Pangea Updates Following Remote Year's Shutdown

The email statement from Pangea's Founder, Matt can be seen below:

Dear All,

Many of us received sad news Friday about Remote Year’s future and likely shutdown at the end of this month.  While there is still quite a bit of uncertainty, I wanted to share my thoughts & provide some resources to help the community during this difficult time.  

I’ve spent much of the last 2 years working and traveling with RY after nearly a decade of solo travel to 100+ countries before hand, and I am deeply saddened by the announcement.  

Remote Year provided a life changing platform, not only for experienced travelers to connect with each other, but also for those who were new to travel to quickly become a part of the nomadic community.   The support, resources & authentic local experiences that the RY teams provided around the world was unmatched. I’ve met hundreds of inspiring people through RY programs, many of whom have become close friends, advisors and colleagues though the amazing experiences we’ve shared together.   None of this would have been possible without RY (and Pangea to keep track of plans after we met).

I am deeply thankful to the entire RY Team for their hard work up until the very end in facilitating such a life changing platform which enabled so many of us to meet and share great memories.  I can confidently say that my RY experience has been life changing and will be eternally grateful.

While there is no way to immediately plug the hole that RY leaves, I believe that community is the most important part of travel.  While the support on logistics, accommodation and experiences RY provided will certainly be missed, our team has taken several quick actions to help facilitate community for those who are still planning on traveling on their own in 2025.

‍Key updates:

• App Experience:  We are in the process of adding several new features to make it easier for the RY Alumni to connect in Pangea with other RY Alumni in the same city.  If you have friends who aren’t on the app yet, be sure to invite them and keep an ear out for our next release in early Jan.
  
• Chats:  We have collected or created new WhatsApp groups for all cities where RY has operations scheduled in Jan/Feb, to ensure those who plan to travel can still meet other nomads from both the RY & Pangea communities.  Feel free to join if you have plans to visit, or if you’ve been before and are willing to provide guidance to those visiting for the first time:
  
  • 🇿🇦 Cape Town (I'll be here w/ 200+ others!)
  • 🇦🇷 Buenos Aires (Our team will be here)
  • 🇧🇷 Florianopolis (And here)
  • 🇲🇽 Mexico City (1 Yr Shirazi Journey will be starting here in Jan)
  • 🇨🇴 Medellin (Shirazi will be here in Feb)
  • 🇹🇭 Chiang Mai (1 Yr Salaam Journey will be on month 7 here in Jan)
  • 🇻🇳 Hanoi (Salaam will be on month 8 here in Feb)
  • 🇵🇪 Lima
  • 🗺 All other locations (please join our Pangea community)
    
• City Guides: We’ve crowd sourced top recommendations for restaurants, coworking spots, and more from the community, to ensure that our users can find high quality recs for any city where RY previously operated (and many more), all available on the Map in the Explore tab in the app.
  
• Coliving & Alternative Programs:  You can browse co-living spots and other community focused travel programs by clicking "Groups" in both the Map & Schedule Views, making it easy to see what options there are, alongside travel plans from your friends & other nomads.
  
• Journeys: We are currently adding tools to enable the wider RY Community to meetup with the two remaining 12-month journeys.  I’ve heard from members of both Salaam & Shirazi that much of the group plans on following the remaining itinerary on their own, and my hope is that this will enable the journeys to easily connect with others in the came cities to experience the same “one month-er energy” that so many of us have come to love!

While we are totally unaffiliated with Remote Year, Selina, or Collective Hospitality, we’d like to do our part to support our users who are impacted, and ensure that we are continuing to deliver on our Mission to help everyone Explore the World, Together.  

‍If you have further ideas about how Pangea can help the wider community, please don’t hesitate to reach out.

And for those coming to Cape Town in Jan, Feb or Mar, I’ll see you there, and expect that we will still have an amazing year.  Stay tuned for several Pangea events which we’ll be organizing in the app and chat here/above.

‍"Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened" -Dr. Seuss

‍-Matt
Founder & CEO of Pangea
Alumni of the RY Terrell, Baker & Moksha Journeys

Legal Disclaimer:‍
‍Pangea is an independent platform and is not affiliated with, nor endorsed by, Remote Year (RY), Selina, or Collective Hospitality. This communication is intended solely to provide support and resources to current & future Pangea Users and other members of the global nomadic community impacted by Remote Year's closure. Any mention of Remote Year is for context and is not intended to imply any relationship with the aforementioned companies.