Co-Living in Porto 2022

First of all: If anyone tells you “Porto in autumn is that great”, they are probably correct.

I stayed in Porto (Portugal) for 2 months in October and November 2022.

8 weeks, with round about 6 weeks of continuous rain.

Don’t misunderstand me. I dig the city. In the first couple of days the weather was stable and awesome and as expected. And so a lot of exploring was done.

It’s not as big as Lisbon and also not so crowded. It has a beautiful old town, a nice river coastline, a couple of awesome beaches, and a lot of stuff more in the surrounding region.

Of course, there is a growing number of tourists in the area. But I had the feeling they are “just” concentrated in 3 or 4 hot spots (old town, the Caia river coastline and monastery, the city beach, and around the area of Jardins do Palácio de Cristal).

If you avoid this area, you mostly get in touch with local residents. Which I prefer.

But for most of the time it just rained. And I do not talk of the small drain you got in Lisbon when the weather report says “rain all day”.

No. It was a creative mix of world ending storm, heavy rain, and ongoing wet clothes.

I think everyone who also stayed in our little co-living space at Outsite, who arrived here in the rain, stayed for a couple of days or even a week during this rainfall period, and left afterward, just had a terrible experience of the city.

So, as I had this great “idea” to stay for 2 months to get to know this place, I was pretty happy about the local outsite.co co-living space.

It is located in a nice, quiet residential area, contains of a dozen small apartments and a large outdoor area.

More or less perfect for a workaholic like me.

But also very bad for an introvert workaholic as a see myself.

Because there is one essential part missing: a common place where more or less everyone is “forced” to get to. Which is most of the tome a kitchen.

Even as there exists a common area with working desks and a chill-out area. Not many of us really used it. The reason for this is simple: the awesome apartments are all self-sufficient.

It was fine as long as the weather was stable. Until it was “warmish” and sunny, most of us came out of our holes and worked in the common area.

But thanks to the ongoing downfall, it was easier for most of us to just keep in the apartments.

Sometimes it felt like living in the covid lockdown again: you know you have neighbours, but you rarely see them.