Best Co-Living Spaces for Digital Nomads in Medellin
Words by
Andres Restrepo
The City That Learned to Welcome Strangers
Medellin has reinvented itself so many times that the phrase "Colombian miracle" barely does it justice. Once synonymous with violence at a scale the world watched on television, the city spent two decades building itself into something entirely different. The tram lines that once carried factory workers now ferry a global network of freelancers and startup founders between neighborhoods. Finding the best coliving spaces for digital nomads in Medellin means understanding that this is not a city that simply tolerated the arrival of remote workers. It actively courted them, and the infrastructure reflects that intention.
Poblado and Laureles are the two anchors. Poblado is the district most tourists recognize, the one with rooftop bars and Ubers that arrive in four minutes. Laureles sits on the western side of the Aburra Valley, quieter and more residential, the kind of neighborhood where you can walk to a bakery at 7 a.m. and the owner already knows your order. Between them lies a cluster of co-living operations that range from hostel-scale conversions to purpose-built residential compounds. I have spent extended stays in several of these places over the past two years, and what follows is the list I hand to anyone who asks.
Selina Medellin: The Original Nomad Hub
Selina Medellin, Calle 10, El Poblado
Selina opened its Medellin property on Calle 10a back when the co-living model was still finding its legs in the city. The building used to house a mid-range hotel that catered to business travelers from Bogota, and bits of that past life show through in the way the rooms are laid out. Each private room has a work desk that faces the window, a detail the Selina team clearly added with remote workers in common. The coworking area on the ground floor seats around 40 people, and during peak season between December and March you will need to arrive before 9 a.m. to claim a seat with both an outlet and a view.
What keeps people coming back is the rooftop bar, which is open until midnight on weekdays and 1 a.m. on weekends. A craft beer runs about 12,000 to 15,000 Colombian pesos, and the altar de pollo bowl costs around 28,000 pesos and is genuinely one of the better-value hot meals you will find in Poblado. The monthly rate for a private room during low season drops to roughly 1.8 million pesos, which includes the coworking access.
Here is the thing most first-time visitors get wrong about Selina. The social programming, the yoga classes, the walking tours, the DJs on Thursday nights, all of it is designed to fill your evenings so you are not tempted to roam El Poblado at midnight by yourself. That matters here because the Poblado scene can turn quickly after dark in the blocks south of Parque Lleras, and staff will quietly steer you toward the building's own events instead.
The Wi-Fi occasionally drops on the top floor during afternoon storms. This is not unusual for Medellin, where the electrical grid is carrying more load than it was designed for, but it is worth knowing if you have a deadline converging with a thunderstorm.
One Hundred Years of Coworking: The Laureles Network
Atomhouse Laureles, Calle 38, Laureles
Atomhouse in Laureles operates out of a converted house on Calle 38, and it is the place I recommend to anyone who tells me they moved to Medellin specifically to get actual work done. Around 30 people live and work here at any given time, a balance that feels deliberate. The manager told me they cap occupancies after the building flooded during one heavy rainy season in 2019 and they realized the plumbing could not handle more than three dozen showers starting at the same hour.
The monthly rate for a shared room hovers around 900,000 to 1.1 million pesos, and a private room with an en-suite bathroom runs closer to 1.6 million. That includes high-speed fiber internet, which in my speed tests in both June and October of last year delivered consistent upload speeds of 40 to 55 Mbps, enough for video calls without buffering. Desks on the second floor are the ones to grab. They sit under a skylight that the original house did not have, one added during renovation.
Breakfast is included and rotates between arepas de huevo, scrambled eggs, scrambled eggs with hogao, and scrambled eggs with arepas. It is not a culinary revelation, but it is free, it is hot, and it means you start each day having spent zero pesos. There is a shared kitchen on the ground floor where residents cook together most evenings, the kind of arrangement that either sounds delightful or nightmarish depending on your tolerance for other people's cilantro.
Atomhouse sits three blocks from Carrera 70, which is the commercial spine of Laureles. That means every errand, pharmacy, grocery store, and bar is within a five-minute walk. Medellin's Laureles neighborhood is the part of the city that most closely resembles a mid-sized Latin American city in the 1990s. There are geraniums hanging from second-floor balconies, elderly men playing tejo in the squares, and a total absence of the frenetic startup-energy crowds that dominate parts of Poblado.
