As they begin to attract scaleups and big business, coworking spaces are becoming more sophisticated, which could be a good thing as we bust a few digital nomad myths. Plus the best places to stay in Las Palmas.
Coworking comes of age
If you still think of co-working as a bunch of millenials loafing around on second-hand office furniture, think again. Today’s co-working spaces are attracting a diverse range of startups and scaleups as well as individuals, by offering private managed offices, meeting and event facilities, ergonomic furnishings and honor cafes.
As the demands of freelancers and small companies have matured, so have the spaces they want to work in. And these more organised working environments have begun to attract the attention of big business, according to a recent post on business website entrepreneur.com, which claims corporations are turning to co-working spaces and more particularly small managed offices, to house employees.
Not just for freelancers
It’s certainly something we’ve noticed at The (all new) House and it makes total sense. Co-working and shared office spaces can – by the very nature of their business model – be a lot more flexible than regular commercial rental procedures, which involve multi-year leases, long contracts, utility bills etc.
The demand for managed office spaces
Even large companies can benefit from using coworking or managed office spaces, to house off-shore teams, outsourced projects or simply reward top performers with a workation by the beach. And as property website Commercial Observer points out; for many startups, having the flexibility to scale up as needed and avoid the need for long term contracts is becoming a must-have option.
The hidden costs of life as a digital nomad
Just as the physical environments of coworking are evolving, so are the people using them. A bunch of blog posts over the last month, written by seasoned vets of the coworking world, look a deeper look at some of the less attractive aspects of life on the road.
Busting a few myths
In a sometimes hilarious piece on her blog – The Remote Nomad – Katelyn Smith gets well and truly ‘stuck-in’ to a few of the stereotypical nomad types we’ve all met on our travels. She’s pulls no punches discussing the ‘better than you’ attitudes of some nomads and her attempts to avoid them.
Writing for the website Medium.com, Productivity Coach Liz Huber talks of her failure to find personal satisfaction living on the road, despite having few of the problems most of us think prevent true happiness. For Liz, true freedom comes not from having the ability to work from anywhere, but rather by removing the external dependencies that prevent us feeling free.
Kicking off a new series, entitled #NomadTruths, the very excellent Digital Nomad Girls blog begins by explaining that there’s no right or wrong way to living life as a nomad and calling on readers to be truthful when describing their experiences, rather than glossing over factors like loneliness, rough travel and the never-ending search for a good wifi connection.
A visa for digital nomads? Really?
Estonia is to become the first country in the world to issue travel documents specifically for digital nomads. The country is rightly proud of its reputation, as a leader in the tech field, but only issues long-term working visas to people with a job offer or contract. However, as a test of its potential, from the beginning of 2019 Estonian authorities will be making around 1400 of the new visas available – on a first come, first served basis.
Planning a trip to Las Palmas? Looking for somewhere to stay?
If you like the sound of working in year round sunshine with a distinctly European way of life, you probably have Las Palmas on your list of must-see destinations. The administrative centre of The Canary Islands has plenty to offer digital nomads. Picture postcard beaches, breathtaking mountain ranges, a cosmopolitan city combined with an engaging mish-mash of cultures make the archipelago popular with entrepreneurial travellers from all over the world.
If you’re planning to visit us any time soon, check out this useful list of the best places to stay in Las Palmas, produced by our good friend Vikto Vincej, writing on the Traveling Lifestyle blog. And of course, if you need somewhere to work, be sure to stop by The House, say hello and book your free one-day trial.