Ever since we first set foot in Bansko back in 2021, it has been one of our favourite places to live as digital nomads. From the people, the mountains, the affordability and accessibility to the community it just ticks all the boxes for us.

If you’ve heard of Bansko before, you probably know that the digital nomad community was established by Matthias and Uwe, two friends from Germany and Austria who went to Bansko and loved it. They brought some friends with them, and all of a sudden, Coworking Bansko was born, and Bansko became one of the number 1 hot spots for digital nomads in the World. Quite impressive!

But as we all know, things rarely stay the same, and change is inevitable. Especially in the digital nomad space, we see this all the time! After spending 4 summers in Bansko, we decided to put together this post about what’s changing – for better and for worse…

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So what’s new in Bansko in 2024?

Mathias the founder of Coworking Bansko enjoying a chat with friends.
Matthias Zeitler at Bansko Nomad Fest 2023

A few years ago, Uwe passed on the baton to Matthias and he’s been the one running Coworking Bansko with his right hand, Cvetelina. They’ve done an incredible job at building an inclusive and fun community where everyone is welcome.

But Matthias had a bigger vision. He wanted to create a Nomad Utopia which he is now bringing to life under the name “Coliving Semkovo”. This place is located about 40 minutes from Bansko and soon, he is going to move there.

He’s put all of his love and attention into building Coliving Semkovo so for the sake of keeping Coworking Bansko running, he decided to sell it!

Who are the new owners of Coworking Bansko?

From left to right: Emil Shekerdzhiiski (new owner), Teddy & Antonio (community managers), and Matthias Zeitler (founder)

After careful consideration, Matthias decided to sell Coworking Bansko to Emil Shekerdzhiiski and his wife Monica Shekerdzhiiski, the owners of Networking Premium.

Emil and Monica have come to Bansko many times before and successfully run over 10 coworking spaces in Sofia, Plovdiv, and now, Bansko. Since they’re familiar with both Bansko and the Coworking Bansko community, they seem to be a great fit to take over the place!

Side note: Matthias also sold Bansko Nomad Fest!

What’s new?

Nomad friends working at Coworking Bansko
Dom and our friend Stefanos at a packed Friday Mixer!

After purchasing Coworking Bansko, Emil and Monica decided to add on a coliving space – Coliving Bansko!

Coliving Bansko is located right next to the center of town by the mountain stream and Billa (grocery store) so it’s in a super location. The coliving has 64 apartments, a coworking space on the ground floor with ergonomic chairs, mountain views, and great coffee, tea, and sparkling water.

There are two basement levels where they have a communal kitchen and dining room, a gym, a music room, and even an old parking garage that they’ve turned into a place where they host some pretty wild parties on the weekend!

The community managers are all really into music so you’ll find that there are a lot of events that revolve around music such as guitar lessons, live music at the Friday Mixer (which is an event that’s open to everyone, not just Coliving residents and Coworking members), as well as techno parties in the bottom level of the basement.

We didn’t actually stay at the Coliving as we had booked our stay in Bansko before the Coliving popped up and we usually always stay in the same apartment just 5 minutes away – but we did pop by the Coliving a few times a week!

We’d stop by for the Friday Mixer and catch up with everyone, and a few times we’d also cowork from there. The chairs and the natural light are great from that location, so it’s definitely a great place to work! However, we mostly worked from one of the other Coworking Bansko locations (the lounge) just because that’s where a lot of our friends from our previous times in Bansko hang out.

Despite being digital nomads and always moving around, we’re also creatures of habit, so whenever we’re in Bansko we usually just do the same things as we have in previous years. I think if we were new to Bansko, we’d probably just work from the Coliving as that’s really where you have the best working conditions.

The aircon didn’t work when we were there this summer so we found that it was quite hot sometimes because we had an exceptionally hot summer this year, but I’m pretty sure this will be fixed for next summer (2025)! And for the winter season, that’s obviously not relevant 😉

Speaking of the winter season… Coliving Bansko recently announced that they will be running a shuttle to the chair lift free of charge for Coworking Bansko members all winter!

This is a game changer because not only do members not have to get up the hill to the lift with all their gear, but they will also be able to skip the queue as the shuttle can drop you off at the upper station when necessary.

What’s remained the same?

That was a bit about what’s changed in the past year or so in Bansko, but what has remained the same?

Despite lots of changes happening, Bansko is still one of our favourite digital nomad destinations we’ve ever been to in the past 5+ years of nomading.

It still has the same amazing community, you can still play all the board games you want, there are lots of weekly activities like hot springs, the mixer, a group dinner every Tuesday, and almost daily lunches (we’d often go to Chalet Yanitza across the street or order in from Groshe, The Station, or somewhere else with other coworking and coliving members.

A lot of the Coworking Bansko members are recurring from the previous years so the community is pretty much able to run itself at this point. And the cool thing is that it’s not exclusive or cliquey at all! Any new member will quickly become a part of the community and can join lunch and social activities and is just as welcome as the returning member.

Group selfie from the top of Vihren Peak.
Us & Bansko friends at Vihren Peak on July Morning

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Summary of what’s changed in Bansko in 2024

Year after year, Bansko becomes more and more popular as digital nomads and remote workers learned about Bansko. With coliving spaces and communities becoming more and more popular there truly is no better place to come than this small mountain town in the middle of Bulgaria on the foothills of the Pirin Mountains.

If you have other questions about the coliving, Bansko in general, or anything else than please reach out to us on Instagram here or leave a comment below and we’ll get back to you.

We hope you get a chance to visit this awesome mountain town and the nomad community that’s been built here. We absolutely love it and hope you do too.

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