Meet the Founders
We are Mark, Linda, and Dakar.
We're travelers.
We're digital nomads.
We're entrepreneurs.
Like you, we love traveling, exploring and discovering new places and people.
In the same breath we need to keep one foot firmly planted in the business world.
To remain connected with our team, clients, partners and platforms, and to grow our businesses.
Which is why we created Nomad Stays.
To make it easier for everyone to work while exploring the world.
A Life of Travel
Like many we started traveling a long time ago. Firstly on family excursions, then sporting trips, business trips and later on active holidays.
Mark's first extended adventure was being posted to the Solomon Islands as an expat with KPMG. Linda's was moving to Hong Kong & later Saudi Arabia where she worked for the Royal Family
Linda ended up flying around the world monthly for many years as a first class flight attendant with Qantas, a large Australian airline. She later became a Recreational Pilot.
Mark tacked on explorations to his business trips while working for Apple, Microsoft and others. He also grew several travel and tech companies including a multi-award winning outback Australian tour company named MudMaps.
In 2007 Mark experimented with nomading when he spent a year backpacking the world.
Going Nomad
Together we went fully nomad in 2015 after packing up our home near Noosa, Australia. Selling most of our possessions and packing the van & motorbike for a trip around Australia.
As digital nomads for over 4 years now our inspiration for Nomad Stays comes from the desire to overcome the constant hassles of finding affordable, comfortable, digital nomad-friendly places to stay. Somewhere we can stop for awhile, enjoy, get some work done.
- Without costing a fortune
- Without wasting our lives endlessly negotiating
Our mission became to make it easier for people to explore and discover more of the planet while building a career. To discover the forgotten, to uncover the unknown, to expect the unexpected. To meet new and interesting people of all walks of life.
Adventure. The Spice of Life.
I think by now you can see we have travel in our blood. We're not really luxury resort types though. Been there, done that. For us adventure and meeting new people are a passion.
- Flying Hot Air Balloons in at least 6 countries.
- Backpacking the length of Africa
- Climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro & hiking the Inca Trail
- Dodging rebels in the Sahara & getting tear-gassed in Chile
Motorcycle Adventures
- Riding the Silk Road from China to Spain (Mark)
- Crossing the US solo & Circumnavigating Australia (Linda)
- Riding with reindeer above the Arctic Circle (Mark)
- Exploring the Himalaya (Mark)
- Getting stranding in the Mohave Desert during summer
Building Entrepreneurs
We also love business and innovation. We're real startup junkies.
Mark built a tourism incubator back in the 90's and has been mentoring tech startups since 2000. He's been an angel investor, entrepreneur-in-residence at 4 startup incubators, has been a Founder of a Coworking NGO and even got paid to travel regional Australia helping hand out government grants. (Great nomad job!)
Mark & Linda have assisted around 20 Techstars Startup Weekends around the world and visited over 50 coworking spaces and business incubators across 3 continents in the past 2 years.
Yep. Entrepreneurs are in our blood too.
Today's European Adventure
Today we are based in Europe building Nomad Stays and our associated business mentoring service Business in Bare Feet.
We travel as a family with our adventure dog/virtual assistant Dakar Dingo via plane, car, bus, train. motorcycle etc. Dakar has even racked up 11 countries since leaving Australia.
If you run into us its likely to be in
- Coworking spaces
- Volunteering at Startup Weekends, Hackathons and NGOs like the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women
- Or sourcing the next cool stay for Nomad Stays
So, welcome to Nomad Stays.
And, welcome to an easier way to explore the world.
