Nomads.com ships an MCP server and matching API for agents

Pieter Levels added an MCP server and a matching HTTP API to Nomads.com on 6 September 2026. Assistants can search the site's live city data. Levels announced POST /api/trips and /mcp for trip writes; the MCP tools table only lists search_cities and get_city.

On X that day, @levelsio wrote that he had "Added an MCP and API endpoint now." The two surfaces "operate pretty much the same but one you can put in your clanker." He also said you can add trips "via POST on /api/trips or via /mcp," which he called useful because adding old trips by hand is a lot of work. Official HTML docs are on nomads.com/mcp.

For people wiring agents, that is the whole pitch: one unauthenticated MCP URL, a parallel HTTP API, and the Nomads.com city index behind both.

The docs page is titled "Use Nomads.com inside Claude, Grok and ChatGPT." It describes Nomads.com as an MCP server: plug it into an AI assistant and the assistant can search live city data while you decide where to live and work remotely. Machine-oriented docs are pointed at /api and /llms.txt on the same host.

The page puts four facts at the top: 1,374 cities with live data, 4 cost types per city, free price, and none signup.

The connector URL is:

https://nomads.com/mcp

Add that URL to any MCP client. The docs say no authentication is required.

Connectors for Claude, ChatGPT, and Grok

Nomads.com spells out four named clients plus a generic recipe.

Claude (web / desktop): Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector. Name it Nomads.com, paste the URL, no auth needed.
Claude Code: claude mcp add --transport http nomads https://nomads.com/mcp
ChatGPT: Settings → Apps & Connectors (enable Developer mode if custom connectors do not appear), add the URL, no authentication.
Grok: Settings → Connectors → add an MCP server with the URL, no authentication.
Other clients: add an MCP server with transport http (streamable HTTP) and the same URL. The page describes the protocol as stateless JSON-RPC 2.0.

That is a full onboarding path for a consumer site: one URL, HTTP transport, no keys. You do not need an account to try the MCP endpoint. You do need to respect the rate limits below.

Two read tools

The HTML docs list two tools.

search_cities returns up to 100 cities sorted by overall score. Filters are budget, region, country, internet speed, safety, and temperature. Each city includes nomad, expat, local, and family monthly costs, plus rent, coworking, internet, weather, air quality, safety, cleanliness, fun, nightlife, walkability, healthcare, English-speaking, LGBT-friendliness, female-friendliness, and remote work visa availability.

get_city returns everything above for one city, plus its next upcoming meetup when there is one.

Suggested questions on the page include:

"Where should I live this winter under $2,000 a month with fast internet?"
"Compare Lisbon, Bangkok and Mexico City for a family"
"Safe, warm cities in Europe with at least 100 Mbps"
"What does a one-bedroom in the centre of Chiang Mai cost?"

Those are example prompts, not extra routes. They map onto the filters and cost fields: budget, climate, family, internet, a named city. The assistant is supposed to call search_cities or get_city rather than scrape the marketing pages.

Trip writes: on the announcement, thin on the MCP table

Levels' post is clear that writes exist on both surfaces: POST /api/trips and /mcp. The "What your assistant can do" table on the MCP docs page does not name a trip tool. If you need trip import, take the HTTP path from the announcement—POST /api/trips—and treat the MCP write interface as announced but not specified in that table.

The intended split is still the one Levels described: API and MCP operate pretty much the same; MCP is the one you drop into the assistant.

Limits

The docs set three bounds:

At most 100 cities per search
60 requests per hour per IP
A curated set of fields

The page says this is a city finder, not a bulk data source. For more, it points to nomads@pieter.com.

An open MCP URL on live city data is easy to demo and easy to hammer. The 100-city cap and the field list keep the surface in "help me pick a place" range. Scripting a full scrape is outside what the docs offer.

Built for the assistant, not only the browser

The interesting part is not a new city score. It is the surface: live city data, no authentication on the MCP URL, documented connectors for Claude, Claude Code, ChatGPT, and Grok, two read tools, a parallel HTTP API, and trip writes announced on POST /api/trips and /mcp. Limits are public. Signup is none.

That is a consumer product exposing the same city-finder job to an agent that it already exposes to a human UI. If you are adding MCP to something people already use, Nomads.com is a compact reference: one URL, streamable HTTP, the tools listed, the caps listed.

Add https://nomads.com/mcp as a custom connector in Claude, ChatGPT, or Grok—or run the Claude Code command above—then ask one of the documented prompts, such as a winter stay under $2,000 a month with fast internet. Read the limits on the docs page before you put it in a loop: 60 requests per hour per IP, 100 cities per search.