The Student Quarter Turned Nomad Magnet
Selina La 70, Carrera 70, Laureles
Carrera 70 is where Laureles meets its louder side, and Selina's second Medellin property anchors one end of that energy. The building is a purpose-built structure, not a conversion, with thick concrete walls that dampen the fairly significant street noise from the bars on the lower blocks. A private room goes for roughly 1.4 million pesos per month during regular pricing, and the coworking space is actually larger than the one at the Poblado Selina, with a dedicated phone booth area and a room for video calls that you can book through their internal app.
The best meal on the menu is the shawarma wrap, around 22,000 pesos, made by a kitchen staff that has been at this property since it opened. The juice bar serves lulo smoothies that taste nothing like the powdered tourist versions you will encounter elsewhere. Weekends here are social. Monday through Wednesday feel very different, almost quiet, and that rhythm suits people who frontload their week and then decompress.
La 70 is where Medellin's university energy meets the nomad economy. Students from the nearby UPB and EAFIT campuses flood the bars below after 7 p.m., and the sound rise all the way up to the fifth floor. Bring headphones on Friday nights.
The Upscale Option in Poblado
Outsite Medellin, Calle 9, El Poblado
Outsite occupies a renovated building on Calle 9a, and it is the most design-forward remote work accommodation Medellin offers at the entry-level price point. The property was designed by a local firm that also worked on several hotels in the Rosales neighborhood, and the aesthetic shows. Clean lines, local dark wood, ceramic light fixtures made by artisans in the Oriente. The monthly rate for a private room starts around 2 million pesos during low season, though surge pricing during festival weeks or the Christmas-to-January stretch pushes that closer to 2.8 million.
The coworking space has fiber running at around 80 Mbps download according to multiple speed tests I ran in late 2023. There are individual standing desks, a podcasting nook with acoustic padding, and a small meeting room that residents can reserve by the hour. Outsite screens new applicants through a fairly brief process, and the result is a co-habitant pool that skews toward a specific kind of remote professional: the Stripe engineer, the Shopify designer, the Shopify designer who left Shopify.
The rooftop herb garden produces the mint that goes into the mojito served at their weekly community mixer on Wednesdies, which is the single best recurring event I have found at any co-living space in the city. The mojito itself costs about 18,000 pesos. Staff can arrange paragliding at Guatape, a day trip to Guatape, or a tour of Comuna 13 at a group rate that beats what you will find walking up to the Escaleras Electricas with a SoloTraveler grin.
The elevator breaks down roughly once every four weeks. It gets fixed within a day, but if you are on the upper floors and hauling groceries from Exito, you will feel it.
The House on Calle 11
Abajo Cacique Calle 11, El Poblado
This is not a brand. Abajo Cacique is the name of a nomad coliving Medellin operation that runs out of a large house on Calle 11, and it is the most community-minded setup on this list. The monthly rate sits around 1 million pesos for a bunk in a shared room and 1.5 million for a private room. There are only 16 beds total, and the owner, a former NGO logistics coordinator from Cali, manages every booking personally.
The house has two work areas. A long table on the ground floor where everyone works side by side and a smaller balcony setup on the second floor that fits two people. The kitchen is the real centerpiece. A proper gas stovetop, a full-size refrigerator, a blender that was not junked after two smoothie batches, and a shelf of spices you would expect in an actual Colombian home. On Sundays, whoever is around cooks together, which is code for "the one or two actual Colombian residents teach the gringos how to make sancocho."
Locals are not a rarity at Abajo Cacique, and that is unusual. Many coliving spaces in Medellin exist in a kind of bubble where everyone speaks English and nobody has a genuine relationship with the neighborhood outside. Here, the next-door neighbor sometimes comes over to ask if anyone has a phone charger, and the corner tienda owner saves eggs for the house when there is a shortage at Exito. The house has also participated in neighborhood clean-up days, which in the context of El Poblado means they pick up after the bars.
