CoLiving Review
Valencia - Spain
Folks
A small, home-like coliving right by Valencia's train station, steps from Russafa's best tapas bars, and just far enough from the old town to stay quiet.
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Why Valencia, why Folks?
I stayed at Folks for two weeks in August, a stop that came together after meeting Laure, the coliving’s owner, at CO404 in Oaxaca.
Folks is a small coliving set in an apartment near Valencia’s train station, on a main road that still feels quiet, right across from Russafa, one of the city’s liveliest, most popular neighborhoods.
A note on transparency: I want to be upfront. I stayed at Folks for two weeks, with the first 3 nights offered as part of a partnership, in exchange for this article, some Instagram content shared during my stay, and a few photos. Everything below reflects my honest experience, the partnership doesn’t change my rating.
How it works
Folks is set in an older, high-ceilinged apartment building (with an elevator, a real plus given the height of the floors). Inside, a long entrance hallway leads to the 5 bedrooms, the coworking room, the living room, two small bathrooms, and the kitchen. With just 5 rooms in an apartment format, it feels like home almost immediately, cozy, if a little rough around the edges in the living room's decor.
Wifi
Workspace
Community
Value for Money
Wifi & Connectivity
Strong: I tested 354 Mbps download and 227 Mbps upload from the coworking room. No issues at all during my stay.
Workspace & Productivity
The coworking space is a small room with a large wooden table at the center and 6 ergonomic chairs (some are starting to show their age and could use replacing soon). It’s air-conditioned, with a big window letting in good light, some shelving, a monitor, outlets, and a few accessories. I used this room almost every day of my stay.
A double door opens onto the living room if you want a more open feel, or closes if you’d rather shut yourself off from the rest of the apartment. In practice, the apartment stays quiet most of the time, so open or closed didn’t make much difference for me, though it could matter more if you work odd hours in the evening. With only 5 rooms, calm is pretty much the default here, good for focus.
Each private room also has its own desk and chair, ideal if you’re on a lot of calls or video meetings, since that wouldn’t be as pleasant for everyone sharing the coworking room.
Community & Social Life
Community here is still a work in progress. Folks recently hired a community manager to bring a bit more structure to the calendar and activities on offer. As always, and even more so in a small coliving like this one, it depends a lot on who’s around: ages, mindsets, whether people want to explore the city together or keep to themselves, and how long everyone’s staying (Folks generally asks for a two-week minimum, though longer stays make it easier to build a real roommate dynamic).
Laure is active in the group chat and generally around throughout the year, getting to know guests over a drink and some tapas. The community manager organized a pizza night at the coliving that brought everyone together for a great evening, and joined in when we planned outings, drinks, tapas, or a pub quiz. During my stay, I was often the one proposing things, from salsa nights out to board games, museum visits, or just a walk in the park. Being proactive in the group chat helps connection happen, and makes it easier to build friendships than just crossing paths in the coworking room, though that’s also often where the day’s plans get discussed in the first place. The WhatsApp group is also there for questions, activity suggestions, and support from the community manager or Laure herself.
Comfort & Amenities
The kitchen is a highlight: bright, well equipped, with two fridges (each room gets its own shelf) and the same setup for dry goods storage, so everyone can shop for themselves and easily find their things. Shared cupboards hold spices, oil, salt, and so on, a bit of a mixed bag since it’s mostly whatever previous guests left behind rather than restocked by Folks itself, more good coffee provided would be a nice touch. Beyond that: a big kitchen, sink, stovetop, oven, sorted trash bins, toaster, a few different coffee makers, a kettle, a washing machine, everything you need to feel at home and build a routine.
For fitness lovers, Folks has you covered: a few yoga mats and accessories in the apartment (even rackets for the park or beach), and a gym open early until 11pm just a 5-minute walk down the same street, with a few more options (including one with a spa) a little further out.
