August 31, 2025 by Cassandra Johnson
When I landed in Medellin, Colombia, I thought it would be hard to leave the airport without taking an overpriced taxi to my accommodation.
I was surprised to find just going up one floor, through the food court-like area that I could catch an Uber very much like I could in New York City or Washington D.C.
Before calling one, I went to Juan Valdez coffee shop to get my bearings. I was so familiar and comfortable with Peru, what was Colombia going to behold for me? Juan Valdez coffee shops would be a regular backdrop along with indie ones. I would find a variety of experiences and a variety of people, naturally.
What I noticed primarily was the “Tranquilo” cultural mantra that many guys and women would direct at me.
Sometimes my overly gracious words in a hotel suite or a grocery shop would translate into not being from there, and they were basically telling me to Relax and Chill. No big deal.
I was pleased. I would rather be overly nice than flippant, and the people here seemed to like me.
They were surprised I had learned Spanish. They were even more surprised I now worked as a digital nomad. They made guesses like “Teacher”? “Student”? and were further surprised when I answered “Translator”.
I thought back to starting to travel again, but this time as someone working on the road (across the skies), by first returning to San Juan, Puerto Rico. I was glad to be transitioning from traveling to volunteer to traveling while working.
This was challenging, however, because most people around me were on vacation. Now it was Medellin, Colombia. Before it was Puerto Rico. Then it was returning to Peru to see if I wanted to go ahead and secure an apartment there for part of the year.
My first challenge was going for the budget friendly hostels. I later learned that spending more on hotel and AirBnBs here and there helped me focus on work and then do touring and hanging out in my downtime.
Hostels did not typically seem to design in remote working spaces but as I traveled more, I found those that had some nice ones.
I also found that Medellin, Colombia had some super affordable coworking spaces. They were abundant in both the Laurel and Poblado neighborhoods. I especially liked Laurel. It was more my vibe and it had both fancy spots and bohemian ones – sometimes intermingling in the middle.
I remembered how I find my flow and then forget sometimes but it was really nice to connect and try intermittently to get between rainstorms and hanging out and working. I was curious if Bogota could be as nice. Imagine my surprise that the vibe and actually less party atmosphere of it compared to Medellin actually led me into enjoying Bogota more. Could I snowbird there, while enjoying family in the U.S.?