A Summer of Change: My Journey Through Burgas Coliving During a Life Transition

I stayed in Burgas Coliving for around a month this summer and in this blogpost I’m going to narrate the experience. During the summer I visited different countries, starting my trip from Madrid, where I am based, I went to Prague, Czechia, where I stayed for a week with a friend. It was my first week after quitting my job and deciding to become a freelancer. Even though I was on “holidays” I was recording content and starting to redesign my website. So let’s say this was a big transition moment for me. From there I went to visit Budapest for a few days and then went to Sofia. From Sofia I flew to Burgas Airport and from there a taxi to the coliving, which was a 30 minutes drive. If I arrived in the daytime I would have taken the bus which has a stop in front of the coliving which is a big plus.

I was received by Katya, owner of the coliving who was doing some necklaces with beads while having a glass of wine from the winery of the coliving. I interviewed Katya and Tony (previous co-owner of the coliving) for a podcast episode for Colivers Club, where they told us their experience renovating the property which used to be a Spa from the communist era and all their hard work to open this beautiful place.

The property is quite big, it has two buildings, one has the rooms, kitchen and living room and the other one is partly renovated where only the ground floor is available and has the shared wardrobe, the meditation room, some gym equipment and a yoga/workout room, at some point it will be renovated and I can’t wait to see what the future holds for the new space.

I really enjoyed how the coliving has a lot of sports facilities, like a ping pong table, petanque, some bars with rings to do calisthenics, kettlebells, yoga mats, a basketball hoop and even a punching bag, which is great when needing to release some stress throughout the day.

And the yoga shala has a beautiful wooden floor and is totally equipped with everything you need. During the summer days we were doing most activities on the outside platform but sometimes we would use it as well for a group workout.

The house is very tastefully decorated and the layout and details are very well thought out, and it makes sense since Katya is an urban planner. The love put into the place inspired me to create a small reel about my experience there, you can check it out here. 

Since Katya and Tony are both lovers of wine and beer (Tony even has his own beer brewery called Beer Bastards!), the coliving has its own winery with a beautiful selection of wines. We put it to good use with a wine tasting workshop Katya gave us

Not only the coliving has a focus on Craft Beer but also Arts and Crafts, with its own dedicated room to create paintings with different watercolors and we even have Arts and Crafts Nights. Here is a little video I created from one of those nights. It was so cool to get all together and share the creation of art together.

The coworking was superb, it includes monitors for free which is an absolute commodity, comfy chairs and even standing desks. It had a blackboard and if you need to take calls there’s a separate room to take those so you don’t disrupt the flow of fellow colivers.

Watching the climbing olympics with other colivers was one of the highlights of the living room. The sofas were super comfy and I think it was a great touch that you could use the shared Netflix account to watch series or movies. There were some people like Mieke and Milan who were taking the opportunity to watch reruns of The Office. 

I really liked my room! The wardrobe design and the art found in the room was very inspiring and having an AC unit in each room was a great addition for the really hot summer days, but most of the days with the window open you were good to go. As you can see there were some signs by the door and it’s a way of identifying your self/shelve using old bulgarian alphabet letters. They were handmade using pyrography by Katya. How cool/hot is that!

But if I had to choose, my favorite part of Burgas Coliving would be the huge backyard that is made of a chill area, camp fire, wooden deck and one of the biggest decks I’ve seen, where we would all gather around to share meals and nice conversations.

It was great to have so much outdoor space, most of us would take the opportunity to do our work on the outside surrounded by nature which always motivates me and makes me more focused.

The hammocks were the favorite spots for catching some sun and reading. Not to call anyone out, but Holy, the volunteer at the time, was the ultimate hammock master. 

And this brings us to the kitchen, which in my opinion is the heart of a coliving. The kitchen is fully equipped with everything you would need to create fantastic menus. Again, the organization and the labeling system made things very easy to find. Having two dishwashers and two ovens with stoves made the cooking experience an easier task when coliving with 9 other colivers.

During my stay I was really focused on my website, creating content and reaching out to potential clients for my new freelance adventure as a Front-end Software Architect. It’s funny how life works, but the very last few days of my stay I met Ramez from Lightspace and we really connected, so we started collaborating the very next week after I left the coliving. It’s incredible all the connections you make at a coliving, albeit being personal or work related. 

I also interviewed three colivers for the Colivers Club Podcast. We talked about very diverse subjects from how the European Union supports colivings with Moritz to how we can create inclusive communities for introverts with Ali and how ineffective is the current design of toilets with Theo.

I had a fantastic time in Burgas, I felt  very much in sync with the group, even so, Milan and Sarah have a call every two weeks to talk about our projects and support each other with ideas. 

I love colivings, you get as much out of it as you put into it. It’s also interesting how your experience is shaped as a group depending on the moment of your life that you are in and how it elevates the experience. The question now is not if I’ll come back to Burgas, but when. If you want to book your stay at Burgas you can do so in mapmelon, don’t forget to use my code though! CESAR60. See you next time.