The Bansko Story
Bansko Nomad Fest was the outcome. It was never the plan.
It started with a sailing trip. After joining the Coboat project at sea, the question was simple: how do you keep the tribe together without endless travel? The answer was to give it a home — a coworking or a coliving space in Bansko, a Bulgarian ski resort. Bansko already drew skiers every winter — 75km of runs, host to Alpine Ski World Cup races — but its traditional wood and carpentry trade was gone years ago, its population ageing, and summers were genuinely quiet, with only a few business open and only little to nothing built around the off and shoulder seasons.
The coworking space was never the point. It was the "where." What made people stay was the "why" — and the why was relentless. At our peak we ran up to 40 events a year: weekly masterminds, hot-spring soaks, board game and poker nights, jam sessions, "show and tell" nights where people presented what they were building, hot seats to help someone push a project forward, meditation, yoga. The format kept changing. The core never did — community, the chosen family.
Summer, not winter, became the breakout season. Three years of that rhythm scaled, almost by accident, into one big pivot: instead of dozens of small gatherings, one week that brought everyone together — Bansko Nomad Fest.
The story behind the story
The real shift came before the festival
The change traces back further than any festival — to the nomad hub itself. A growing, year-round international community put down roots and, without fanfare, rewrote what Bansko was for.
A movement that was invisible at first
Unlike traditional tourism, this community was almost invisible. Digital nomads and remote professionals organise through online groups, meetups and word of mouth — not coach tours. For years most Bulgarians simply didn't register what was happening: people were finding one another online, settling in, and quietly growing in number.
The whole ecosystem lifted with it
As numbers grew, the effect became impossible to ignore. Restaurants and cafés that once shut after the ski season stayed open all summer. Shops and businesses built specifically around nomads appeared; companies from outside relocated to serve the market. People bought property, invested, launched ventures and hired local staff — thousands of individual decisions, not one big moment.
Then the town noticed
Over time locals recognised the shift. Young people were returning. More businesses stayed open year-round. International gatherings became a regular fixture. What had been almost invisible was now unfolding on their own streets — changing the economy and the character of the town.
The festival was proof, not cause
Bansko Nomad Fest arrived three years after Coworking Bansko (2016) had already proven the model. The festival accelerated momentum and gave the community a visible annual gathering — but it was never the cause. It's not the beginning of the story; it's proof the story was already well underway.
That's the short version. I wrote the whole journey down in detail — From Sea to Summit: The Voyage of Coworking Bansko on Medium.
