The home of paella - as I found out on my penultimate evening in Valencia! It turns out that this city is one place I’m putting on my return list. From the sites to the food to the shopping to the general atmosphere, it’s definitely up there in my favourite places in Spain to visit - and I’m actually a bit gutted to be leaving.

There seems to be two sides to Valencia, the town and the sea - beach and port. So I’m kind of surprised it’s not talked about more when it essentially has something for every kind of visitor. Including remote lifers.

This time, I wanted to spend a little more time in my Airbnb and focus on getting my travel routine down. But I did make it to a couple of places to co-work, and there are a couple of others that came highly recommended. So here goes:

WORK CAFE SANTANDER

Before arriving in Valencia, I put out a tweet asking for recommendations and Dani Leigh, from Travelling Jezebel suggested Work Café Santander.

One of the few places in town that opens ‘early’ at 8:30am, Work Café was the first place I headed to on my list and it was a great place to start. While the wifi was great and you could work without having to pay, if you weren’t a Santander customer, you couldn't stay there for longer than a couple of hours - they come around and register everyone. If you do have a bank account with them though, you can get longer access and a 30% discount on drinks also.

If you’re an early riser, like me, then it’s definitely a great place to kick the day off - although the coffee wasn’t the best - before heading on to the next place. It was also interesting to watch the typical city people out and about their business and still mingling over coffees well into the morning in the cowork space and at a tiny cafe just down the street.

RAWCOCO GREEN BAR

Having a craving for an açaí bowl, Rawcoco was where I headed to after Work Café Santander and I was very pleased with the choice. Opting for said bowl and a black americano, I was able to get a couple more hours of work done with great wifi.

It gave me just the amount of Canggu and Florianópolis I needed before heading home for the rest of the work day. And I’m intrigued to see how the Palma de Mallorca branch measures up this week.

OTHER SUGGESTIONS AND THINGS TO KNOW

Although I sadly didn’t make it to any others myself, Café Artysana was one other that was recommended to me and after a quick google search, Cowork Valencia also seemed to be a favourite amongst expats on Facebook.

It wasn’t all work and no play in this coastal town and if you do make it, I highly recommend taking a wander around the popular Ciutat de les Arts I les Ciènces, as well as a wander around the old town to see some of the beautiful older buildings, like the Ceramics Museum and the Central Market.

If you’re on a budget, you can also see some of these sites on the VisitValencia YouTube channel for free.

Is Valencia on your list?

Han x