5 African Cities For Digital Nomads

 5 Best Cities For Remote Workers In Africa

A digital nomad is a person who earns a living working online in various locations of their choosing rather than a fixed business location or country. You will often see them online working from various hostels and Airbnb's all over the world. For a location to be a digital nomad favorite, it must have the following:

• Good cost of living
• High-speed internet
• Coworking spaces
• Shared-ride apps access
• Plenty of flights to various international destinations

Here are a few great options digital nomads should consider in Africa.

Cape Town, South Africa

If you look on Instagram it is easy to see a large number of digital nomads in Cape town. Tourists get a 3-month visa on arrival to Cape Town, which is just about enough time for a digital nomad to make their mark on a new city. The city has great outdoor activities like hiking and surfing as well as great coworking spaces and short-term rentals available. High-speed internet is also available and very affordable, which is great for people that will spend most of their work hours online.

Zanzibar, Tanzania

With a low cost of living and pristine beaches, it's easy to see why Zanzibar is such a favorite destination for digital nomads. Good organic fruits and vegetables, fresh air, friendly people, and old-world buildings. The Internet is a little slow in Zanzibar but it's adequate for e-mails and quick work online. Get all your writing and reports offline and only log onto the internet when most of your work is done. Beach hotels with great all-inclusive deals are the ideal accommodation in Zanzibar for digital nomads. The tourist visa is limited for up to 30 days, which is a short and sweet stay on this island paradise.

Marrakech, Morocco

Morocco offers the best of the old world with picturesque architecture, fantastic food, and very hospitable culture. Indoor pools and rooftop dining spaces are normal in Morocco. Digital nomads will struggle with internet speeds in this location and should keep in mind 6.55 Mbps is the average internet speed. Tourist visas are good for up to 90 days, which will seem like a snap of the finger.

Nairobi, Kenya

This world-class city offers everything a digital nomad needs. With an abundance of coworking spaces and fantastic cafes, digital nomads will be spoilt for choice. The internet speeds in Nairobi are also fantastic at 10.16 Mbps. There are plenty of malls and crafts markets showcasing the best of local craftsmanship. Airbnb is a very popular option for most travelers, allowing them to live in local neighborhoods and enjoy the local scenery. Another unique feature that Nairobi offers is a national park within the city. Animal reserves that rescue Rhinos and Lions as well as Giraffe manor, a very Instagram-worthy hotel that lets you dine with giraffes. The Tourist visa is 90 days which isn't nearly enough to see the sights and eat at the great restaurants. Digital nomads will have to make multiple visits.

Cairo, Egypt

This world destination is on the list of places that digital nomads frequent. With historic sites like the Pyramids and Egyptian museum, its rich history alone is worthy of visiting. Cairo is relatively inexpensive with a great metro system. Its internet is surprisingly slow at 4.71 Mbps. A tourist visa is good for 90 days, which is plenty of time to see the sites and get some work done.

Which African City have you worked from? Comment below and let us know your first-hand experience, working from these African Digital hubs.

Online Jobs That Have A Low Barrier Of Entry

 

 

Easy Ways To Make Money Online| Africans Working Online

Working online can be easy when you are a coder or a computer engineer, however, you can still work online with skills that cannot be quantified or are not accredited. Here are a few examples of online jobs with a low barrier of entry that most people today can do.

Proofreader

If you can pick out spelling errors and grammatical inconsistencies with ease, you could make money as a proofreader. You may have to take an evaluation to ensure that you have good proofreading skills, and if this comes naturally to you, it could make you a significant income proofreading books, articles, scripts, and any written work online.

Data Entry Jobs

If you can type, you can do data entry. Most people despise the monotonous task of data entry and will pay you to do their data entry work. Data entry can include what is known as transcribing, expense reports for businesses on excel, and creating email lists for e-commerce businesses. 

User Testing

Based on your demographics, you may be asked to test apps or website usability by testing different features on websites and ease of access to websites. You can also give your opinion on the design and flow while on the website. These are opinion-based jobs that can pay you for your feedback and help e-commerce businesses and online brands improve their customer experience on their apps and websites.

Creating Websites

To the untrained, creating websites can seem as complicated as brain surgery, but if you've been on the internet for a while, you know there are plenty of websites that have pre-made templates with easy drag and drop features. These platforms make creating websites very easy, setting up e-commerce stores and brand websites can be done within a day at most. You can provide the service of creating a professional sleek website and save your clients the time and anxiety of creating their website, and make some money doing it too.

If you think you can do any of these easy-paying jobs online, do a quick google search and see which of these online jobs with a low barrier of entry you can find today.

3 Time Management Tools For Freelancers

 

 

Africans Working Online| Time Management Apps For African Freelancers

As an online freelancer, time management is a daily challenge. The discipline and organization required of freelancers can determine whether or not you will be successful working online.

Clickup

This is a free tool (they promise it will be free forever) that helps you manage your time and to-do list; it will keep you on track with your daily to-do list and also track your time as you work online. 

• You will be able to track time from anywhere you work.
• Estimate time needs and set expectations.
• Drag and drop events onto your calendar.