The Runner-Up in Poblado
Selina Park, Calle 8, El Poblado
Selina's third Medellin location sits on Calle 8, closer to Parque Poblado than to the club strip, and it is the most residential-feeling of the three Selina properties. The private rooms here are the smallest of any Selina in the city, roughly 14 square meters, but the beds are better. The coworking setup is similar to the flagship with one addition: a dedicated projector room for residents who want to screen presentations or host movie nights.
A month here costs around 1.7 million pesos for a private room, and the kitchen is a weak point. The breakfast spread is the same bread-and-fruit combo as the other Selinas, and the hot food menu is approximately half the size of the Calle 10 location. Most residents eat out, which in this part of Poblado means you are surrounded by restaurants within two blocks. Pergamino on Calle 8 serves one of the better cafes con leche in Poblado at around 6,000 pesos, and the almuerzo menu at El Rancho on the same block runs about 15,000 pesos for soup, main, juice, and dessert.
Selina Park sits near the Carrera 43 bridge, which connects Poblado to the Las Vegas avenue corridor. That means your morning Metro ride to Envigado, Solo, or anywhere south starts about a three-minute walk from the front door. For people doing a monthly stay Medellin who need to cross the city for meetings, this location is hard to beat on commute time.
The Budget Standout
Viajero Hostel Medellin, Calle 49, El Poblado
Viajero is technically a hostel with a co-living track, not a dedicated coliving space, but I have included it because their monthly pricing is unmatched. A private room for a monthly stay Medellin through Viajero runs as low as 1 million pesos in low season, and shared bunks start around 600,000. The building on Calle 49 has two floors of dormitories and a rooftop with a cold plunge pool, which sounds like a marketing adjective but actually requires a minute of courage, even in Medellin's eternal spring climate.
The rooftop coworking area works well for focused work before about 2 p.m. After that, the pool crowd generates noise levels that make serious concentration difficult. There is also a basement coworking nook that is quieter but airless, the kind of room where you check your own pulse after 90 minutes.
The bar on the rooftop serves aguardiente sours for 14,000 pesos, and the Colombian breakfast (arepa, egg, rice, beans, coffee) costs 12,000 pesos. Staff are well-versed in the nomad circuit: Panama, Mexico City, Bogota, Lisbon. They can connect you to that circuit, or they can help you attend local events hosted by Medellin's own startup community, which meets monthly at various points around the city.
Viajero fills up fast during peak nomad season. Book at least two months ahead if you are arriving between December and February.
The Selina Weekender: Santa Fe de Antioquia Consideration
Casa Selina Medellin, Calle 2 Sur, El Poblado
The newest Selina property in Medellin opened in 2022 on Calle 2 Sur, and it is the most design-intensive of the group's four local properties. The interiors feature tilework from Argos, the Medellin-based cement company that literally built the city's modern architecture. The monthly private room rate sits at roughly 1.5 million pesos, and the coworking space sits behind a glass wall that lets in constant natural light from a central courtyard.
This location is furthest from the Poblado party district, which is either its greatest asset or its fatal flaw depending on who you ask. La 33 and other residential zones sit within walking distance, meaning the neighborhood feels like actual Medellin rather than the internationalized version. The nearest street food stand, at the corner of Calle 2 Sur and Carrera 38, serves empanadas and mango biche for 3,000 pesos at lunch, a meal I have eaten more times than I have publicly admitted.
Casa Selina runs a Tuesday night book exchange and a Saturday morning guided walk through the botanical garden, both of which are free to residents. The building's walls are thick enough to block most street noise, a genuine achievement in a city where motorcycles with modified exhausts treat red lights as suggestions.
Living in Laureles: The Neighborhood That Runs on Bakeries
Laureles deserves its own section because it is the neighborhood I recommend for anyone doing a second Medellin trip. The first trip hits Poblado, the clubs, the Uber rides to Guatape. The second trip is when you figure out that there is a whole city south of the river that the nomad circuit talks about less but uses more. Carrera 70, Carrera 80, Circular 1, these are the streets that matter here, and the bakeries along them are remarkable.
