Soooo normally I love boutique colivings (read all the other reviews on this site) and want to support them. Unfortunately, I can’t wholeheartedly endorse Palma Coliving in Barcelona (I haven’t stayed at any of their other properties, so I can’t speak to those). If you decide you want to stay there, give them my code, DURACAbyPalma, in your interview for 100 EUR off your stay. Next time I go to Barcelona, I plan to check out Karisma. Read my full digital nomad guide to Barcelona here.
You can read more about what I look for in a coliving space here & find my full list of recommendations (and discounts!) here.
Ok, let’s get into it.
Price. I paid $2024.67 for 31 nights = $65.31/night
Value. ⭐️⭐️⭐️(3/5)
Bedroom. I booked a private bedroom with a shared bathroom (they also have rooms with private bathrooms, and a separate Casita if you want more privacy – except I think it lacked a kitchen, wifi, and a desk?! So not exactly an upgrade). It’s difficult to tell from the booking info provided what exactly all the different room options look like/have, so if you book, I’d advise you to be very thorough about which room you want. I stayed in Gava and really liked it – a lot of natural light, a desk, and a big closet. Usually when I’ve booked a place with a shared bathroom, it hasn’t been a problem. In this case, I found myself waiting a few times. There’s also only a fan in the room (they do have rooms with AC); and it would have been great if they swapped out the comforter for a sheet. Overall, happy with the room, but I think it was a bit overpriced. Many of the colivers who were at Palma when I was there had to move rooms, sometimes multiple times, usually because Palma had messed up their booking. Sometimes people arrived to a dirty room or to a room that still had someone else staying there. I hope they improve their booking, organization, and overall communication situation soon. Palma was not fully booked (and it was high season), so folks should not have had to move around.
Work spaces. Palma has a great coworking space, complete with ergonomic chairs. There aren’t enough desks for if the colive was full, but we didn’t have a problem. There also aren’t any call booths, but I was able to do calls in my room. The biggest issue when I was there was that the WiFi didn’t work, and Palma didn’t provide any solutions. A Movistar cable was cut (the service provider), and they couldn’t get anyone to fix it for a month. I heard about the issue before I arrived from previous colivers (not from Palma), and immediately contacted Palma to ask for a speedtest screenshot. They didn’t provide one, and just said everything was “fine.” Narrator: it was not fine. When I was added to the group chat, I asked for a speedtest, and saw there was a .5 mbps upload speed. I immediately contacted Palma to ask for solutions. They didn’t provide any solutions for high-speed internet. They kept saying it was going to get fixed “tomorrow” and in the meantime, we could use the pocket wifi (that also didn’t work). I asked for access to a coworking space or a MiFi device, and was ignored. I get that the issue was outside their control, but WiFi is literally the #1 thing we need as digital nomads. It didn’t feel like they took it seriously at all. They didn’t proactively communicate about it or provide any real solutions. And they didn’t seem to care about how this was impacting us or our work. The word most of us came to use was “gaslighting,” because Palma kept acting like everything was fine. I spoke up quite a lot, and eventually Palma refunded me my out-of-pocket costs for working at cafes during the days we didn’t have internet. I appreciated that gesture.
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Common areas. There are lots of great communal spaces at Palma Barcelona, and it’s well set up for coliving. There’s a pool, a sauna (never had that at a coliving before!), a nice outdoor patio with a table to work from, the indoor cowork, a comfy living room with a projector for watching movies, a dining room, and two kitchens. There’s also a huge garden and two grills. So plenty of beautiful communal spaces to enjoy! The house really is a stunner.
Breakfast/coffee/kitchen. There’s free coffee, and also fresh fruit delivered once a week (though no one told us for ages, so most weeks it rotted out front before anyone brought it in). The kitchens are great, and each room has a designated fridge space. The kitchens have almost everything you could need (though we were constantly running out of glasses, and the house wasn’t full). The house also needs better check in/ check out welcoming/ onboarding/ kitchen organizing. There was stuff in the communal fridge that is probably from the Neolithic era. When most people arrive, the previous coliver hasn’t cleared out their groceries. Usually a coliving will have a designated staff person to help monitor the fridge and make sure it stays tidy, and old food is eaten or thrown away. They made this a communal responsibility, but since colivers are constantly coming & going, no one knows what belongs to who and what should be thrown away. There were also some things that didn’t make sense – they had us separate the trash into organics, paper, plastic, etc – but then it was all dumped into the same dumpster.
Amenities. Free coffee, fresh fruit, potable water, coworking space, games, projector, fully furnished kitchen, a tapas night every few weeks where the community manager cooks. There were more amenities listed on the webpage that have since been removed because they were not being offered.
