A Digital Nomad’s Honest Review of Selina Coliving / Coworking

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Selina is a chain of accommodations around the world that advertises itself as being perfect for digital nomads – but does it really meet our unique criteria?

What is Selina’s pitch?

Selina’s buildings are similar to hostels and the cheapest of us can opt into a shared room with bunk beds, but they also offer private rooms. If you are a member of their Coliving Program you can hop around from location to location, either staying for extended durations not typically allowed at other hostels or switching locations up to 3 times per month.

Each Selina has a dedicated coworking space with desks and solid wifi so that nomads can be reliably on-grid when needed, and not relegated to their rooms in order to hide away to work. Researching suitable places to live and work in our frequently changing locales is one of the most mentally taxing parts of being a nomad, but if you just bounce from Selina location to Selina location, you have some certainty.

Selina is also a place where you can expect to meet other digital nomads and make friends with likeminded travelers who “get it.” Transients who miss having a community might be able to find one at Selina.

The pitch is brilliant. The concept behind Selina really fills a void in the market and should solve a lot of problems that I have as a digital nomad.

Why did it take me so long to try Selina? 

I never booked at Selina in the past because it’s more expensive than other hostels and often more expensive than private AirBnBs, too, especially since AirBnB offers extended stay discounts when you book a month or longer. 

I also used to have a remote job that involved taking constant customer phone calls and sometimes doing video conferences, which really limited my ability to work in public places (because I am considerate and don’t want to annoy people). I do mean constant phone calls, and sometimes very long ones. For four years I chose private accommodations only. However, this year I am focusing on my writing and I do not have to take phone or video calls anymore; I can just work on my laptop. I also don’t have to clock in from 9am-5pm MT, which can translate to strange hours when traveling. This change in my work situation really opened up a whole new world to me. Now I can save money by booking shared budget accommodations like hostels, I can write from libraries and coffee shops, and I can try out some of these cool coliving/coworking spots! Maybe I can finally crawl out of my cave and try interacting with other nomads a bit – the type who understand “the life,” the need for quiet time and a regular routine on the road.

This spring the Selina in Brighton, UK was having a sale, so I pulled the trigger and booked a stay for a little over two weeks. I wanted to base myself in Brighton so I could take day trips to hike in South Downs National Park, and I didn’t want to use up any Schengen Zone visa days.

This is an honest review of the pros and cons of staying at a Selina Coliving/Coworking space as a digital nomad. Keep in mind that every one of the 100+ worldwide locations is likely very different from the next; I have only stayed at the Brighton, England location. 

Cons: Selina Brighton is not designed for long-term living

The term “coliving” elicits the idea of communal living with roommates and/or neighbors who share the building as if it were an apartment complex or condo, and also leads one to believe Selina must be a space that’s designed and equipped for long-term stays. It is not.

No kitchen or food storage

Since I live on the road, I prefer to buy groceries and cook my own meals when possible to save money and keep healthy. I have to keep some normalcy in my routine and not treat it like a vacation. I cannot eat out for every single meal or I will go broke. Unfortunately, the Selina in Brighton does not have a communal kitchen or pantry where I can prepare meals or store food, and there are no mini fridges or microwaves in the bedrooms either. They also have a rule that you can’t eat in the rooms.

None of this was disclosed on their website or app, and in fact if you look at their AirBnB and TripAdvisor listings, both of those sites list a kitchen or kitchenette as included amenities. I guess I could have specifically emailed before booking to ask if they have a kitchen, but who would think it necessary? Every hostel I’ve ever stayed at had some kind of food solution, including the two hostels I was employed by.

You can ask a staff member to store food for you in the fridge behind the coffee bar in the coworking space on the ground floor. This is where the staff mainly stores milk for guests’ coffee orders and ingredients for paid breakfasts. You can eat in the coworking space. However, every time you want to access your food, you have to find and bother a staff member so they can unlock and retrieve it for you. All of the eating utensils are also stored behind the bar, so even if you buy something ready-made from the grocery store and walk directly back to Selina to eat it asap and don’t need storage, you still have to ask staff for a spoon or fork. Most of the staff members I dealt with were extremely accommodating and didn’t make me feel like I was annoying them, but having worked at hostels and in customer service positions before myself, I abhor the idea of being so needy and constantly asking the staff for help. Every time I showed my face to them again I did it with shame.

