I’ve worked remotely all over the world: Tbilisi in Georgia is the most welcoming place I’ve tried

25.12.2024 - 04:07 / euronews.com

Before I could even place it on a map, I had heard glowing reports of life in Tbilisi.

I heard that the Georgian capital was affordable. The food was incredible and hospitality even more so. Best of all, most nationalities did not need a visa to enter the country - and they could stay for up to a year at a time, with no limit to the number of re-entries.

What more could a digital nomad need? Well, besides affordable WiFi and workspaces.

Earlier this year, my wife and I uprooted our lives in Bangkok, where we had lived for much of the past 13 years, and moved to Tbilisi. I quickly discovered that it was unlike any other digital nomad destination I had ever visited.

While cities across Europe and Asia were seeking to stem the flow of digital nomads, Tbilisi has seemed to embrace them. 

The traits that make digital nomad hotspots so attractive often end up being their undoing. Just look at Lisbon.

The promise of year-round sun, cheap and delicious food and low rent lured as many as 16,000 relatively high-earning digital nomads to the Portuguese capital.

But when the cost of living rose and locals got priced out of their city,backlash against the liberal policies that attracted remote workers to Lisbon grew.

This summer, Barcelona famously bristled against its huge numbers of tourists and digital nomads. Cafés in Paris and Berlin havebegun to ban laptops.

For the most part, Tbilisi has not suffered the same fate as these European cities. In rankings of the world’s top spots for digital nomads, Tbilisi continues to appear in the top 15 - if not the top ten. One of the reasons might be its make-up.

It doesn’t take long to realise that Tbilisi is a young city, even if it has a history that stretches back to the fifth century.

In any neighbourhood I look at, from the cobblestoned streets of Sololaki to rapidly developing Vera, cafés, restaurants and wine bars have filled out the old houses and hidden gardens.

Remote workers regularly prop up cafés along the central avenue, Rustaveli. Others tap away at community hubs such as the Stamba Hotel, Fabrika and Orbeliani Bazaar.

Weekly group meet-ups range from trips to the wine-growing region to nights out at the theatre and sunset hikes to Mtatsminda, a hilltop park overlooking the city.

And the nightlife is a level beyond lively - Tbilisi’s eclectic clubs and carefree, party-through-dawn ethos have earned it comparisons to Berlin.                                             

This youthful energy goes both ways. Digital nomads fall for Tbilisi’s charms, while Georgians seem to value their growing exposure to international communities. In fact, 80 per cent of the population now sees the country’s future aspart of Europe.

If the infrastructure and communities don’t set Tbilisi