Location. I really enjoyed the location. It was very close to Park Guell, up on a hill (read: you will get a glute workout 🍑), so it was cooler, greener, and away from the hustle and bustle of the city which was nice. There’s a great view from the garden. At the same time, it’s just a 10 minute walk to the metro or a 20/30 minute walk to Gracia. There’s a grocery store close by, which helps alot, and I found myself cooking more than usual. Normally I’d prefer to be closer to restaurants, but I didn’t mind the location. The public transportation in Barcelona is great, and this encouraged me to walk and cook more. And it was nice being in a peaceful place surrounded by nature AND have the vibrant city close by.
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Cleanliness & room cleaning. A once-a-week cleaning is included in your stay – though several guests had issues with their room not being clean when they arrived or not being cleaned once a week.
Staff & Leadership. I was disappointed with the lack of organization, communication, and tone of Palma’s leadership. There were a lot of issues with the basic elements of in coliving (internet, reservations, cleanliness). It seemed as though the Palma team did not have good systems in place and did not communicate well with each other. They need a CRM and a better booking system.
As a digital nomad, there’s a lot I’ll forgive – I love colivings and I want to see them thrive. But when and how Palma communicated (or didn’t) was really disappointing. If I was them, I would have let guests know in advance about the WiFi issue, given them the opportunity to get a refund/book elsewhere, offered a real solution (coworking pass or MiFi device), and communicated daily updates without colivers having to ask. Instead, we were told the lack of WiFi “wasn’t a problem” and kept being told it would be fixed “tomorrow,” with no real solutions provided. Whenever we raised issues, Palma took ages to get back to us, didn’t seem to read our messages before responding and forgot basic details of people’s bookings. But honestly, I could have forgiven all of this if they had taken a nicer tone. Most founders create colives because they love coliving and nomading. At Palma, it felt as though they didn’t care about their guest experience and only cared about making money. At such a high price point, I would have expected good customer service. Instead, it felt like we were being gaslit and regularly asked not to put questions/issues/requests in the group chat.
The welcome and onboarding experience can be much better, too. I kept finding out new things about the house/community because they hadn’t been communicated. I had also emailed with Palma about doing an event for their community before I arrived – we literally went back and forth over a dozen times and had a set date, they had the description, everything. When I checked back to see how many people had registered, it seemed like they had completely forgotten about it.
There were also a lot of things promised on the website that didn’t exist or weren’t done, many of which Palma removed after some of the colivers brought it up.
Overall for me, Palma was a case of overpromise, underdeliver.
Community management. I’ve only stayed at a few other colives where there was no staff member of volunteer present/living on the property. The benefit of having a local “happiness officer” as Palma does is that they can tell you the cool/fun things happening in the city you just landed in and can help you get to know the city. We had a very sweet community manager, but she didn’t do that. She sat us down every Monday for a very awkward community meeting where she asked us what we wanted to do that week. Cultivating community is an art, and it’s not one that Palma is very good at. There were a lot of great colivers at Palma, and we were perfectly capable of planning our own activities. It didn’t feel as though the happiness officer added much value. They hosted a bi-weekly ‘tapas night’ where the happiness officer would get groceries and put out a tapas spread for everyone. It was nice, but got old – the same frozen croquetas, the same grocery store tortilla. The happiness officer also taught yoga 3x per week, though it was often at times that were difficult for colivers to attend. The happiness officer was in a difficult position liaising between Palma leadership and the colivers, but often took a defensive tone and didn’t make the colivers feel heard. Overall, I didn’t feel like the happiness officer added much value.
Palma also hosted a weekly ‘nomad event’ that they kept trying to get us to go to. We stopped by once and no one was there. They have a WhatsApp group chat that includes nomads in the community that’s pretty dead.
Members. Lovely! I met a lot of really great people at Palma! It was high season when I was there and Palma wasn’t fully booked. I’ve since met lots of people who’ve stayed at Palma and and who echoed what’s expressed here.
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Community. ⭐️⭐️⭐️(3/5)
Overall feel. Palma doesn’t do much to cultivate or facilitate community, but I met great people here. It’s a beautiful house, and you can really enjoy the vista of the city, the pool, the sauna, and the cowork.
You can find my full digital nomad guide to Barcelona here. Next time I come to Barcelona, I will probably check out Karisma.
Have you stayed at Palma in Barcelona or somewhere else? Would love to hear what your experience was like. Hope it was better than mine! Tell me your thoughts on Instagram @t.prad!
If you decide you want to stay at Palma, give them my code, DURACAbyPalma, in your interview for 100 EUR off your stay.