I am not sure if this is an effort to make guests pay extra for the convenience of the breakfast add-on, which is £8 per day. If you don’t think you’ll eat breakfast in-house every single day of your stay, you can instead buy individual meals or coffees a la carte off the breakfast menu. I did buy coffee from the breakfast bar a few times even though Selina offers free coffee at reception, because the free coffee was cold after 8:30am and I had no microwave to reheat it.

I was in Brighton to train for some long trekking trips I have planned for this year. I wanted to do various day hikes in South Downs National Park, but early in my trip I aggravated an old knee injury. I bought an ice pack, which needs to be applied for 20 minutes every 2 hours, but I did not have access to a freezer at Selina. They put it in their secret staff freezer which is somewhere in the basement and then I had to ask someone to take it in and out for me every time. As a result I only iced my knee once a day for maybe 3 or 4 days.

Selina is supposed to be a bit upscale from a typical hostel, but even the nastiest, cheapest backpacker hostels have communal kitchens and something you can do about food. If most guests don’t have a problem with this and don’t mention it in their reviews, then I have to assume most guests who stay at Selina are not nomads. 

*Update – A friend of mine who stayed at the Colombia location said they don’t have a kitchen there either. What is the deal with that?

No reading lights in the rooms

A lot of hostels these days have “pods,” or extra private cubby bunks, each with closable curtains and their own individual lights, outlets, and shelves. The bunks at Selina have curtains but they do not have lights. There was one lamp on the outside of the bunk which was for both the top bunk and bottom bunk guests to use; there’s no way I would turn that on if the other person was trying to sleep. That was the only light source in the room besides natural light from the window. There was no sitting area or desk in the bunkroom, besides that beanbag in the picture, so the decor generally discourages spending time in the room.

My shared 4-person room was actually 2 rooms divided by a short foyer. My half had the two bunk beds and the other half had two normal beds which were positioned side-by-side. Being in the bunk bed was at least better than being in one of the normal beds because I could pull the bunk curtain closed and open my laptop and turn the brightness up. Having someone else sleeping next to me in an open-air situation would be even less conducive to working from the room, and sometimes when the coworking space is crowded or loud, working from the room is the preferred option. A smartass might respond, “well book a private room then,” but those are significantly more expensive and this place markets itself as being designed for digital nomads; the main crux of what they’re selling should hold true regardless of what type of room you choose.

One benefit of the non-bunk beds is that their half of the room gets to have lots of lamps and a desk. I don’t remember being able to choose between this half of the room vs. the bunk beds when I booked.

Based on old reviews, it sounds like reaching the power outlets from inside the bunks used to be an issue. There was a hole drilled into the wood of my bunk’s wall so that I could thread my charging cords through to an outlet, so they’ve clearly made an effort to fix this problem. I would still recommend bringing an extra long cord. 

No laundry room

You can’t do laundry at Selina Brighton and will need to find a local laundromat. This is not a big deal to me and is something I often have to do on my travels, and there is a nearby laundromat on the same street, but I’m mentioning it here because other hostels in Brighton do have in-building laundry despite not being meant for long-term stays. It’s just another weird thing to not have if you’re advertising to nomads.

The coworking space is too multi-purpose

The coworking space is multi-functional and serves as the main hang spot for everyone at the hostel. There are board games and it is the location of the breakfast service from 8am-11:30am. 

The first time I used the coworking space, another guy was in there playing videos out loud on his phone, without headphones. I know they weren’t work-related videos because I’d had a prior conversation with him where he said he was on a normal vacation and had no plans to work. 

