Italia Nomad Fest 2026: the people, the connections and the impact on Palermo

When we look back at our first Italia Nomad Fest, we think of the people who made Palermo feel like a shared home. From 8 to 15 March 2026, we brought remote workers and local communities together to exchange ideas, explore the city and spend time with one another. Eight days later, we had plenty to celebrate and even more reasons to keep going.

Co-organised by BeetCommunity and Nomad Retreats

We co-organised the first edition through BeetCommunity and Nomad Retreats, bringing our communities together around a shared belief: where we work matters, but the people we share a place with matter just as much. From our base at Villa Niscemi, we invited everyone to experience Palermo through its people, its neighbourhoods and its everyday life.

The first edition in numbers

We welcomed 168 digital nomads from more than 25 countries. Participants came from Canada, Japan, the United States, Mexico, Israel, Ukraine, Poland, Portugal, the Netherlands, Switzerland, France, Greece, the United Kingdom and many other places.

• 8 days of festival: 8 to 15 March 2026.
• Around 20 days: the average participant stay in Palermo, extending well beyond the festival itself.
• Approximately €500,000: our estimated economic impact on the city, based on a calculation of €498,960.
• 30+ international partners and 20+ local organisations involved.
• 1,518 local attendances at the parties across the festival’s events.

We sold 188 tickets, including 150 to participants from outside Italy. Alongside our international guests, local people helped make the festival part of Palermo’s own social life.

Economic impact and average length of stay are our estimates. Party attendance counts visits across the events, which may include people attending more than once; it is separate from ticket sales and the number of digital nomads.

Staying longer, connecting more deeply

One number means a lot to us: our participants stayed in Palermo for around 20 days on average. That is time to find a favourite café, get to know a neighbourhood and build a routine around work and local life. It is the kind of connection we hoped the festival would encourage, with visitors spending more time in the city and contributing to its everyday economy.

We paired talks and workshops with guided walks, a beach cleanup, cultural visits and shared meals across Palermo. We wanted locals and nomads to have time to talk, learn from each other and build relationships that could continue long after the closing party.

A thank you to Palermo

A special thank you goes to the Municipality of Palermo for believing in our project from the beginning and investing in an initiative dedicated to digital nomads and a more sustainable approach to tourism.

We know that many cities are feeling the pressure of mass tourism. Through INF, we want to explore how Palermo can welcome people who stay longer, work here and become part of local life. Our first edition has strengthened our belief that this city can become an important European meeting place for remote workers and international communities.

We started INF with a simple idea: imagine cities where people arrive to live for a while, work, build relationships and contribute to the community. In Palermo, we have begun turning that idea into something we can share.

From a vision in 2018 to a shared community

Our founder, Marco Traina, who also founded BeetCommunity, puts that journey into words:

“When we started talking about international community and coliving in Palermo in 2018, many people thought it was a utopia. Palermo is an extraordinary city, but also a complex one. Imagining that people from all over the world could come here not just to visit, but to live, work and collaborate seemed very difficult to make happen.

Over the years, we have understood that coliving is not simply about sharing a house, but about sharing time, ideas and opportunities. It means creating a space where relationships, trust and possibilities can emerge.

Italia Nomad Fest was born from this vision: to show that there is a different way to inhabit cities, where someone arriving from elsewhere is not only a tourist, but a person who connects with the territory and helps create value for everyone.

Palermo, with its history of encounters between different cultures and peoples, is one of the most natural places in the world for this kind of community to take shape.”

Marco’s words, translated from Italian.

The next chapter

The first edition gave us relationships to build on and questions worth continuing to explore. Thank you to every participant, local resident, partner, speaker and team member who made it possible.

We will be back in Palermo from 6 to 14 March 2027. Explore more photos from the first edition, or join the next gathering in Palermo.