A month or so ago, I just decided to move to Chiang Mai at least, for a bit. I wanted to meet people, network and be inspired from others. For the fact that Chiang Mai is more of a digital nomad hub, I picked it for that very reason. There are a dime a dozen of cafes, coworking spaces seems like but there are so few of coliving spaces. Compared a few places and I thought Alt was a good looking one so I went for it.
There are 2 areas which are the colivng and the coworking attached to each other so it's super duper easy to wake up and go to work almost just right away if you ever want to.
Quite a few types of rooms to choose from. From private to smaller room with shared bathrooms. I went with the hybrid so I have a small room with my own bathroom but the bed is convertible. Flip to have a bed, the flip back to have a gigantic working desk. Quite handy and I liked it.
Common areas are also more than enough. Netflix room on almost every floor, a secret garden with a few table and a barbeque grill which I
have never seen used, an equipped kitchen and a rooftop with some yoga mats and minimum workout materials.
In term of social, as mentioned, it's kinda hard at first (I think it also depends on a person... I think I could be quite shy at first so, that's why it
takes time for me) but once you get into that stage where you know enough people and confident & comfortable enough, now it's easy. It also
helps with a few activities that the co-living hold like ice bath a few times a week, communal lunch, yoga once a week, and dance class once a
week, etc. Every two weeks, there's also a free pizza night for all the residents so I think that's such a good event for ice breaking.
Besides those activities held by the co-working, we also hold some events ourselves quite often like going for food together, clubbing during
the weekends, road trips, waterfalls, mountain ride and else.
but..
Having this many activities and living among the people you just got to know, is it actually a good thing..? I mean, for those who know how to
focus and be disciplined enough, would be real good. For me, I have the fomo and want to join all things and go everywhere with all the
people, I really became too distracted.
At some point, I just almost forgot what's the main purpose of me coming here and pay extra just to be in the environment like this.
I loved it, truly but I decided to take a step back (or forward, depends on which angle you're looking at it). I now still hang out with people I got
to know from the co-working and co-living but because I'm not around them all the time, I can focus more on what I should be focus on.
Iove the work-social balance so far.