Finding a Space in Beautiful Granada with Anda CoWork

Victoria and Dori who are responsible for the administrative side of running Anda

When you start to research Granada, Spain, you’re first struck by the medieval architecture, the palaces and the history. A bustling, innovative community of digital marketers, developers, and other remote workers might not be what comes to mind at first, but that’s precisely what you’ll find at Anda CoWork. We spoke to Anda CoWork’s team about their mission to make a better work environment and what they love best about this fairy tale city.

What is the founding story behind Anda?

Anda was founded in 2016 by Victoria Carreras. With a background in Economics and Business Administration, Victoria had many years of experience working in the industrial sector. She saw businesses being born and grown and spent many years learning about entrepreneurship, human relations, and business management.

All of her experience grew her curiosity with this field and the factors that could improve business conditions and opportunities. She saw that the traditional business setup and work environment could be improved, and it led her to the start Anda.

The main goal of Anda is to create an environment that has the optimal conditions for people to learn, develop and feel driven to succeed in every way they can, through connection, collaboration and a positive and motivating atmosphere.

Through Anda, Victoria hopes to be able to contribute to the success of exciting projects, boosting the community’s entrepreneurial spirit and promoting business awareness and social and environmental impact.

Where did the name come from?

In Spanish Anda means ‘walking’, or – as we like to see it – ‘movement’. For us, at Anda, it’s incredibly important to promote a constant flow of activity, offering our community all the possibilities to keep their development in movement, keep learning, feeling driven to succeed, grow and enjoy.

We like to think of three main values, which we call our ‘Philosophy of the A’. In Spanish, these are ‘Actitud’, ‘Amor’ and ‘Amistad’: Attitude, Love and Friendship. This is what we try to radiate: A space with love and respect for people and the environment, seeing reality with a positive attitude, working together to create friendship and comfort.

What kind of exciting events are coming up at Anda?

We have been very busy organising new events the past few months and have many exciting things planned. For the rest of the year, and probably next year too, we offer our space to local artists to show their art and organise an event to open their exhibition. The first two artists we invited are the talented Carmen Casas Úbeda and Chari Nogales. This week we held our first opening event and it was a great success!

Other activities you can find at Anda are regular Anda breakfasts with all coworkers, weekly yoga classes with Granada Spirit, a mindfulness course by Mindfulness Cuerpo Movimiento, and several courses like a course in Photoshop and Lightroom this month.

How would you describe the community at Anda Cowork?

The community at Anda is like a family. It’s a mix between people working at the space more permanently and visitors coming and going for a short or longer term. This creates a nice mix between locals and foreigners, which offers a lovely mutual learning opportunity.

The activity and background of our Anda family is incredibly diverse. We have a small digital marketing company who decided to run their entire business from Anda. And we have developers, a social media manager, an English teacher, entrepreneurs in different fields, artists showing their art at Anda, and many people holding regular events and meetings in our meeting rooms.

We like to support this large variety of backgrounds and actively create connections and collaborations between all our co-workers and friends. More than once that we helped people making big steps in their professional or personal development by offering them the access to professionals from other business branches they needed, all free of costs and within Anda’s community.

We are so happy with the active and collaborative environment Anda turned into over the past years and are very proud of our community.

What do you love about Granada?

Granada is like a fairytale! The city has a fascinating history: Christian, Muslim, and Jewish influences are still clearly visible all around. This results in a mix of beautiful churches and cathedrals with traditional Arab Hammams, tiny shopping streets that make it seem like you are in Morocco, traditional flamenco shows and tapas all over the city. The mix of cultures is really unique!

Apart from a beautiful city life, Granada is surrounded by nature. From the city center you can walk straight up the mountain, and the Sierra Nevada is only a short bus or car ride away. While the weather can be very hot in summer, the Sierra Nevada offers a perfect and long skiing and snowboarding season in winter. And when there is no snow, the hiking trails and rock climbing walls are a great alternative for the adventurers!

A last thing we love— which is very important for remote workers and ‘digital nomads’— is the fact that the city is incredibly comfortable but cheap. You get a very high quality of life. It’s easy to find a lovely apartment with good WiFi, public transport is good, the food is amazing and there is a small but lovely community of remote workers around.

What are some of your favorite spots in the neighborhood?

Granada is relatively small, so most of the city centre is walkable. You can find Anda in Caleta, an area on the border of the city center. Caleta is a very lively administrative area, close to many shops, restaurants, tapas bar and public transport. Although we have great coffee ourselves, we love to visit our neighbours, Bar La Placeta, for a coffee or a nice sandwich once in a while. They have a lovely terrace in the sun!

When we feel like a fresh and healthy lunch, we like to visit Bouquet. They have wonderful fresh salads, soups and the best fresh bread, all for takeaway.

Of course we can’t leave Granada’s tapas bars unmentioned. Granada is famous for its tapas culture and Caleta is full of them. To just mention a few, La Golondrina, La Taquilla, Bar Damian and Bar Caribe are all on a few minutes walking distance from Anda and very much worth a visit. For around €2 you can buy a glass of wine, beer, or a typical Spanish tinto de verano, which comes with a free snack. We love ending our working day with a drink and some tapas in the sun!