Vecino Coliving · Medellin 🗺️
in Colombia 🇨🇴
coliving since 2021
Reviews we don't rate spaces—please interpret other's opinions per your own values
Simply a wonderful Outsite location. The spacious kitchen is a natural social center of the house, so I made many new wonderful connections and friends. Many thanks to community manager Estefania and to the housekeeping team for everything they do. My room was perfect (but I saw other rooms of the same price that were not as nice). The only negative was that often there was often no hot water for a shower, if the house is full you have to shower at off-peak times to have any heat. Anyway, I will return!
I have been looking for a service like Outsite for a while. Hostels just weren’t cutting it anymore while working remote. The Manila house was in an amazing location and Estefanía was great as well! Rooms were cozy and had AC as well. Definitely will be booking again.
Outsite Manila is a modern and comfortable space in a prime location, surrounded by restaurants, cafes, bars, gyms and shops, making daily life convenient while exploring Medellin. The space is clean, with great amenities like AC in the bedrooms, filtered water, and cozy furniture. Two balconies offer outdoor access, and a restaurant directly below adds convenience. The community manager, Estefania, was also very helpful and responsive at all times, and made great efforts to organize fun group events for everyone.
The main drawback during my month-long stay here was the poor internet quality. It was often slow or dropped out completely, especially in my room (101), making video meetings unnecessarily stressful.
Other minor issues included a shower door that didn't close properly, persistent noise from outside, and the housekeeper, though friendly, was sometimes distracting when talking on speakerphone while I worked in the common areas.
Overall, Manila is a newer location with great potential. I'd recommend it for its location and amenities, rating it 10/10 for comfort. However, due to internet issues and noise, my overall rating is 7.5-8/10. If the internet improves, it's an easy 9.5/10.
Best location in Medellin if you want to be close to everything and have all the comforts of home. No strategy needed when leaving the house because you can always walk back before heading to your next destination or activity. It's a touristy area of the city but international comforts directly outside your door including a great gym (Athletic) three minutes walk away, DanceFree dance studio ten minutes walk away, healthy restaurants (Smash Avocaderia), tasty brunch spots (Hijamia) and cafes. You're close to the action but still in a chiller part of El Poblado than many of the crazy party places.
Always a bit of noise given the busy area but the bedrooms are quiet for sleep. Estefania the Community Manager also always was super responsive and curious to our stay, always working to make sure we were comfortable and having fun! Also, a very special shoutout to Doris, mi mejor amiga de casa, who always arrived with a smile, works so hard to keep our rooms tidy and house impeccably clean!
If you speak Spanish and hope to connect more with Colombians and native Spanish speakers, admittedly the neighbourhood of Laureles still has a high quality of living but has a more local vibe. If this is your first visit to Medellin, I still think Manila Outsite will be the most fun at least to start your visit.
I stayed at Vecino in Manila for 10 days. I don't regret staying but there would have to be some changes for me to stay again.
Pros:
An excellent way to meet people. I was traveling solo and am not fluent in Spanish so I wanted to try a coliving to meet other travelers, which I did. I was able to meet some really nice and interesting people and we did a lot of activities together.
The house itself is beautiful. Lots of greenery and the laundry service is a plus!
Cons:
No AC. It is hard to come by in Medellin but the house can get VERY warm, especially in the afternoons. I think it's the way the house is insulated. Some days it was pretty uncomfortable and I think they could use more fans.
Communication:
Right now only one person runs it so communication is slow and all issues/concerns were not immediately resolved. I relied more on other house guests for questions than the owner. It could benefit from a team.
Safety:
There really isn't a strong safety protocol in place and you are reliant on the other guests in the house to ensure they don't give strangers access. This was a bit unsettling so I always left my room locked and my valuable items in my room locked in my suitcase. I experienced no issues while there, but had heard of some instances where people left doors open, etc. allowing for safety violations.
Room 1 and 2 - People in rooms 1 and 2 experienced issues with noise and ventilation so I would strongly consider that before booking.
Overall it's a nice house and the neighborhood was great and walkable, but I think for the price there are some nicer co-livings where you get a bit more value for what you pay.
I stayed in Vecino Coliving campus El Tesoro. I’m 30 years old, from Mexico. I work online teaching Spanish.
Staying here was an unforgettable experience, the people who works here, the community, the calm you feel in this place is amazing.
The views are just perfect, it’s far from all the noise of the city which is something difficult to find in Medellin.
I highly recommend you to stay here and make good friends.
TL;DR: If you are considering staying in rooms 1 or 2 (the cheapest ones), you might want to read this review first to know what you'll find. Here it goes a full review.
Remote Work: The place, in general, was okay for working remotely. The chairs are very comfortable, and there is a beautiful common space to work in. Each room has its own desk for private meetings. However, the internet was not that good, though it depends on the nature of your work. Nonetheless, the place is surrounded by many cafes, so the internet problem was not that bad for me.
Cleaning: The cleaning was very good, both in the common spaces (kitchen, office, and dining room) and the private bathrooms.
Spaces: The kitchen was not a pleasant place to cook. They lacked some basic utensils, and some of them were in very bad condition. If you enjoy cooking, you won't like this kitchen. However, if you prefer ordering delivery, you'll be fine.
Community: The house seemed to have no community rules, and the administrator did not live on-site, so the well-being of the community relied solely on the goodwill of the people living there. There was a WhatsApp group tho, so you could coordinate things there.
Now, why did I give my review a 2 out of 5? It's because my experience in room 2 was bad, mainly due to two reasons: noise (both from outside and inside) and ventilation.
Outer Noise: The place is very close to a street filled with restaurants, so hearing external noise is very common if you are near the street, which was the case with Room 2.
Inner Noise and Ventilation: Room 2 does not have a window facing the outside; instead, it faces a corridor inside the building. As a result, the room can become very humid and hot if you keep the door closed for more than 2 hours. Also, since there were no rules in place, people could order food delivery at 2 am and make noise until late at night, and you could hear everything from your room, even with the door closed (Room 2 is located very close to the main door, and you can hear what happens in the living room).
At the beginning, I tried to hold on until the end of the month, but going into summer sleeping became increasingly difficult, even with earplugs, because if I closed the door, the room would become hot, and if I opened the door, I could hear all the inner and outer noise at any time. When I discussed this issue with the administrator, they responded well and offered me some solutions. However, none of them worked for me due to various reasons that I explained to the administrator. In the end, I had to leave earlier than planned because I had a lot of trouble sleeping, and it was negatively affecting my daily life. I would have appreciated a refund since the problem was with the room itself, but it didn't happen. If I had to propose a solution, I would suggest that Room 2 shouldn't be used as a room. The same goes for Room 1. Both of these rooms are too exposed to noise from both outside and inside, unlike the other rooms that are located further away from the street and common areas. Perhaps if I had stayed in one of the other rooms, my experience would have been different, and I would have given a rating of 3 or 4 stars.
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