Every once in a while I scroll through ´digital nomad destinations´. Exotic places like Bali and Medellin seem to do well, but also a bunch of European destinations seem to be ´a haven for digital nomads´, such as Lisbon and Prague.
I found Lisbon indeed great to be working remotely, so time to check out Prague obviously 😉
As I was on my little trip round Europe (Copenhagen with my Thomas, the Netherlands to visit family, Brussels for work and Berlin to meet up with Thomas and visit a friend), I figured I might as well take that bus further down to Prague and try it out.
Also because I had promised myself that part of my ´I have moved back to Europe´ deal was that I really wanted to get into Christmas mood,with the gluhwein, Christmas markets and Christmas lights all over. And I had heard Prague was pretty great for that.
I started with finding a co-working. I´ve learnt that it´s good to at least have the option, in case all wifi sucks or whatever. I have found this nice platform CoWorker.com where all co-working spaces in a city are mentioned, rated and stated with a price. I found a nice one, and took that location to find a hostel. Though there are people that think 31 is not the age to still be sleeping in dorm beds, I have very little issue with doing so, and I´d rather spend my budget on those mulled wines 😉
The Czech Inn hostel was super nice and had a good vibe. Also, the average age was more like mine, nothing against 18 year olds, but we tend to have a bit different day rhythm 😉
So in front of the co-working I had found, I found a hostel (through hostelworld.com of course, how else ;)) that had nice reviews and great price (8,- for a 4 bed dorm yeay!). It also seemed to be in Vinohrady neighbourhood, a neighbourhood I had gotten recommended by a fellow freelancer that I had met in the co-working in Copenhagen. And since he´s a (kite) surfers well, I figured I could trust his advices 😉
I took the bus from Berlin and 4 hours later, with just 30 more minutes metro and tram I got to the hostel. Thanks to a lovely girl ,because apparently the ticket machine only accepts coins, and I had just taken out some Czech Crones banknotes, and of course every little in the metrostation is unwilling to change 😉 I was about to buy a drink to at least get some coin change, when a girl saw my struggle and paid my metro ticket. How nice eh!
Anyways, next day I noticed the co-working didn´t actually open until 10. Now I tend to start working at 8.30, so decided to just give it a go in the hostel common room. It turned out to be nice and quiet, with fairly good wifi. So no need to go to the co-working space just yet.
Around 13.30 I thought it was time for some air and some sightseeing and spend the next 2 hours exploring the sights of Prague. Once in the more historic part of town it definitely got a lot busier with all kinds of tourists, not to speak about the famous Charles Bridge and Mala Strana. But hey, it´s absolutely beautiful so I understand why they were all there as well;)
I did some nice strolling and found a little café out of the crazy tourist area and worked for some more. It seemed to be working great.
So basically the next days I´ve spend in a minimum of two coffeeshops a day: one in the morning, one in the afternoon. I would usually just type in google ´coffee´, and then check it out.
I always check if they have wifi, and I always ask if it´s ok that I stay and work there for a bit with my computer. Some found it strange that I asked, but I think it´s just nice to make sure J
In Vinohrady I found a lovely little coffee place called Oblak Coffee with the sweetest owner/waitress. It seemed some sort of living room and she told me that by the window was were people usually worked. With a little Christmas music (sorry for those I talked to on Skype and were maybe driven mad by the repeating Christmas music) in the background and some lovely (vegan)chai lattes and oat yoghurt with fruits and granola, I was a happy remote worker J
Another little gem I found (though a bit bigger and thus a little more noisy) was next to the farmer´s market that takes place from Wednesday to Saturday close to the Jiriho z Podebrad metrostop. I went to the market right when it opened at8, and had a hard time choosing from all the coffee places around. Only around the square there were already 7 of them! So I just picked on, and once again,delicious coffee, a nice long table for me to work on and nice people. Around lunch time it got busier here, so I didn´t want to occupy the space anymore and switched to another spot.
The same living room feel I had in the Coffee Source. With just 3 tables in a little room, it´s bound to be nice and quiet (unless of course the other two tables would be occupied by incredibly noisy people, but it seemed rather family and remote workers oriented). This was also a nice and cheap place! (they all are, it´s Prague after all, but this one especially was).
Around the historic city center I found ´sisters´ which was ok, but I was actually trying to find MyRaw Cafe, I ended up finding it just afterI had worked at Sisters, so I cannot say anything about the quality of Raw, but it looked a little more comfortable than Sisters. Also, prices in this part ofPrague are a little higher of course J
Last stop was COMA´r, a place which I think doubles as a cocktail bar during the evening. Since I was working here during the afternoon,they did tune up the music volume and started shaking their cocktails. In theory I don´t have much against this, but I had a little Skype meeting, which was a little uncomfortable with music and cocktails in the background 😉
So it´s a good place to work, the people were nice, but if you don´t like music or if you have some Skype calls, this might not be the place to go 😉
So, conclusion. I will be going on more remote working trips for sure! It´s a great way to keep working, and find something new. Though I would not be able to do this for weeks and weeks, it´s also quite tiring. And it´s quite important to find a place that is affordable (for me at least) and has many cafes or at least co-working spaces 😉
Any places I should visit? (Reasonable travel distance from Spain, or it being totally and completely worth it to stay there for a month;))