The second time I used the space was during breakfast hours; most people were pretty respectful and I don’t mind the ambient noise of low conversations and the clinking of cups, but there was also a mother chasing both her toddler and dog around the room, making playful “vroom vroom” noises. She put the toddler in one of the office wheelie chairs and launched it back and forth, which was funny and cute but also…come on man. 

The third time I used the space, two people were having the loudest, most animated conversation I’ve ever heard in my life. Ironically, the conversation was about the travel lifestyle and how nomads like ourselves are a different breed and how awesome Selina is to cater to us. I thought, if you understand the lifestyle then why don’t you care that I’m over here trying to work? After one of them finally left the room, the other person proceeded to call up a friend and have a whole other loud non-work-related hour-long phone conversation. 

The next time I used the space it was hard to find seating because it was quite full, but one guy was snoring loudly. He woke up every few minutes to wiggle his mouse and keep his computer on.

Am I the one who needs to be more flexible and tolerant of distractions because I’ve chosen this lifestyle? In most cases yes, but when you’re paying so much money for a special accommodation that markets specifically to nomads, this seems like one situation where I can be justifiably annoyed at a noisy workplace that is not being used by people who are working. I could have spent less money to stay at one of the other standard hostels in town and worked from their social community spaces and it likely wouldn’t have been much different.

People who are not guests at Selina can pay a daily fee to simply use the coworking space; I wonder how they feel about it being a hang spot for the hostel guests to socialize. I know it’s not just me having unmanaged expectations and that the vibe here is not par for the course with all coworking spaces, because a coworking space I rented in the past (which was not part of a coliving accommodation) had more of an actual office vibe.

The coworking space does not have phone booths or meeting rooms

Many coworking spaces around the world have a quiet room and a noisy room, or conference rooms you can rent out for meetings, or soundproof phone booths you can duck into to take calls. Selina Brighton is just one small room. Some people are quietly keeping to themselves and not bothering anybody, while other people are yapping away on phone calls and video calls for multiple hours.

If people are being extra distracting, I can put headphones on to try to drown out the noise, but it’s the principle of it. Why should 10 people have to wear headphones for 8 straight hours just so one person can talk to their heart’s content?

Apparently I am not the only one to take issue with these blind spots in Selina’s business model.

Pros: Selina is clean, chill, and reliable

Selina is safe and clean

As a solo female traveler, I always felt safe at Selina. Everyone I met seemed cool. I used to work at backpackers’ hostels and we would sometimes get really creepy, sketchy guests since hostels are typically the most affordable places to stay in town. Perhaps something about Selina draws in a more conventional crowd. I will advise, though, that I have very few requirements to feel “safe” and I find other solo female travelers don’t have the same expectations as me. I would never pay more to stay in an all-female dorm, for instance; I’m fine with co-ed.

The rooms and the common areas were always very clean and you can get fresh towels and more toilet paper anytime you like. Towels are included in your stay, which is not true at all hostels. There is complimentary shampoo, conditioner, soap, and a hair dryer.

The bunks have rolling drawers underneath where each guest can store clothes, and everyone gets a locker for other belongings and valuables. The key to lock it is included; you don’t need to bring your own lock.

Selina is a sure bet

As a nomad, constantly looking for reliable accommodations every single month can be exhausting. I can spend hours searching for someplace that hits all of my unique criteria. Since Selina has so many locations, if you’re at your wit’s end with searching, you can always just assume that choosing a Selina will be a sure bet, at least on the workspace front. 

For some people, this convenience and peace of mind outweighs the cons. I assume this is why that Remote Year program is so successful, where the company schedules nomads’ lives out and chooses accommodations for them. The program is ridiculously expensive (for me, one benefit of being a digital nomad is that it’s actually more affordable than normal life, so Remote Year is counterintuitive) and takes the autonomy out of choosing your own destiny as a digital nomad, but for those new to or overwhelmed by the freedom of the lifestyle, it must be a relief to essentially have a travel agent plan your year for you. I am sure there are also people who would find staying in private AirBnBs lonely; personally I don’t struggle with that. 

