Three weeks of hostel life, remote work, Roman food and exploring Italy on my own
Technically, I spent three weeks in Rome. But when I think about that trip now, it feels more like two completely different experiences.
I spent the first week in a co-living space outside the city, wondering whether becoming a digital nomad had been a terrible idea. The following two weeks were spent at YellowSquare, working from its coworking space, meeting travellers from around the world, eating my way through Rome and finally exploring the city I had been so excited to visit.
That was when my trip really began – and when I fell in love with Rome.
My first week in Italy had not gone according to plan. The co-living space I had booked was far from central Rome, transport was difficult, and the sense of community I had expected simply was not there. I had already paid for my stay, so leaving meant accepting that I would lose the money.
After spending one weekend at YellowSquare, however, I knew I could not remain at the co-living simply because I had paid for it. That weekend had given me a glimpse of the experience I had imagined: people to talk to, the freedom to come and go, and a place where I could work while still feeling connected to the city.
I returned to the co-living for about another week while I searched for somewhere else to stay. When beds finally became available at YellowSquare for the following two weeks, I booked them immediately. I packed my things, accepted that there would be no refund, and left.
If you want the full story of those chaotic first days, you can read The Truth About My First 48 Hours as a Digital Nomad in Rome. For this story, all you really need to know is that moving to YellowSquare changed the entire trip.
The second time I checked into YellowSquare felt completely different from the first. During my first visit, I had arrived stressed, overwhelmed and desperate for a way out of the co-living. This time, I arrived knowing that I had made the right decision.
The staff was happy to see me again, which immediately made the hostel feel familiar. YellowSquare had a restaurant and bar across the street, a kitchen where I could prepare my lunches, and a coworking space that guests could use as part of their stay. That last detail mattered because I was not simply on holiday. I was working while travelling, and I needed somewhere that allowed both parts of my life to coexist.
My days slowly developed a rhythm. I would work for a few hours, often from the coworking space, make something to eat in the hostel kitchen, and then head out to explore Rome. Back at the hostel, there was almost always someone new to meet or an activity to join.
The only complication was availability. I sometimes had to change dorm rooms every three or four days because my booking was made from whatever beds I could find. It was inconvenient, but it never made me reconsider my decision. I would rather move between bunk beds in a place where I felt happy than remain in a private room somewhere that made me feel trapped.
YellowSquare also offered what I had been looking for from the beginning: community. I met people in the dorms, during activities and simply while sitting around the hostel. Some friendships lasted only a few hours or a few days, but that is part of travelling. People enter your story briefly and can still become part of the way you remember a place.
Once I had settled into the hostel, I finally began seeing Rome properly. Of course, I visited the places everyone associates with the city: the Colosseum, the Pantheon, the Trevi Fountain, the Spanish Steps and Vatican City. I tossed a coin into the Trevi Fountain and made a wish, because there are some tourist traditions you simply have to embrace.
But what made me love Rome was not only the famous landmarks. It was the feeling of walking through an ordinary street and suddenly finding something ancient or beautiful in front of me. In Rome, history does not seem to sit quietly inside museums. It is part of the streets, the buildings and the route you take while trying to get somewhere else.
One of my favourite hostel activities was a sunset walk to a panoramic terrace. There were people singing and playing music, and the city stretched out in front of us as the light changed. Experiences like that made sightseeing feel less like checking places off a list and more like being part of the city for a little while.
Vatican City was another essential part of my time there. It felt like entering a destination within a destination: a place with its own atmosphere, history and scale. It was one of those experiences that reminded me how much I was managing to see during only a few weeks in Rome.
At the beginning of the trip, not having reliable mobile data or easy transport had made me feel completely dependent on other people. By the time I was living at YellowSquare, I had started taking buses around Rome and exploring independently.
I still got lost. On one occasion, I asked two elderly Italian women for directions. We did not share a language, but between gestures, repeated words and a genuine effort to understand one another, we somehow managed.
That interaction stayed with me because it captured something I learned in Rome: being lost does not always mean being helpless. Sometimes it simply becomes another travel story. The city that had initially felt difficult to navigate gradually became a place I felt comfortable exploring on my own.
It would be impossible to explain how I fell in love with Rome without talking about the food.
