This summer, I planned to spend a month staying at Nomad Coliving in Montreal. I loved it so much that I ended up extending for an extra month.

If you aren’t familiar with what a co-living space is, it’s like a cross between a hostel and a coworking space. Co-livings are shared accommodations for remote workers who want to prioritize slow travel. Most co-livings have private bedrooms but shared common spaces like kitchens, living rooms, and coworking areas. As remote work has become more common in the past decade, co-livings has grown in popularity among travelers. I’ve had an ongoing list of co-living spaces around the world that I hope to stay in one day, and Nomad Coliving has always been near the top. When I learned that they had a last-minute opening this summer, I jumped at the chance.

Though I’ve stayed in dozens of hostels with strangers (as well as way more dorm rooms than is normal thanks to summer teaching jobs), I’d never stayed in a co-living space before and wasn’t sure what to expect.

In Montreal, I lived with 15 roommates at a time (21 different roommates total over the two months) from around 10 different countries. I learned more from the experience than I could have imagined.

 

Here are 10 things that co-living teaches you.

1. You become a more effective communicator.

Communicating across language and cultural barriers makes you far more adept at expressing yourself. If someone doesn’t understand what you’re trying to say, you learn to adjust with synonyms or a new metaphor. You learn how much of your colloquial language and humor doesn’t translate across cultures, but you may also be surprised at how much of it does. I wondered if being part of such an international community of different languages and styles of communicating would make ease of communication feel limited. Instead, I feel like my ability to express myself and understand the nuanced communication of others has expanded.

Most people in the house were already bilingual (or more), and many others were taking language classes in the city. It’s a great motivator to learn another language and expand your ability to connect with people further.

 

2. You learn a lot about your own biases and assumptions.

Most of us in the United States are well-aware that the media surrounding us paints the world in wildly inaccurate and stereotypical ways. Despite understanding that on an intellectual level, I’m not often in spaces where I’m interacting with people who are subjects of those stereotypes and from whom I can learn on a personal level.

In Montreal, I met friends whose families had to evacuate their homes because of my country’s military, friends whose ability to travel has been diminished because of my county’s government, and friends whose opinion of the United States has been eradicated by the current administration. It’s a stark reminder every day of how much our media praises exclusivity. If everyone could have opportunities to meet people whose lives look different than theirs, I think half the global conflict in the world would stop.

3. You learn that quick and deep connections are possible after college.

In college, I thought I might be experiencing the only time in my life when I would be living with a community of like-minded people who were building formative and lasting friendships. Then in grad school, I thought surely that would be the last chance. People often talk about how impossible it feels to make friends as an adult, and I think it’s because people get so settled into their regular routines that they lose opportunities to do so. It turns out that that’s a choice. You can be part of communities like this at any age, any time you want. Living with other people who share similar foundational values as yours creates such an easy and immediate connection. We all had different interests, different personalities, different backgrounds and cultures, and our ages spanned 20 years, but we’ve all chosen a way of living that falls outside of prescribed lines, and we all value travel, independence, and open-minded inclusion. It’s a self-selecting group, and by selecting that lifestyle for yourself, you automatically feel like you belong there.

 

4. You learn to accept the kindness of strangers (and to ask for help).

I have lived in many versions of shared housing in my life, but I’ve never experienced a more communal space than this one. It’s an environment where people truly look out for one another—not in a weird, performative way, but because everyone knows they are each other’s community during their stay, and they take that responsibility seriously. When I was out late at night, there was always someone messaging to make sure I’d gotten to my destination. If I was in the kitchen, someone was likely to offer me food.

The co-living space in Montreal spans across two different houses that are a couple miles from one another. One night, I stayed out with a group from the other house too late to bother traveling back to my own house. Within 5 minutes of me declaring that I’d stay and sleep on the couch, one person offered me toothpaste, one person offered me a pillow, one person offered a towel, and suddenly I had an entire nest of thoughtful generosity. This kind of generosity makes it easy for people to ask for help when they need it because they know that that kind of generosity will be returned to them.

 

5. You learn how to manage your time and stay productive.

When I know I have a limited amount of time in a destination, I feel such urgency to cram in as many experiences as possible. This is fine when traveling as a tourist because your vacation time is yours to plan however you’d like. When co-living, you have to balance your wok, errands, hobbies, and regular life tasks with the tourist activities and experiences you want to enjoy. It meant a more crammed schedule than I ever have in my regular life, but it also meant structuring my days around tasks that needed doing.

A lot of people say they are more productive in co-living spaces than they are when living alone because they have to be deliberate about designating times to focus. Some people have the opposite problem in their regular lives and struggle to ever stop working. Co-living gives you really great incentives to think about what type of life balance you want and what feels sustainable for you.

 

6. You learn how to balance independence with your social life.

As a naturally introverted person, I worried that staying in a co-living space would mean a lot of the kind of obligatory social activities that leave me feeling drained and exhausted. It turns out I didn’t need to be worried because from what I experienced, the type of people who are drawn to co-livings are very independent. Most of them have extensive experience solo traveling and are content with their own company. It creates a lovely, low-pressure dynamic where you have constant invitations to join people for activities if you like, but you don’t feel like you’ll be disappointing anyone if you decline.

