Medellin, Colombia

Guide to Medellin for digital nomads

This year I visited Medellin, Colombia, known as a great spot in south america for digital nomads. I wanted to see if the colombian vibe and it's coffee scene lives up to the hype. The city of eternal spring, as they say, has so much to offer.

Pros

  • Amazing weather, especially if you come between June-Sept or Dec- March
  • Lots of coffee shops, with great internet speeds. Especially if you stay in the main bigger areas like poblado or laureles. I found the speeds in the cafes here even faster than back home in NYC/NJ.
  • A pretty sizable digital nomad scene. You can’t compare it to thailand or SEA, but they have several FB groups and meetups, and it’s growing more and more by the year
  • Prices are pretty good. You can get by here pretty easily on $1000 / month, for $1500 you can pretty much do whatever you want.
  • They don’t have scooters here, but the transportation options are good. Taxi’s are literally everywhere and pretty cheap, good metro station that takes you wherever you want (nice and clean), buses, etc.
  • The city itself is very clean, and especially in the richer areas everything is very modern. You forget sometimes you’re even in Colombia other than people speaking spanish.
  • If you’re a guy, then obviously the women here will be a factor for you.
  • Pretty fast internet overall in apartments, etc.

Cons

  • Spanish. If you don’t speak any spanish, things will be a bit harder. Unless all you do is stay in the main tourist area like Poblado - you’ll need at least some basic spanish to get around. There are many tourists in Medellin, but I wouldn’t call it a tourist “hub” like other places in CA/SA…so don’t expect menu’s to always have english translations, etc.
  • No beach. If you’re used to the beaches down in phuket, bali, etc…there’s no beaches for you in Medellin (but you do have mountains)