Cafés Are My Office: Finding a Good Place to Work in a New City

Where did you work today?

For most people, the answer is simple. An office. Or home.

For me, it’s usually a café.

Working from home all the time kills my motivation. I need change. No office means no reason to go out, so I create one. For me a café isn’t a coffee. It’s a kind of office.

And like any office, some are good and some aren’t.

The first country where I worked from cafés for long stretches was Ukraine. Back then, some cafés found it odd to see someone working on a laptop. Today some even set aside spaces just for people working.

Still, I don’t like going to the same place every day. I change cafés often.

What makes a good work café

Noise

Noise doesn’t really bother me. I’m ready for any kind of loud room: I have a headset with a mic and noise-cancelling gear.

A seat you can stay in

A beautiful café with hard stools is a place to drink coffee, not to work. I look for a comfortable seat first. Two hours on a bad chair, and your back reminds you by evening. What I look for is the balance between the seat and the table. I’ll be sitting there for hours, after all.

A menu that isn’t bad

And of course, what I eat and drink there can’t be too bad either.

Light

I don’t like tucked-away corners. If I can, I pick places with good light and a bit of open view.

Power and internet

Depending on sockets and Wi-Fi is very limiting. So I use a laptop with good battery life. On top of that, I carry a 24,000 mAh power bank just in case, and it can charge my laptop. That gives me a lot of freedom in where I sit.

For Wi-Fi, I usually get a SIM card with plenty of data and good coverage. In some cafés the signal is weak, and I’d rather not sit there.

Very low tables can be uncomfortable, but it’s not a big deal. Without a table, I can even work in a comfortable armchair with the laptop on my knees.

Finding one in a new city

I keep trying new cafés. Part of every first week goes into it; I wrote about that in my post on the first week in a new country.

Trying a few wrong ones before the right one is part of the deal.

I check map reviews and ask locals. But most of them I spot while walking around to get to know the neighbourhood.

Staying for hours without overstaying

A café isn’t a coworking space. It’s someone’s business, and a table you sit at for three hours is a table that doesn’t turn over.

So there are rules. Mostly unwritten ones.

In very small places, taking a table all day feels like it hurts the café. So if it gets busy, I leave. Or I try to pick bigger, quieter places in the first place.

What I do now

I keep trying new ones. Even when I’ve found a good café, I keep looking. Change is part of why I’m there in the first place.

I choose roomy, quiet places with comfortable seats. Everything else comes second.

My “office” has its own line. In Nomad Budget, café spending has its own category. That way it doesn’t disappear into eating out, and I can see what my office actually costs.

Somewhere in every new city, there’s a quiet table with a comfortable seat. Finding it is part of arriving.

I wish you a quiet corner and a good coffee, wherever you land next.