At Spaghetteria L’Archetto, I had my first pasta in Rome and my first Aperol Spritz. Aperol Spritz would go on to become my favourite summer drink in Europe, so I suppose Rome set the standard very early. I also visited Alfredo alla Scrofa to try its famous fettuccine Alfredo, a dish connected to the restaurant’s history and known far beyond Italy.
Then there was the pizza. Italian pizza and pasta remain some of the best I have ever eaten. If someone tells me they visited Italy and hated both, I may have questions. Possibly judgement too.
I also had my first gelato from a small place close to YellowSquare. I no longer remember its name, but I remember the gelato, which feels like the more important detail anyway.
Food gave structure to my days in Rome. A pasta dish, a slice of pizza, an Aperol Spritz or an unplanned stop for gelato could become part of the day’s adventure. I also joined an Italian cooking class, where we visited a local market for ingredients before returning to make pasta from scratch with an Italian chef. Eating pasta in Rome was wonderful; learning how to make it there made the experience even more memorable.
Solo travel is described as though you spend the entire journey alone, but that was not my experience in Rome. Staying in a hostel meant that people were constantly entering and leaving my days.
During my first weekend at YellowSquare, one of my roommates listened to the entire story of the co-living and offered to help me buy a SIM card the next morning. She was staying for only one night, but she kept her promise before continuing her own journey. I never asked for her Instagram, and I still regret that. She was in my life for less than a day, yet her kindness changed how I felt at a moment when I really needed it.
Later, while working in the coworking space, I met a traveller from South Korea. He was the first Korean person I had met, and I was ridiculously excited to talk to him about South Korea and BTS. He shared travel tips, and what began as an ordinary conversation during a workday became another memory attached to Rome.
There were roommates, people from hostel activities, travellers passing through and strangers who helped when I needed directions. I may have arrived in Rome alone, but many of my favourite memories from the city include people I had only just met.
Once Rome began to feel manageable, I decided to explore beyond the city as well. I booked a day trip to Tuscany entirely on my own, including a visit to Montepulciano and a wine tasting.
The scenery was completely different from Rome. After days surrounded by busy streets, ancient ruins and monumental buildings, Tuscany offered rolling landscapes, vineyards and a slower rhythm. Wine tasting there felt like one of those unmistakably Italian experiences I had pictured before the trip.
The fact that I went alone did not feel like the main event at the time. I simply wanted to see Tuscany, so I booked the trip and went. Looking back, that ordinariness is what makes the memory meaningful. Only a short time earlier, I had been struggling to buy groceries without relying on someone else. Now I was leaving Rome for the day, visiting a new region and returning without treating it like an impossible challenge.
My experience of working remotely in Rome depended heavily on where I stayed. At the original co-living, I felt isolated and restricted. At YellowSquare, I had access to a coworking space, a kitchen, public transport and a community of travellers. The city itself had not changed; my base had.
For a short stay, that combination worked well for me. I could complete my work, meet people and spend the rest of my time exploring. Hostel life was not always seamless, especially when I had to change dorm rooms regularly, but it gave me the social experience I had wanted from the trip.
With hindsight, I love Rome more as a summer travel destination than as my ideal long-term digital nomad base. It is a city I would happily return to for the food, history, atmosphere and energy. For a few weeks, however, working from YellowSquare gave me exactly the experience I needed.
Toward the end of my stay, a cold seemed to spread through the hostel. Several people became sick, and I developed a sore throat just before flying to Barcelona. It was not the most glamorous ending to my Roman adventure, but hostel life is not always made of sunset walks and Aperol Spritz.
I left Rome with a completely different impression from the one I had formed during my first week. At first, the city had felt inaccessible because I was staying in the wrong place and depending too much on other people. Once I moved, established a routine and started exploring, I found the version of Rome I had hoped for.
I remember the monuments, but I also remember hostel lunches, buses, dorm rooms, strangers, pasta, wine and getting lost. Those ordinary experiences were what made the city feel real to me.
I spent three weeks in Rome, but it was during those final two weeks that I truly discovered it. Rome did not become home in the permanent sense. It became something more fitting for travel: a place that initially challenged me, then welcomed me, and finally became one of the cities I remember with the most affection.
