India’s First Digital Nomad Village Is Here - And It Could Be Huge (If Done Right)

In a small village called Yaakten, perched in the hills of Sikkim’s Pakyong district, India is quietly testing an idea that’s already reshaping coastal towns in Portugal and ski slopes in Bulgaria: Can remote workers revive rural places that were never on the tourist map?

Yaakten, which officially launches on July 14, is billing itself as India’s first digital nomad village — a community experiment that’s part village, part coworking hub and part local partnership.

This isn’t a slick, top-down marketing stunt. It’s run by Sarvahitey, an NGO that’s spent the last decade building digital literacy in remote Indian communities, working hand in glove with the Pakyong District Administration. And it’s already on the radar of the World Bank’s Sikkim Inspire Initiative, which is watching closely to see if this model could scale to other rural corners of India.

So, why here?

Yaakten is a pinprick on the map — a scattering of houses, terraced farms and forest trails in one of India’s smallest states. Sikkim’s stunning, but most visitors come for a few days, snap some photos of monasteries and Kanchenjunga, then head home. The economy relies heavily on seasonal tourism.

The founders behind Nomad Sikkim (nomadsikkim.org) want to flip that script: bring in remote workers who stay for months, spend in local cafés, hire local guides, and maybe teach new digital skills along the way.

India’s untapped edge

India has all the ingredients on paper: diverse landscapes, low living costs, a thriving domestic freelance scene — and vast rural regions that want alternatives to outmigration. But it’s never packaged that into an organised nomad ecosystem.

Places like Goa attract solo remote workers. But there’s a world of difference between a beach Airbnb and a village designed for connection — and for real economic benefit to the local community.

What actually makes it work?

The template exists: in Ponta do Sol, Madeira, the world’s first digital nomad village brought in thousands of remote workers and pumped more than €30m a year into the island’s economy. But the real win wasn’t the Wi-Fi — it was the community.

Daily meetups. Shared houses. A local café that knows your order by day two. This is the missing piece that most places get wrong when they slap “digital nomad” on an ad campaign.

Sarvahitey says they’re starting small — local homestays, coworking, and genuine overlap with the community, not just a walled expat bubble. Their background in grassroots development might be Yaakten’s real advantage.

So what’s missing?

The calendar. It’s the difference between an empty co-working space and a community that sticks around. Hikes, storytelling nights, local cooking workshops — these tiny rituals build the social glue.

The story. Goa didn’t become a remote work cliché by accident — it became a brand. Sikkim will have to fight to get on the same maps: the digital nomad blogs, the ‘best places to work remotely’ rankings, the Slack threads where freelancers trade tips on the next big thing.

They’ve got the starting blocks: a launch date, a website, an Instagram handle (nomad.sikkim). But hype won’t build trust — the real test will be whether the first nomads who turn up stick around and tell their friends.

Will it work?

Plenty of pretty places have tried this — and failed because the locals felt shut out, or the visitors felt lonely and left. Yaakten’s backers say they know this: they’re leaning on Sarvahitey’s decade of trust-building to make sure the village stays part of the village.

The interest from the World Bank suggests this is more than a nice idea for Sikkim — it could be a blueprint for other corners of rural India. Because if remote work is here to stay, the biggest shift might not be big-city startups going hybrid — it might be small villages learning how to keep young people rooted with opportunities they’d otherwise have to move away to find.

Bottom line

Good Wi-Fi won’t save a village.

A community might.

Yaakten launches on July 14. The mountain views are a given. The question is whether the people — locals, nomads and everyone in between — want to build something together that lasts.

📌 Find out more: nomadsikkim.org | @nomad.sikkim