Cozy coworking space

The coworking space at Selina Brighton is super cozy, cute, and filled with lots of comfortable chairs. There are a handful of tables and an exorbitant amount of power outlets with both prong and USB inputs on every wall, which is wonderful. We need those power outlets! The wifi was always very strong for me and never dropped out (I don’t have to do wifi calling or video conferences, so I can’t speak to how good the wifi would be for those more demanding purposes). There is a separate wifi connection for the coworking space vs. the guest rooms.

I noticed a paper shredder and I read about an unlimited printer allowance, although I didn’t find the printers. It’s nice to be able to order a coffee or breakfast inside the coworking space, even though I’d prefer easier access to my own food.

Selina Brighton is in a great location

Selina Brighton is located directly on the beachfront, so you can walk out the door and immediately stroll along the promenade or head to the pier. Selina is directly next to the Upside Down House and Brighton i360 panoramic viewing tower. The hostel is on Brighton’s “restaurant street” where you can try cuisine from around the world, including Turkish, Greek, Japanese, Chinese, Italian, and Thai, plus tons of coffee shops. There is a Sainsbury’s and a Waitrose at the end of the street.

From Selina Brighton you can walk to either The Lanes or North Laine, both iconic shopping districts, in 15 minutes. You can enjoy the Undercliff Walk along the water, or take a convenient £2 bus to Seaford to hike the Seven Sisters. You can even walk all the way to Lewes Castle and Anne of Cleves House, which makes for an interesting 7 mile day hike route. You’re a 20 minute walk from Brighton Station, where you can catch a train to Arundel Castle, London, Hastings, or hop on the Gatwick Express to get to the airport.

Selina Brighton employs kind staff

Every staff member I dealt with was very kind and helpful and didn’t show any annoyance at how often I was asking them to retrieve my food from the fridge. They seemed to be working hard to keep things clean and running smoothly. They also let me store my luggage for a few hours when I arrived long before the official check-in time. I feel bad publishing a negative review of the location because it’s not a reflection on the day-to-day staff; the issues come down to an overall brand marketing problem.

Is Selina worth it for nomads?

In conclusion, people who like hostels for normal travel may enjoy Selina, but the company shouldn’t advertise as a nomad space. And if we judge Selina simply as a normal hostel, then we have to wonder why they are less affordable than every other hostel in Brighton.

As an alternative, Happy Brighton hostel offers a special extended stay discount, and even without this discount they would still be cheaper than Selina. They have a kitchen, laundry room, each bunk has lights, outlets, and a laptop table, and they are also located on the beachfront. They are actually closer to The Lanes. A few reviews say they are dirty; since I haven’t stayed there myself I can’t personally recommend it either way, but I’m just making the case that if you research other accommodations in Brighton, you’ll probably be able to find something both more affordable and also more appropriate for digital nomads than Selina. Perhaps that is the case in many of Selina’s destinations around the world.

What I’ve learned from this experiment is that getting private AirBnBs or other furnished rentals is probably still the best way to go if you’re a digital nomad, or at least for my personal style of nomadism. I thought I had been forced to get AirBnBs because of the nature of my last job, but now I know the type of job doesn’t change the fact that someone who lives on the road full-time needs certain amenities that many coliving spaces just don’t provide. I also realize that I have specific needs since I am an “athlete,” I guess – I must have a kitchen where I can access protein and ice whenever I need it for recovery. I usually live in my car with a Yeti cooler, or on trail I live in my tent and eat nothing but protein bars and tortillas, so I pride myself on not being prissy, but staying at Selina Brighton made me feel high maintenance.

If you’ve colived or coworked at a Selina as a digital nomad, how was your experience? After this I have no plans to ever book a Selina again, though I might be convinced if someone can attest that other locations do not have the same problems.

🏨 Search budget hostels or standard hotel options in Brighton, England.
🚆 Check Omio for Gatwick Express or Thameslink train service from Gatwick Airport to Brighton.
📸 Book Brighton activities, tours, and day trips via GetYourGuide.
✈️ Coming to the UK from abroad? Use an Airalo eSIM for affordable international cell data and don’t forget to protect your investment with travel insurance.

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