AVL Digital Nomads is the largest community of remote and independent professionals in the country.
It’s based in Asheville, NC.
And almost nobody outside of Western North Carolina knows it exists.
Yet.
An overlooked population has quietly become one of the most consequential economic forces in western North Carolina.
Five thousand remote and independent professionals – earning two to three times the regional median income – are generating an estimated $400M in annual employment income for the Asheville area. They own homes here, start businesses here, and stay here when their jobs change.
No one recruited them. No incentive program paid them to relocate. They just came. And ADN is what keeps them connected and rooted.
This is not a feel-good community story. This is an economic development story.
In 2020 remote work went from a perk to a pandemic necessity.
What nobody planned for was what happened next – millions of professionals suddenly untethered from offices, colleagues, and the social infrastructure that work had always quietly provided. In Asheville, one community saw it coming.
AVL Digital Nomads has spent five years building what the distributed workforce was missing: a real, warm, genuinely useful community that makes remote work sustainable for the long haul. Nearly 5,000 members later, it’s become a model worth paying attention to.
Ready to copy and paste.
AVL Digital Nomads (ADN) is the largest community of remote and independent professionals in the United States, based in Asheville, NC. Founded by Ric Pratte, ADN has grown to nearly 5,000 members in five years, hosting 155 events in 2025 with 4,700 attendees across socials, collaborative learning circles, volunteer events, and startup programming. ADN members generate an estimated $400M in annual employment income for the western North Carolina region. The community operates through monthly events, an active Slack workspace of 1,000+ members, and a growing network of 30 volunteer organizers.
The following are available upon request:
📁 High resolution ADN logo and brand assets
📷 Event photography cleared for press use
📊 Community statistics and economic impact data
🎤 Spokesperson availability for interviews and quotes
Ric Pratte Founder, AVL Digital Nomads
Email Ric directly → ric at thriveremotely dot io
We’re a community of 5,000 people, not a PR department. Ric is a real person who will actually respond. Usually pretty quickly.
