from anywhere.

Ten years after the movement was birthed by Tim Ferriss’s blockbuster 2007 best seller The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9–5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich, an ever expanding archipelago of digital-nomad hubs has arisen; Medellín, Berlin, and Ubud are among the most popular. But none more so than Chiang Mai. Because of the hospitable weather; low cost of living; tasty food; and abundance of cafés, co-working spaces, free Wi-Fi, and other digital nomads, Chiang Mai is an attractive launchpad for a virgin business-minded vagabond, a place where you can buy time to bootstrap your start-up. Virtually every day in Nimman, a neighborhood west of the old city favored by this tribe, there are meetups and networking groups and evening get- togethers, with a vibe that’s half-hippie, half-hustler. It’s a place full of people looking to radically change their lives, and so inevitably it has a robust personal-development scene.