Panaderia Union on Circular 1a sells pandebono fresh from the oven each morning starting at 6:30, around 2,500 pesos for the same golden, stretchy, cheesy bread that Cali claims to have invented but Medellin argues over fiercely. The almuerzo set meal at any of the small restaurants on Carrera 70 will run 12,000 to 18,000 pesos and will come in three courses with a juice. There is no haggling, no menu in English. This is functioning Colombian daily life, sitting at a lunch counter with a plastic cup of guanabana juice while a five o'clock soap opera plays on a television bracketed to the wall.
For remote workers who need the fastest, most reliable internet, Laureles is the neighborhood I would say has the best café internet speeds. Hybrid Cowork on Calle 33 and Berrio Square Office are two options where I measured speeds above 100 Mbps on multiple visits. The prices for a single day pass hover around 30,000 to 40,000 pesos.
When to Go and What to Know
The nomad season in Medellin runs roughly November through March. Prices at every coliving space jump during that window, sometimes by 20 to 30 percent, and availability tightens. If you are trying to lock in a monthly rate, book by September for a November arrival. The rainy season hits hardest in April, May, September, and October, which is when rates drop and you can negotiate monthly prices that would be unthinkable in January.
Medellin sits at around 1,500 meters above sea level, which means the temperature hovers between 19 and 28 Celsius year-round but the rain arrives in sudden bursts that can last five minutes or two hours. Always carry a compact umbrella. The electrical outlets are Type A and B, the same two-prong and three-prong flat pins used in the U.S. and Canada, so most laptops convert without an adapter. Bring one for European or UK plugs.
Every coliving space profiled above includes Wi-Fi, shared kitchen access, and basic linen. None provide laundry machines at every location, but水洗家 almost every block offers service laundry at around 6,000 to 8,000 pesos per kilo, washed and folded within 24 hours.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Medellin expensive to visit? Give a realistic daily budget breakdown for mid-tier travelers.
A mid-tier daily budget in Medellin runs approximately 150,000 to 250,000 Colombian pesos, or roughly 35 to 60 USD. That covers a coliving shared room or cheap private rental, three meals including one at a local corrientazo lunch spot, local transport, and one drink. Groceries from Exito or Jumbo cost about 30 percent less than equivalent items in Bogota. For a premium daily experience, including private accommodation, Western restaurant meals, and regular Ubers, plan for 350,000 to 500,000 pesos per day.
What is the most reliable neighborhood in Medellin for digital nomads and remote workers?
Laureles is the most reliable neighborhood for consistent internet, affordable food, and a low-distraction living environment. Fewer nightlife venues operate close to residential blocks compared to El Poblado. Coworking density per square block is also the highest in the city, with at least eight dedicated spaces along Carrera 70 and Calle 33.
What are the average internet download and upload speeds in Medellin's central cafes and workspaces?
Download speeds in Medellin's central coworking spaces and internet cafes range from 50 to 120 Mbps on fiber connections, with upload speeds between 15 and 50 Mbps. Tigo and Claro offer the most widespread fiber coverage in Laureles and Poblado. Cafe Wi-Fi in tourist-heavy blocks of El Poblado averages 10 to 30 Mbps during peak afternoon use.
How easy is it to find cafes with ample charging sockets and reliable power backups in Medellin?
Most cafes and coworking spaces in Poblado and Laureles have sockets at or near every seating position. Pergamino, Cafe Revolucion, and multiple Laureles cafes maintain visible outlet grids along walls. Power backups are less consistent. Small cafes rely on the grid alone, while coworking spaces such as Atomhouse and Outsite typically have battery backups that sustain routers and lights for 30 to 60 minutes during outages.
Are there good 24/7 or late-night co-working spaces available in Medellin?
True 24/7 coworking spaces are rare. WorkingSpace on Calle 10 in Poblado operates until midnight on weekdays. Outsite and Selina properties give residents 24-hour building access, though dedicated coworking areas are typically locked for cleaning overnight. Several cafes in Poblado, including Pergamino, remain open until 10 p.m. or midnight, and free Wi-Fi extends past closing for outdoor seating areas along Calle 10.
Enjoyed this guide? Support the work
