Best Coworking Spaces I've Actually Used (and the Wi-Fi Speeds)
I've spent money at 23 different coworking spaces across 8 countries. Some were incredible. Some were glorified cafes with a printer. One in Medellin advertised "high-speed internet" and delivered 3Mbps. I ran a speed test, showed the manager, and he shrugged.
Here are the ones worth your money, the ones to avoid, and why every single one of them has let me down at least once (which is why I always carry my own backup connection).
My Rating System
I rate coworking spaces on 5 things:
- Speed: Actual download/upload from speedtest.net (not what they advertise)
- Reliability: Does it drop? How often? For how long?
- Community: Are there other nomads? Events? Or is it just a room with desks?
- Coffee: This matters more than it should
- Price: Monthly or daily rate in USD
The Best Ones
Dojo Bali (Canggu, Bali)
Speed: 150-180Mbps down / 60Mbps up Reliability: 9/10 (dropped once in 3 weeks) Community: 10/10 (events, workshops, genuinely interesting people) Coffee: Great (in-house cafe) Price: $200/month or $15/day
The gold standard. Dojo has invested seriously in their internet infrastructure and it shows. I ran client demos, deployed code, and did video calls without a single issue. The community is what keeps people coming back. Weekly events, skill-sharing sessions, and a rooftop that's perfect for post-work beers.
Second Home (Lisbon)
Speed: 100-120Mbps down / 40Mbps up Reliability: 8/10 (occasional slowdowns during peak hours, 11am-2pm) Community: 7/10 (more corporate than nomad, but interesting mix) Coffee: Excellent (proper Portuguese espresso) Price: $250/month
Beautiful space in the Time Out Market building. The design is genuinely inspiring to work in. Internet is fast and mostly reliable. Peak hour slowdowns are real but manageable if you have your own backup.
Hubud (Ubud, Bali)
Speed: 50-80Mbps down / 20Mbps up Reliability: 7/10 (Bali power cuts affect everyone) Community: 9/10 (yoga-meets-tech vibe, very intentional community) Coffee: Great (Ubud has incredible coffee everywhere) Price: $150/month or $12/day
Hubud is more of a lifestyle space than a productivity space. The internet is good but not enterprise-grade. Bali's power infrastructure means occasional brownouts that knock everything out. When that happens, I hotspot from my GOAN eSIM and keep working while everyone else waits.
Enouvo (Da Nang, Vietnam)
Speed: 80-100Mbps down / 30Mbps up Reliability: 8/10 (solid, rarely drops) Community: 6/10 (smaller, quieter, more focused) Coffee: Vietnamese coffee is always excellent Price: $80/month
Best value on this list by far. $80/month for reliable internet, air conditioning (essential in Da Nang), and free Vietnamese coffee. The community is smaller but the people who are there are serious about their work.
Selina (Multiple Locations)
Speed: Varies wildly (40-120Mbps depending on location) Reliability: 6/10 (hit or miss) Community: 8/10 (hostel-meets-coworking model brings interesting people) Coffee: Depends on location Price: $100-180/month depending on city
Selina is everywhere and the quality varies. Their Lisbon and Medellin spaces are solid. Their Canggu space was overcrowded and slow. The hostel integration means it's social but sometimes loud.
The Worst Experiences
I won't name the worst ones specifically, but here are the patterns that signal a bad coworking space:
"High-speed internet" with no posted speeds. If they won't tell you the actual Mbps, it's because the number is embarrassing.
No Ethernet backup. Good coworking spaces have Ethernet ports at desks for when Wi-Fi gets congested. No Ethernet means they expect Wi-Fi to serve 50 people on the same router. It won't.
"Unlimited coffee" that's instant. If the free coffee comes from a jar of Nescafe, they're cutting corners everywhere.
No quiet zones. Open-plan spaces with no phone booths or quiet rooms mean your client call includes background noise from everyone else's client calls.
Why You Still Need Your Own Data
Even at the best coworking spaces, I keep my eSIM active as a backup. Here's why:
Power outages. Bali, Vietnam, and parts of Colombia have power infrastructure that's... developing. When the power goes out, the Wi-Fi goes out. Your phone on cellular data doesn't.
Router failures. I've seen coworking routers crash during peak hours. It takes the staff 15-30 minutes to restart everything. That's 15-30 minutes of missed work.
Peak hour congestion. When 40 nomads are on Zoom simultaneously between 9-11am, even good Wi-Fi struggles. Having your own cellular backup means you can hotspot without competing for bandwidth.
Weekend work from non-coworking locations. I do my side projects from cafes on weekends. Cafe Wi-Fi is unpredictable. My eSIM is not.
In my remote work setup guide, I break down my full connectivity stack: coworking Wi-Fi as primary, phone hotspot as backup. This redundancy has saved me more times than I can count.
Speed Test Protocol
When I arrive at a new coworking space, I run this test before committing:
- Speedtest.net from my laptop on Wi-Fi (download, upload, ping)
- Video call test (start a test Zoom meeting, check quality)
- Upload test (push a small file to GitHub, time it)
- Peak hour re-test (come back between 10am-12pm and test again)
If the peak-hour speed is less than half the off-peak speed, the Wi-Fi can't handle full capacity. Factor in your phone hotspot as backup.
The Bottom Line
Even the best coworking space will let you down eventually. Routers crash, power fails, peak hours congest. The difference between a productive nomad and a stressed one is whether you have a backup.
A GOAN eSIM at $29/month gives you that backup everywhere. Hotspot in 10 seconds. No downtime. No missed calls. Check the coverage map to make sure your destinations are covered.