At the same time, no one thinks it’s weird if you want to go do an activity alone. I was FAR more social in Montreal than I ever am in my normal life because there were so many activities available to me, and I genuinely enjoyed every person I lived with. But because I know myself, I still knew I needed to save time that was just for me. I’d go alone to work in coffee shops in the mornings, and I’d go watch circus shows, go tango dancing, and explore new neighborhoods by myself. Finding the balance between being social and inclusive of everyone and needing alone time isn’t something I typically have to navigate in my regular life (when I’m alone the vast majority of the time), and I admired the way people were automatically accepting of each other’s social battery levels.

 

7. It’s well-worth the cost to take advantage of hobbies/activities unique to where you are.

Co-living in other countries can be quite affordable, especially if you’re from a place like the United States where rent prices are outrageous. But before booking a co-living, I 1000% recommend budgeting for new hobbies and activities specific to where you’ll be staying. You may not think to do this since these may not be expenses you have at home, but you won’t regret it.

For me, this was aerial circus. I take aerial circus classes back home, and part of the reason I wanted to go to Montreal is because it’s the contemporary circus capital of the world. The variety and abundance of aerial classes available to me in Montreal is exponentially higher than what’s available to me back home. I threw myself into it, taking 2 or 3 classes per week to improve as much as I could with the limited time I was there. It cost me a few hundred dollars, but it was well-worth it. It was a personal investment that gave me skills I could take with me when I left.

I also took advantage of the tango scene in Montreal, which is far larger than the tango community where I live. Several of my classmates were taking French lessons. Several people joined the city’s bikeshare program to take advantage of Montreal’s excellent bike lanes. One friend went to handball training multiple times per week because she has hopes of making the Olympic team (yes, for real!) and Montreal has a bigger handball community than where she’s from.

I learned that one of the neatest parts of co-living is how you can take advantage of what the destination can offer you. I have my eye on another co-living in Mexico that I’d like to stay in soon, and I’m factoring in the cost for Spanish language classes when I make my budget.

 

8. You need to pack differently than when you’re budget-backpacking.

I pride myself on being a very efficient packer. It took years of practice to overcome my overpacking compulsion, but I finally succeeded, and I haven’t checked a back in a decade. For all the extended travel I’ve done in the past 6 or 7 years, I’ve carried only a backpack and a day bag. I knew I needed to pack a bit differently for my co-living stay, but I still implemented most of the same packing techniques that I do when backpacking. I operated under the assumption that I’d be washing and re-wearing the same few items of clothes every few days, and I carried only a backpack, day pack, and a foldable duffle bag for anything I acquired while there. And while I wouldn’t say that this was wrong in retrospect, I do think that next time, I’ll probably pack a little more and bring a suitcase.

When I was on my 5-month Europe trip, it was no problem to wear the same 5-6 outfits on repeat, have one dress for just-in-case, and 1 or 2 sets of gym clothes for an occasional hike or sweaty activity. The types of activities I was doing on a daily basis when backpacking didn’t require more options than that, and no one was seeing me long enough to notice or care that I was recycling the same 4 shirts.

When co-living, I was doing a wider range of activities than I was while backpacking. The two pairs of leggings and 3 workout shirts I brought were not enough when I started taking multiple circus classes each week. I brought 3 dresses (which I thought was excessive), but I could have used another one because I was seeing the same people at each tango event I went to. Because my days were so busy, I would have liked to go longer without having to wash all my clothes. Often I was wearing multiple different outfits for different activities in the same day. I brought my tango shoes, which took up a lot of space. And while everyone had limited wardrobes due to living out of suitcases, I know at least a couple of us decided we needed to go shopping after a week or two because we didn’t have quite the right things. Ultimately this wasn’t the right occasion for the most minimal packing.

An addendum to this lesson—if you like shopping and it’s in your budget, planning to shop for some clothes when you arrive is a great idea. But you’ll need to pack in such a way that you’ll have the empty space to fill in your luggage.

 

9. But it’s also a reminder of how little you really need.

That being said, even if you bring a few more outfits than you normally would when budget-backpacking, you’re still bringing very little with you. There’s really no room for vanity in a co-living house, and you are familiar with every one of your roommate’s wardrobes after about a week. It’s so freeing to be in an environment where no one cares about these things. And I never miss having more clothing options to choose from when traveling. Several of us agreed that the only thing we missed were our physical books. (Thank you to my kindle, Libby, and the New Orleans public library system for keeping me well-supplied with things to read no matter where I am in the world.) Travel always reminds me of how few material things I really need.

 

10. People’s perception of you might surprise you.

Everyone who knows me well knows that I’m the very definition of an introvert. I enjoy being around others in doses, but it takes a lot of energy for me, and it takes me a long time to feel comfortable with new people.

To my surprise, I DID feel comfortable with my roommates almost immediately. I think this is because of a combination of a couple things. First, because the older I get, the less self-conscious and shy I feel—things that used to play a larger role in preventing me from feeling comfortable socially. Second, because our shared lifestyle and values created an immediate foundation for connection, as I mentioned above.

As a result of feeling more socially at ease than I ever do in my real life, a strange thing happened—people perceived me to be… outgoing. Dare I say they perceived me to be social! Who is this person you speak of, I kept thinking. I don’t know her. But perhaps feeling comfortable in a social space allowed me to be a more social version of myself than I knew existed. It didn’t turn me into a new person—it allowed me to be a truer version of myself.

Hearing people’s first impressions of you and how their perceptions change over time is always fascinating. I am used to others’ perceptions of me differing quite a bit from the way I see myself. In Montreal, I felt the very rare experience of people seeing me the way I see myself. And that might have been the biggest surprise of all.