In January this year, a new island entered the coliving conversation with the opening of its first permanent coliving space in San Sebastian, its port and capital.
Famous Cactus Coliving from Tenerife received a younger sibling in its smaller neighbor La Gomera.
When Maria, Cactus Coliving’s owner invited us to check out the new space, we were very excited to see 2 things we already knew well from completely different perspectives –
- La Gomera (the island we visited 2 years ago collaborating with a pop-up coliving organized by Awid Aman)
- Cactus Coliving – one of the first colivings we visited when we started our coliving journey, back in 2022.
After more than 2 weeks in Cactus La Gomera – we are leaving full of impressions and definitely with another perspective.
Discover how it went!
Cactus’s new Location: San Sebastián de La Gomera
First of all, we want to say that we completely understand why Maria decided to open her second location here.
With its charming city and port, and amazing volcanic beaches just a 5-minute walk from the house, it’s an ideal spot. It’s also convenient to reach, as it’s less than a 1-hour ferry ride from Tenerife South.
While La Gomera offers a nice opportunity for everyone to relax and slow down, which is a common motivation for people choosing this island, we were pleasantly surprised by San Sebastian.
Despite its small size, it’s surprisingly full of life!
Of course, the community we met through Cactus also made that life a bit brighter.
But first, let’s tell you more about the coliving.
The Cactus House
History
The new Cactus house is a former hostel created in a building of a former school. The photos cannot really capture its charm and how fun and whimsical all the corners of the house are.
While it’s a bit sad that its charm cannot be fully seen through videos or photographs, it also gives you a special gift when you arrive, as this space becomes a treasure only those who share it truly see it.
There are traces of the house’s “past lives” all over the place – the practicality and organization of a hostel, and a shelter-like ambiance of a school.
We believe all places and buildings carry their history forever, and we’d like to think that the energy that has been created throughout the years of this building’s existence is still around, helping the coliving blossom in its purpose.
A school left behind the energy of knowledge, deep connections, community, and learning about the world, and the hostel left its own energy full of adventure, exploration, and courage that follows the travelers. If you think about it – mixed together, those two energies are exactly what makes a coliving. 🙂
And maybe this is one of the reasons why this house makes so much sense.
Space
As we said, it’s hard to imagine this interesting building, and we’ll leave that magic to your imagination – at least until you arrive and see for yourself, but what we can share is the functionality aspect of the space.
The one-story house is quite spacious and actually one of the largest coliving spaces we’ve been to. With 14 rooms in total, including both private and shared ones, it can accommodate more than 25 people at its full capacity.
Because of its corners, hallways, and different rooms, the coliving space offers a good balance of private and common areas with most of the common areas being located on the ground floor, including the coworking space, kitchen, living room, and the garden, so the top floor is relatively isolated from daily activities.
Top floor and private areas
This is not the first coliving we’ve been to that has this setup of a top floor being secluded from the common areas, but it has only confirmed once again that it is definitely one of the setups we like the most.
In a place such as a coliving, designed for mid to long stays, having an isolated “bedroom” area is extremely valuable when living with a group as you can pick your level of social engagement by choosing one location over another.
In Cactus La Gomera, the upper floor does not only offer privacy and seclusion from the common areas, but the old school’s long and narrow hallways that take up the most space on the top floor don’t really encourage long chit-chats in it, which further creates the balance of privacy and social life and amplifies the purpose of common areas on the ground floor.
Furthermore, the long hallway is blessed with windows all along the yard side, which allows an easy way to peek out and check if there are people outside and join if you feel like it.
Additionally, the house is equipped with numerous bathrooms, making it practically impossible to experience overcrowding. Most of them are located all the way down the hallway on the top floor, leaving a lot of privacy for people to use them.
On the top floor, you will also find the washer and the drying balcony, as well as one tiny coworking section and the Skype room. But let’s talk about the working areas in the next part.
Working in Cactus
Needless to say, coworking and working areas are a crucial part of any coliving space. This is especially true for coliving spaces that are located in rural areas or cities that are not very digital nomad-friendly.
When the town or a city has a bunch of cafes to work from or even some external coworking spaces, the colivings can leverage those spaces and create a relationship between them and their colivers, giving colivers places to work from undisturbed outside the house.
But, if the location does not really have suitable working spaces around, then a coliving needs to provide this space.
Luckily, this is not Maria’s first coliving space, and she certainly spent a lot of thought and care on the coworking areas both in her Tenerife place and in this one in La Gomera.
Cactus Tenerife definitely has 2 of the best coworking spaces integrated in a coliving that we have seen (yes, they have 2 very spacious coworking spaces inside the house), but Cactus La Gomera is also not far behind.
The working and coworking spots
Although smaller than the Tenerife one, the main coworking space in Cactus La Gomera easily accommodates 10-12 people and also offers the use of external monitors for an additional fee (2€/day).
The space is also conveniently located on the ground floor in a garden room, so it allows an easy switch from working inside to working outside and vice-versa.
There is also an additional coworking desk on the top floor for those who are looking for more privacy, and if that is not private enough for you, you can always work from your bedroom since each room is equipped with an ensuite desk, or book a Skype room for your calls and meetings.
Besides the main coworking area, of course, you will find many work-friendly spots around the house. And of course, with the Canarian weather, the yard is reasonably one of the favorite spots for everything – working as well.