The living room has a big window looking out toward Valencia’s train station, a large corner sofa and cushions for hanging out with other colivers, a coffee table, some books, a 4-person table in the corner, plus the sports equipment corner. This is probably the room that could use the most love: a few board games, slightly more thoughtful decor, and a table better suited to a full house (you can’t all eat together if the coliving is full) would go a long way. Still, these are details, we had a genuinely great pizza night here, put our own music on, cooked together, and ate around the coffee table, just like a night in with friends at home.
I stayed in two rooms during my time at Folks. Each room is named after a color. Rojo, the largest, generally meant for couples, has a big bed, a wardrobe and closet, and a large window facing an interior courtyard surrounded by other apartments, so it’s genuinely quiet, no street or traffic noise at all. A long desk split in two with two chairs lets two people work at once, plus a small coffee table and wooden armchair by the window for downtime. It’s a very spacious room (maybe even a touch empty, more furniture could help fill it out), with great natural light, thick curtains for sleeping in the dark, a comfortable bed, and simple, minimalist decor. Plenty of room to store your things, work in peace, and sleep well. I spent 3 nights here.
My second room, Amarillo, used for the rest of my stay, was smaller but lovely and thoughtfully laid out: a comfortable double bed, a bedside table with a lamp and outlets, a dresser (the bottom drawer holds a spare blanket if needed), a portable wardrobe, a full-length mirror, a big window for good light, and a desk corner with an ergonomic chair, ideal for a few quiet hours of work in your room.
All the rooms follow roughly this same setup, giving every guest solid comfort, a pleasant environment, and enough storage to feel properly at home during their stay. I felt genuinely comfortable in this room.
The one small catch: rooms facing the train station side can get a bit noisy (the odd train horn isn’t fun), but that’s city living, and it’s easy enough to forget about. Nights stay quiet most of the time. Sliding shutters block out the light for sleeping, plus a curtain in the room’s namesake color for extra coverage.
The walls look thin at first glance, and you’d expect to hear every neighbor, good news, that’s mostly not the case. Everyone gets their privacy, and the apartment stays calm day and night. The one exception is the heavy front door, which can bang a bit if slammed late at night, mostly noticeable in the rooms closest to the hallway entrance. Otherwise, it was genuinely peaceful throughout my stay.
The two bathrooms, side by side in the hallway, are on the small side, worth knowing. One is really more of a toilet-with-shower than a full bathroom, with a tiny sink and the shower tucked behind the door (once you’re inside it, no complaints on the shower itself). The second, more commonly used, also has a toilet, a slightly bigger sink with storage underneath, and a bigger shower. There’s some shelving for toiletries, though in practice nobody really uses it, there just isn’t quite enough room; better to bring your own towel and products and keep them in your room. The shower does come stocked with a decent selection of shower gels and shampoos, presumably left behind by past guests. Small, but clean and comfortable, with everything you need.
Housekeeping is included in the room rate, though over my two-week stay (a bit less in one of the two rooms), I don’t believe my room itself was cleaned. A cleaner comes once a week for common areas (kitchen, coworking space, bathrooms, taking out trash or clearing the fridge), which is good, but a little light, especially for the kitchen and toilets when the apartment is full and everyone’s cooking. A second pass during busier weeks would help. A minor downside, easily outweighed by everything else the apartment offers.
What's next for Folks
Beyond hiring a community manager a few months ago, Laure has bigger plans for Folks: expansion to Barcelona, Lisbon, or Mexico City on the horizon for 2027. Folks currently rents the Valencia apartment, and the goal is to eventually own the space, allowing for a more personalized, upgraded setup built specifically for digital nomads. As Laure puts it herself: "investors wanted for 2027!"
Laure also runs occasional pop-up colivings elsewhere (the next one planned for September 2026), and Folks stays active on Instagram if you want to follow along with what's coming next.
