You already chose differently. By staying in a coliving space, you have opted out of the anonymous hotel room, the isolated Airbnb and a life lived entirely online. You're sharing a kitchen, a communal area and perhaps a coworking space. That already puts you ahead of most travellers when it comes to human connection.
But here's the uncomfortable question: connected to whom? Because a coliving can just as easily deepen the bubble as break it. A beautifully curated space full of nomads is still a bubble. Just a more comfortable one.
Remote work has unlocked extraordinary freedom. But it has also created a quiet tension: we travel further than ever, yet often interact less with the places we visit. What are the consequences? Misunderstandings, gentrification and rising rents deepen the divide between visitors and local communities.
And it's not just a social problem. Our travel choices have an environmental impact that we rarely consider. The question isn't whether to travel, but how.
This isn't just criticism. Coliving spaces are uniquely positioned to solve these problems — if they choose to.
"A coliving space can just as easily deepen the bubble as break it."
This is why we created SUTIL.
SUTIL is a project by nomads, for nomads. It grew out of something that many of us kept seeing — and quietly feeling uneasy about. The ongoing misunderstanding between travellers and local communities. Despite our good intentions, our impact was not always positive. The way locals grow tired of us without us ever quite noticing.
SUTIL — which stands for Sustainable Tourism Living and is also a reference to the Spanish word for 'subtle' — was founded on the belief that travel doesn't have to be this way. We believe that slow, respectful, locally embedded travel is not only possible, but also better. For everyone.
The coliving as a bridge, not just a base.
Through SUTIL, we worked with community focused coliving spaces across Europe to develop two practical resources — one for spaces, one for travellers.
The SUTIL Toolkit is designed for community managers and coliving operators. This freely available, interactive collection of tips and methods helps spaces transform their community into a genuine bridge between visitors and residents.
The Travel Impact Guide — is aimed directly at nomads and young travellers. It's a clear, honest look at how travel behaviour affects local communities and environments, and what small shifts in mindset and habit can actually make a difference.
We are grateful for the contributions of Rooral, Vundu, Picassa, Nine, Coconat, Anceu, Selgars and many more. This project is supposed to be more than the next resource we never use - it's a movement and it's already happening.
SUTIL is a project funded by the Erasmus+ programme and designed by give & grow, Sende and Burgas Creative Hub.
