Summer 2023: Bansko. Bansko is a small town in the south-western corner of Bulgaria at about 1000 meters above sea level. In winter, the town gets a major tourism boost when residents of Sofia make the trip to Bansko for skiing in the Pirin mountains.

In summer, digital nomads come here and it has become a famous and important hub for programmers and web workers with three different co-working companies that have set up several bureaus in this town of just 10,000 people. In terms of co-working per inhabitants, Bansko is among the first in the world and there are good reasons why Bansko is so popular:

1. Internet speed: Overall fast internet at most apartments and at the Coworking spaces, but also cheap and fast data plans from the telecoms, like A1.
2. Prices: A cheap place. Rents of about 300-400 Euros per month for a simple one room apartment and restaurant meals about 30-40% cheaper compared to Western Europe.
3. Walkability: Since the city is so small, it is perfect if you want to walk everywhere! Bars, restaurants, co-working spaces, banks, supermarkets are all just some minutes of walk away, no matter where you are in the city. Just a word of warning: The southern outskirts of the city are up in the hills and a walk there from the center is still only a 20-30 minute walk, but an uphill battle nevertheless.
4. Community: Many many entrepreneurs and digital employees come together here and you can meet a lot of people. Coworking Bansko (Matthias) is one of the people connecting new arrivals and basically every day there are activities and people get to know each other quickly.

Why am I here? I work on a salsa, bachata and Kizomba website with a friend. More about that later on.