Arne Gockeln

Digital Nomad: El Medano on Tenerife

Written by Arne in offtopic , tagged with digital nomad, travel

This time I booked an apartment via real estate agent in El Medano because the airbnb prices exploded. My last two bookings were about 800€/month. In November and December there were very less below 1200€/month. So I tried to get something around 800€ for the next 4 weeks. I was a bit lucky and got an offer by this real estate agent. So I payed 200€ in advance to rent it and moved into the Hotel El Medano for two transit days. The Hotel was ok. Nothing special, except that it was located literaly in the ocean and the center of El Medano. When I got to the real estate agent to pick up the keys, they told me that they made a mistake and that the apartment that I wanted is not available. I wanted one with sea view, balcony and with a kitchen.

They showed me another one, which hadn’t a balcony nor sea view. You looked straight against the mountain and into the neighbors living room. Well, we had some price negotiation because of the limitations and differences. So I got the apartment for 700€. But you can imagine that I wasn’t very happy about it. I did that because there were not many other options except paying very high rents possible greater than 1100€ for 4 weeks.

The apartment had a kitchen, but the oven was defect. :( Another thing was a very bad smell in the bathroom and sometimes in the living room. Which I am not really sure about, because it was also outside in the street. So I bought some candles with vanilla smell. Didn’t make it really better.

The good thing was that the Calisthenics park was now available by foot. So I went there almost every day and worked on my push and pull ups. I managed to do my first chin up. Awesome! That gave me a push to work on that even harder.


I was in different Whatsapp groups where more than 300 people were inside. El Medano is bigger than El Poris and El Sauzal together. It is also a surf spot and has a lot of surf schools and water sport offers. Through the Whatsapp groups and especially with the friend in El Medano I got introduced to other like minded people.

El Medano Surf Spot

We were visiting cafés, had language exchange events and were hiking in the night close to the sea to see the sunrise. That was a lot of fun.

Night hike

El Medano Sunrise


Now as I was a so called digital nomad without a home base I felt like that something is missing. Many things to be honest. A nice desk, a captains chair and a big monitor for example. To work properly in a healthy environment. A bed which fits my needs. A fully equiped kitchen for my training meal preparation. I was missing people around me that I understand and that understand me from the cultural perspective. Even dating was difficult on the island. When you met someone the first question was: do you live on Tenerife or do you travel? When you answered with traveling the date was over.

So I was honest to myself and made a new decision. This digital nomad thing is not for me. It’s a nice experience but it’s not the life style which suits me long term.

I booked another airbnb in Kellinghusen (Germany), which was the only one that was cheap enough over the christmas period and a flight to Dortmund, to pick up my car.