coliving-europe.com
The hub the five regional coliving guides hang off, for people who know they want a season somewhere and not which coast.
Genesis
The regional guides came first — the Algarve, the Costa Blanca, Italy, the Balkans, the Baltic — each written for somebody who has already picked a coast. Which is fine, except almost nobody has. They know they want longer than a fortnight and shorter than a lease, and that is the entire extent of the plan.
So: five separate sites, five separate front doors, no hallway. This is the hallway. A grand word for a page with five links and a map on it.
The part that took the longest was deciding what not to build. No booking engine, no availability calendar, no filters with sliders on them. Nothing is booked here — you pick a coastline and follow the link, and somebody else’s payment form ruins your afternoon instead of mine.
What gets a house in
Three things, and a house that misses one of them is not listed, however good the terrace photography is.
- Somewhere to actually work. A desk and a chair that was designed by someone who has sat in a chair. Not a beanbag and an apology, not a kitchen table you have to clear at seven.
- A private room, and everything else shared. The room is where you close the door at the end of a bad Tuesday. The rest is the point of being there at all.
- Months, not nights. If the pricing is per night, it is a hotel wearing a nicer word.
Most of them I have been in. That is a selection method with obvious limits — I can only be in one place at a time, and I have opinions about pillows — but it beats reading a listing and hoping. A house can clear all three and still not come together: Olhão did, and the community never quite took. A house that misses one never comes together at all.
Who it’s for
People three weeks into deciding and no closer. Someone who has read about a hill town in Piedmont and a finca outside Dénia and has no way to tell which of those would actually suit them in February, because nobody writes that part down.
Not a booking audience. Nobody arrives here ready to pay for anything, which is convenient, as there is nothing here to pay for.
Where it stands
Live, and the easiest part of the job by a distance. Five regions is a week of work. Five regions written properly underneath is years, and four of the five guides are still being filled in while the hub sits there looking finished.