Puerto’s Digital Nomads

Photos: Barbara Joan Schaffer

YOU SEE THEM EVERYWHERE, PEOPLE SITTING IN COFFEE shops glued to their computers, often with head phones, and you have to wonder why they aren’t on the beach or hanging out with their friends. In fact, they are working.

Back in the day, young people flocked to Puerto for the waves. Backpackers from Australia and Israel filled the hostels on Zicatela and La Punta, meeting up with friends they would likely see again in Palenque or Lake Atitlán. But now the word is out that Puerto is a great place to get work done: plenty of sunshine, plenty of shade, lots of peace and quiet in spring and summer, but also a great night life, and great internet. And compared to many places in Mexico, Puerto is still affordable, especially if you are being paid in dollars or euros or even bit coins.

Digital nomad Leandro Pagnotta has tested the waters in Cancún, Isla Mujeres, Playa del Carmen, Cozumel and Tulum. And he found good internet in all these places. He also spent a few weeks in the Condesa neighborhood of Mexico City, which along with the Roma, is a favorite of digital nomads. The place he keeps coming back to, however, is Puerto Escondido.

Here, the 40-year-old Argentine, has explored all the beach neighborhoods, first staying in the Punta, then moving on to Zicatela, and finally settling, for a few months at a time, in Rinconada. He appreciates the quiet of Rinconada and its proximity to Playa Carrizalillo. But he often hops on his motorcycle to enjoy the night life in the Punta with a forever changing circle of friends. That’s how it goes with digital nomads – here today, gone tomorrow.

Leandro Pagnotta, a designer of user interfaces, has clients in Asia, Europe and the U.S. He prefers working at the Co-Work at Pargo´s hotel, which has Starlink satellite service. He sets himself up on a small balcony where he enjoys the view and the breeze. When the electricity is down, he goes to the beach.
Leandro Pagnotta, a designer of user interfaces, has clients in Asia, Europe and the U.S. He prefers working at the Co-Work at Pargo´s hotel, which has Starlink satellite service. He sets himself up on a small balcony where he enjoys the view and the breeze. When the electricity is down, he goes to the beach.

Claire Demanchaux at work at Selina on Zicatela.
Claire Demanchaux at work at Selina on Zicatela.


Claire Demanchaux, a 30-year-old, native of Lille, France, is a professional career coach who just loves to travel. In the last two and a half years, she has worked on her computer with her French, English and Spanish speaking clients She started her journey in Bansko, Bulgaria – a mountain resort town with a thriving digital nomad community. From there she went to Istanbul and then on to South America: Buenos Aires, then Medellín and Cartagena, Colombia and Lima, Peru. Then she continued north to the Roma neighborhood of Mexico City.

Claire hadn’t planned to stay in Puerto for more than a month, but after two weeks here, she decided to extend her stay tor a few months more. She chose a place in Tamarindos, near the Zicatela Market, because it is a quiet neighborhood near the beach.


Miguel Ortiz is a native of Mexico City and no stranger to Puerto Escondido. But the 28-year-old engineer, specializing in cloud computing, with clients mostly in the U.S., began earning his digital nomad creds in 2017 with a 3-month stay in Guatemala – Antigua and Lake Atitlán. 2018 found him in Cartagena and Medellin, Colombia, of course, and then on to Lima and Cuzco, Peru.

Then in 1919 he was in Europe for five months, working from Switzerland, Germany, the Czech Republic and Hungary.

Miguel Ortiz at Selina on Zicatela.
Miguel Ortiz at Selina on Zicatela.

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