Memory.ai

This is an automated time tracking app it will help you and your team to keep in sync and keep time between projects.  Some of the features of memory.ai are:

• Automated time tracking with individuals and groups.
• It will help you bill accurately for hourly work and gigs.
• Track teams.
• Track time.

Timedoctor

They let you sign up for a free 14-day trial with no credit card required at sign up. It's a great tool for small companies and freelancers who want to track time spent on each project. it will help you with 

• Time tracking per project
• Payroll
• Timesheets
• Screen monitoring

Do you track time while working online? What tools do you use? Share with our community of African freelancers so that we can thrive working online.

My Horrible Experience On Remotasks

 

 

Remotasks in 2022 Honest Review

Not sure how they got my email. Maybe one of my freelancing friends recommended me to work on Remotasks. I also saw ads on Facebook which means I was targeted by their ads. Since I am constantly looking for new opportunities, I decided to look into this website further.

They have a promotional video on their home page with Africans working from their homes online. These African freelancers give their experience working on this platform. Their testimony states that they made about $40 per day on this website. The promise is "the more you work the more you get paid." They allow people from certain countries outside the U.S to work on their platforms.

My Experience

I looked through the website and registered using my work email. Once you join, you are directed to the training center. In order to get assigned work on this platform, you must first do the relevant training in order to get access to jobs.

The first-tier training available to me was for LiDAR and video box annotation. It was a very complex task that required you to pass the training in order to start working. I took the training and passed, however, when I started working, I realized how complex it really was, the training had me label cups and plates in a cupboard, but the work was very different. 

I was labeling cars and sidewalks and walkways. Different types of vehicles and motorcycles and pedestrians had a specific way that they needed to be labeled. There was no way to memorize all the labels, so I decided to print out the training manual. It was huge, it printed hundreds of pages of instructions and images that I was going to use in order to correctly label the tasks. It took hours to work and I still didn't get it quite right. Which means my tasks failed the threshold for being paid. When I went back to the home page, I realized there was in-person training and I signed up hoping to get clarity. 

On the day of the training, I signed up on the zoom call or google video call, not sure which one it was. The instructor was very vague, did not teach us but rather put us through some kind of evaluation as though we had already been trained. He kept saying he wanted us to figure it out ourselves. There was a baby crying in the background and he seemed very distracted.

He gave us a chapter to study and asked us to stay on the line as we studied before he tested our knowledge. When a few of us tried asking questions, it became clear that he was not on the line or he was ignoring the questions. He signed back to the call about an hour and a half later. Most students had left the call and it was just 2 students left on the call. He apologized for not being available to answer our questions and asked us to show up for another training course the next day.

I had wasted hours trying to figure out the tasks myself and even more time on a very frustrating zoom call and I was not ready to give any more of my time and attention to working on Remotasks. I unsubscribed to their emails and discontinued my account on this platform and I never looked back.

In conclusion, I wouldn't recommend working on Remotasks. The training is horrible and their instructions are very vague. If you do, you will waste your time and still not get paid for your efforts.

Have you worked on Remotasks? Did you have the same horrible experience as I did or was your experience different?  Share in the comment section below with our community of African freelancers working from home.

Remotasks Review Summary

Is this website Legit (1 star)

Can most people do the tasks (1 star)

Can we work from African Countries (1 star) 

Making Money From Home Using E-commerce

 

                                    E-commerce Will Earn You Money From Home

Electronic commerce is defined as a business model that allows companies and individuals to buy and sell goods and services over the internet. When perfected e-commerce is really the golden ticket to making money from home. No longer are gatekeepers of commerce dictating who can and cannot do business. If you have a business idea, you can research its viability by using e-commerce.

If you are an artisan, an accountant, or a street vendor, you can operate your business online. E-commerce is not limited to goods but also extends to selling services online. Here are a few ways to set up an e-commerce business.

Drop-Shipping Websites

Most online businesses require that you invest in stock, that is, the product you want to sell. Keep items in a warehouse as you market the goods to customers and then finally deliver items to the customers. Dropshipping is a different business model, all you have to do is find a manufacturer of a product and inquire about drop shipping options. You would then set up an e-commerce website as well as social media page. You would then market the products and once purchased you would ask the manufacturer to ship the items directly to your customer. The goal is to mark up the products in order to make a profit from each sale. Done multiple times, you could earn a healthy living online without investing in stock or the hustle of delivering goods to the customer.

E-commerce Websites

If you don't want to invest in a product website, that could you run you up to $200 per month including online ads and domain names, and more. You could always use an e-commerce marketplace online. They usually charge a small fee or no fee in some cases and they allow you to sell your products on their platform for a commission. These marketplaces often don't have a minimum amount of goods that you can sell, allowing you to start with small quantities and build on that as sales grow. This can be a very safe and practical way to earn money from home.

Selling on Social Media Sites

You can set up a social media account for your business and use these accounts to market and sell products online. You can have Facebook and Instagram accounts and communicate with customers directly on WhatsApp in order to make payment arrangements and delivery options. You can also sell directly on the Facebook marketplace and set up an Instagram shop connected to your brand social media account.

These are just a few ways that you can earn a living using e-commerce and use it as a steady source of income. Do you have an e-commerce business? What platform has been a successful way for you to sell your products online? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.