Six Weeks Remote Working in Colombia 🪅
Medellin: Coliving and Coworking at Co404
I didn’t expect to fall for Medellín as fast as I did, but two weeks of coworking and coliving in Laureles (a lesser known neighbourhood than Poblado) will do that to a person. It’s the kind of neighborhood where every corner has a tienda (a local shop with beer and essentials), and when there’s football on, the plastic tables and chairs are pulled out onto the street like clockwork. The whole block comes alive. Old men shouting at the TV. Kids in Messi jerseys weaving between chairs. Cold beer and aguardiente in hand. Someone always shows up selling empanadas, arepas, or if you’re lucky, crispy chicharrón from a tin tray balanced on their head.
🧑💻 Living and working with strangers (who become friends)
For two weeks, we stayed at Co404, a coliving-coworking house built for Digital Nomads, with around 20 entrepreneurs, freelancers, and remote workers from every corner of the world. You share a kitchen, a whatsapp group and an office. Before we arrived we were welcomed into the group, random strangers letting us know they were excited to meet us. I hadn’t realise it until then but I had missed the feeling of community, and this small gesture felt very personal.
In the house there was Oswin, a Dutch import-export guy running logistics out of Malaysia who’s been on the road for four years. Emma, working for a social enterprise in Washington D.C. Simone, who runs Vogue’s digital accounts from New York. And Lars, a freelance content writer whose copy shows up on Uber’s homepage. Plus, I’ve never seen so many Shopify developers in one place.
Work days are in the beautiful coworking space: open plan, pale wood, polished concrete and sprawling foliage throughout. Meetings kick off between 3–8pm (thank you, time zones), and mornings are for deep work, Spanish lessons, or finding a new arepa spot. Every day there's an activity organised by Co404. We arrived on trivia night run by Johnny (a semi-pro volleyballer and a professional chef), family dinner nights (this week was burritos a la Johnny), cocktail-making classes, museum trips, or testing out bachata skills (or lack there of) at a nearby club with locals.
It’s the kind of built-in community I now seek out wherever I go. People to work with, eat with, laugh with, without having to organise it from scratch.
PSA: CO404 also have homes in San Cristobal and Oaxaca, highly recommend.
Known as the city of eternal spring, the city itself is great bowl of warm adobe brick, homes improbably built on the side of steep hills, reinforced concrete or borrowed shingles of corrugated iron poking out at odd angles, strangely shaped additions to corners and improvised 2nd or 3rd floors, connected by gondolas as a core piece of public transport. From ground level, Medellin is full of birds and on any given street you can find eucalyptus, mango, avocado and cecropia trees. Colourful murals cover street corners, rich with political or historical meaning. You can tell when Nacional (the more popular local football team) played, the streets were a sea of white and green stripes, as if there was a strict dress code.
Of course, you can’t talk about Medellín without talking about its past. This city has lived through dark chapters in recent history: cartel violence, inequality, recession, displacement. But what stands out now is how alive it feels. The history is sobering, but the spirit and the kindness of the people here is inspiring. People here want to connect, share stories and heal. They’re proud of how far the city’s come, and they’ll invite you in like family.
Bogota: South America’s biggest Music Festival 🎡
One of the goals of this working remote lifestyle was to hike as often as we could, and see as much live music as possible. So when a 4 day music festival (Estereo Picnic) popped up in Bogota we jumped on a plane for a week and headed to the capital.
The festival was massive. Over 160,000 people all converging at Simon Bolivar Park. Like everywhere in Colombia, the energy was warm, welcoming and joyful. We made friends in the crowd within minutes. Colombians are some of the most open, fun-loving people I’ve ever met. If you stand still long enough, someone will loop you into their group and hand you a beer. The lineup had something for everyone, with Justin Timberlake, Alanis Morrisette, Tool and local crowd favourite, Danny Ocean. Never mind that it poured with torrential rain for over 50% of the festival.
Work was…much lighter that week, let’s be honest. Bogotá’s a big, high-altitude beast of a city. There’s street art and steep hills and new street foods to try.
But like any big city, you’ve got to be careful, and there's no denying that Bogota has a reputation for petty crime. There’s a Colombian saying: “No dar papaya” (literally ‘do not give a papaya’) which basically means don’t be a dumb tourist and make yourself a target. Don’t flash your phone, don’t leave your bag unattended. If you don’t give papaya, you're usually fine.
After a full on week we thought it best to regroup, find a tiny town and catch up on life.
🏖 Northern Colombia: Palomino + Peace
We spent our final few weeks on the Caribbean Coast, basing ourselves in Palomino, a small beach town where the internet hits just over 14mbps (with slightly lowered standards this is perfect) roads are still sand and the pace of life is basically horizontal. We decided this was a good time to try a new skill, meditation, just 3-10 minutes a day.
We spent our days reading books, catching up on work and finding the best local menu del día for 12,000 pesos (about AUD $4.40) that comes with soup, fresh juice, grilled meat, rice, and salad. The air smells like salt and mangoes, the afternoons consisted of a swim at the beach and fresh ceviche as the sun set.
Colombia gave us a taste of everything: urban hustle in Medellín, fiesta in Bogotá and stillness and sunshine on the coast.
We met founders, remote workers and locals who felt like old friends. We danced to reggaeton in clubs and ate arepas and platano with every meal. We shared desks, meals, jokes, and life stories with people we’d only just met. And six weeks later, we left with a bit more perspective, a few more freckles, and a lot more belief in how good remote life can be, when you find the right places to build it.
Hi Jess, we meet you at Estereo Picnic. We loved so much your energy, as well aussies also have such great vibes such as you do. So good being able to meet you and hope to see you somewhere else. Cheers!!