Location & Access
Folks sits on a fairly quiet stretch of Gran Via de les Germanies, right by Valencia’s train station, and directly across from Russafa, one of the city’s liveliest and most popular neighborhoods. Everything is walkable from here: a coffee or almuerzo in Russafa in the morning, tapas, dinners out, or late-night events, all within a 5-minute walk. The old town is 15-20 minutes on foot the other way, ideal for sightseeing, beautiful churches, grand plazas, and shopping. The long Turia park, cutting across the whole city, is about 10-15 minutes away, and from there it’s around 40 minutes on foot to reach the City of Arts and Sciences or the Oceanogràfic.
Valencia is also a bike-friendly city, with cycling lanes pretty much everywhere. Bike rentals are easy to find around the coliving and across town, and the beach is about 20 minutes away by bike. A great way to get around for longer stays and settle in like a local. Scooters and e-scooters are also widely available for rent, or through bike-share style systems, if you’d rather skip pedaling.
I did everything on foot during my stay, and this location made that genuinely easy.
Value for Money
Good value for what’s included: a comfortable, well-located home base with a proper kitchen, coworking space, and a real neighborhood on your doorstep. Room rates range from $53 to $70/night depending on the room, with discounts for longer stays (up to 20% off for 28+ nights).
What Works / What to Know Before You Go
- Strong, reliable wifi
- Unbeatable location, walkable to Russafa, the old town, and Turia park
- Well-equipped kitchen and a real sense of home
- Comfortable, thoughtfully laid out private rooms with in-room desks
- Genuinely quiet, both day and night
- Responsive, welcoming owner
- Community is still developing, expect to be proactive to make friends
- Living room could use better furniture and a bit more personality
- Rooms facing the train station can get occasional noise
- Bathrooms are small; better to keep your towel and toiletries in your room
What stood out most for me was how comfortable my room felt, genuinely like home. And the location is unbeatable: everything walkable, with the metro literally at the door, perfect for living like a local with everything close by. Being proactive pays off here, propose things and you'll quickly make friends with the other residents. And if community feels a bit quiet at Folks itself, Valencia more than makes up for it: it's a real expat and nomad city, with meetup events, salsa and bachata nights happening every single evening, and no shortage of ways to meet people and make friends.
Practical Logistics
What you need to know before traveling to Valencia and Folks Coliving.
EU citizens can stay and work freely. Non-EU visitors typically get 90 days visa-free within a 180-day period as tourists. For longer stays, Spain's Digital Nomad Visa allows non-EU remote workers to live in Spain for up to a year initially (renewable up to 5 years total), requiring a minimum income of around $3,335/month from foreign clients or employers.
Valencia Airport (VLC) is about 20-30 minutes from the city center by metro, taxi, or rideshare.
Prepaid SIM cards from Movistar, Vodafone, or Orange typically run $12-18/month for 25-60GB with unlimited national calls and EU roaming included. Budget options like Digi or Simyo can go as low as $6-8/month. Bring your passport, it's required for registration in any Spanish store. Airalo or MobiMatter are also easy eSIM options if you'd rather sort it out before landing.
Valencia remains one of Spain's more affordable major cities. Tapas and casual meals run around $12-18, with plenty of budget-friendly options in Russafa.
Who is Folks Coliving & Valencia for?
For those who want a real home base in Valencia
Folks Coliving suits nomads who want a small, home-like coliving, a proper kitchen, a quiet place to focus, and an unbeatable location to explore Valencia on foot. It rewards a bit of initiative on the social side: propose things in the group chat, and connections follow. Ideal for a longer stay, if you want to settle into a real routine in one of Spain's most livable cities.
Booking details
Room type tested
Rojo ($70/night) and Amarillo ($59/night)
Other room options & prices
Azul ($70/night, max 2 guests), Rosa ($53/night, max 1 guest), Verde ($53/night, max 1 guest)
$53-70/night depending on room, with discounts for longer stays (up to 20% off for 28+ nights)
Minimum stay
2 weeks (ask Folks staff if you need to adjust)
Website & Booking
Book online or get more information about Folks Coliving.
Transparency
The first 3 nights of this 2-week stay were offered in exchange for this article, Instagram content shared during the stay, and a few photos. The rest of the stay was paid for at standard rates.
