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Coworking for travelers and seasonal workers

By Sarah
In a strange city? Find a home away from home.

I worked at Office Nomads in Seattle last week– it was my temporary home for a couple of days while visiting Seattle. Setting into a neighborhood coworking space has been great. I’ve met some people and gleaned good local recommendations. I’ve also felt like I had somewhere to land, and a sense of purpose while I was there.

These are some of the benefits of coworking for travelers. I remember traveling in the pre-coworking days: hostels and “cyber-cafes” were the places to rest, meet people, make plans, and catch up with the outside world. Traveling, or simply being in a new city can be exhausting without somewhere to serve as your home base.

Coworking spaces, if managed well, can serve as ambassadors for their cities. Even if you aren’t traveling for a specific work-related purpose, you may consider dropping into a coworking space to catch up on your emails, write a few blog posts, and get connected to some local entrepreneurs who are likely to be working on interesting things.

Travelers at Groundwork

We’ve had a handful of wayfarers visit us at Groundwork over the years, so I asked them to share their experience dropping into a coworking space in an unfamiliar city. Here are a few stories:

Robby Choate owns Rolo Studios in Bogota, Colombia. He recently found himself in New Bedford for a month, and stationed himself at Groundwork. Here’s what he had to say:

While I call MA home, I had never spent time in New Bedford. Now living in and running a company in Bogotá, Colombia, I was brought back to MA for a mix of business and family affairs, landing in New Bedford for a one-month stay. Groundwork was the perfect solution for me! Not only is the co-working space beautiful, it’s super comfortable and you are surrounded by great people and amazing ideas. The next time I pass through NB, I will without a doubt return to Groundwork!, if not for a workday at least of a coffee from Tiverton and a chat with some new friends. Thanks GW!

We’ve had a couple visits from Jenna Winn, who works for Remote Year, a program that enables remote workers to spend a year traveling the world. Last summer, Jenna visited us while she spent some time at her family home in Mattapoisett. She shared quite a bit about her work with remote year and her love of coworking on our blog.

Jeff Crystal, of Voltaic Systems, found himself in South Dartmouth for the summer visiting relatives. Dropping in at Groundwork allowed him to focus and get some work done away from the distractions of family:

Groundwork provided a welcoming, sunlit space over the summer while my family was visiting relatives near New Bedford. It is a great co-working option.

Where are you headed next?

So the next time you find yourself in a strange city, consider coworking as a way to plug in (pun intended), meet locals, and dig a layer deeper than the average tourist. There are some great ways to find coworking spaces around the world, such as coworker.com, and the coworking visa program. If you are currently a member of a space that participates in the coworking visa program, you can visit another space on the visa for free.

If you ever visit New Bedford, be sure to stop into Groundwork for a day or two, and as Robby recommends, try some local coffee! If not, perhaps I’ll see you somewhere on the horizon on my next trip.

Sarah
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