There are 3 different tables (smaller or bigger, in the shade, or the sun), a hammock, and 8 lazy bags that people can choose to work from (which they typically do).
The beloved garden (yard)
The yard is definitely the heart of Cactus La Gomera. It is shaded by two large mango trees, providing perfect cover during hot hours.
With many different corners, it’s where most people spend their days, whether working in one of the spots or simply enjoying the sun, relaxing in the hammock, or reading a book in the bean bag.
This is also the place where Cactus hosts family dinners.
When the time came, every Wednesday, we would put the tables together at the center of the garden, decorate, bring out the wine, and turn on the tiny yellow lamps to make an ambiance. Then we would sit all together to have dinner, enjoying the lovely La Gomerian nights.
Of course, some nights, it would be windy, but the garden is so much loved, that people would just put on their sweatshirts and still sit around and chit-chat.
Like the one in Tenerife, this Cactus also has a ping-pong table that’s always shaded, providing a great mid-work activity to boost your energy a bit. 🙂
Cactus La Gomera Team
The Cactus team in La Gomera is a special one. As Maria is on a different island, her visits cannot be as usual as in Cactus Tenerife. But that is not a problem, since, like in Cactus Tenerife, there is a great team who takes care of the house and the community.
In this coliving, you will meet Rebeca – the community manager of Cactus La Gomera, and her team of 3 volunteers who are there to take care of the day-to-day.
But – who is Rebeca?
Let’s meet her. 🙂
Local Host: Rebeca
Rebeca is originally from Galicia, but in the eyes of locals, she has already proven herself as one of their own. After years of living in La Gomera, Rebeca definitely found a part of her soul there. She is not only living a life there but sharing her passion for the island with those who come to visit. Working as a tour guide for the island, she’s the best person to tell you all its secrets.
We actually met Rebeca 2 years ago during our last visit to the island and yes – she was our tour guide. Her passion, dedication, and positive energy shine and infect those around her.
So when we found out that Maria chose her to be the host of her new La Gomera experience, it absolutely made sense to us.
Even though she doesn’t live in the new Cactus house, she is there for all the important activities and is always ready to share new pieces of La Gomera’s culture and history with anyone whom she crosses paths with.
We learned so much from her. For example, on the first day of our stay, we had the opportunity to learn how to make traditional La Gomerian soup, as well as the most popular Canarian dishes, mojo rojo and mojo verde in a workshop that she led.
We also learned a lot about the Laurel woods in La Gomera, the story of Gara and Jonay, the reason why Germans love this island so much, and the peculiar whistling language of La Gomerians.
With all that said, with the energy she has, the passion for this island, and the knowledge she loves to share, Rebeca really seems like the perfect fit for a first coliving space in San Sebastian de La Gomera.
Volunteers
Other than Rebeca, you will always find 2 to 3 volunteers who are living in the Cactus house, taking care of the space, and making sure your stay is good.
During our time there, we met some amazing girls who were working as volunteers at the time.
We met Maryam – a volunteer who has been with Cactus La Gomera from the start. She was there to witness all the changes and challenges of opening a coliving space and grew to be a very big part of it.
We met Sara – an ambitious Italian girl with a passion for sustainability and nature conservation, with whom we shared a lot of great talks and will definitely stay in touch.
And we met Marissa – a quirky adventurous girl full of soul who brings the party with her wherever she goes. Even though she came a bit after us and has only been in Cactus for a few weeks, she will definitely grow into the heart of the community very soon.
Activities
As with every coliving, Cactus La Gomera is slowly building its signature activities but that will take some time.
Of course, recurring weekly activities are always there, such as daily yoga (usually organized by Cactus volunteers), family dinners, and Monday pancakes, and there is a lot of space for organic activities hand-picked by current colivers.
During our stay, in addition to regular activities, some things we had the opportunity to experience were drone flying lessons organized by one of the colivers, Michael, the mojo workshop that we already mentioned, and a few movie nights and family dinners outside the house that were fan favorites.
Of course, we also lead our own skillshare on SEO. 🙂
We cannot wait to see in which direction Cactus La Gomera will develop and what unique activities will become its signature ones.
The community we found in Cactus La Gomera
Lastly, during our stay, we had the opportunity to meet some amazing people. Despite April being a slower season in La Gomera, there were around 8-12 people (including volunteers) at the house.
The community comprised digital nomads, long-term travelers, La Gomera enthusiasts (mostly Germans – as expected 😀), and individuals who had already experienced the original Cactus location in Tenerife South and wanted to check out the new space.
Most people we met stayed between 2 weeks and one month, while volunteers tended to stay for up to 3 months. Many of them were working remotely, but all were passionate about exploring new places and sharing a bit of time in their lives with other like-minded individuals. 🙂
We encourage you to check out the new Cactus place yourself. There is something beautiful about visiting a young coliving space as there is always space to leave your mark behind. We bet you will fall in love with the tranquility of the island and find a bit more time to get to know yourself in the slow-paced environment.
We appreciate your support!
Thank you for reading our content and following our journey! We are working towards becoming full-time content creators and being able to share stories with you even more frequently. If you’d like to support us to be one step closer to that goal, you can do it through Ko-Fi! 👇🏽
Secure yourself the best coliving experience
- italki – Why not learn some Spanish before your trip and make your coliving even better? italki is the perfect platform for that, where more than 3500 native speakers are waiting to help you with your Spanish.
