Since trying to work from Langkawi turned out to be a disaster, we decided to catch the ferry to Penang and spend a week in George Town where we hoped there would be more cafes and better internet!
George Town is starting to become more popular as a digital nomad destination. There are several cafes which are good to work from, but although the internet has improved radically in the past few years, it is still pretty slow and unreliable.
Most of the cafes were great to work from but had flaky wifi so I recommend picking up a SIM card to make sure you stay connected.
Here are our favourite places that we worked from in and around George Town:
Rainforest Bakery
Large place with several different rooms, small & large tables to work at, plenty of power.
This place is two cafes in one — the Rainforest Bakery and The Mugshot Cafe. It’s a large place with several different rooms that seem to go on forever until you reach a glasses shop at the back. They have nice freshly made bagels for breakfast and great coffee.
Pros: big place, lots of power, AC, cheap
Cons: wifi signal is weak or non-existent at the back of the cafe, busy with tourists walking through to look at the glasses shop or Instagram the artwork (this place must be in the Lonely Planet or something!
Yin’s Sourdough Bakery
Small place which can get busy at peak times, but Yin’s is great for working after the breakfast or lunchtime rush because it is empty.
Really great food, everything is free range or organic and they have excellent chicken sausages!
Pros: all tables have power, seats are comfortable, food is incredible, AC
Cons: not many tables, wifi is unreliable
Urban Daybreak
Small and expensive little cafe but it was good to work from for a short period of time. Several of the tables have power sockets and the wifi is good, but it can get really busy and they sell out of popular dishes quickly.
Pros: comfortable seats, good coffee, AC, nice breakfast
Cons: small, a bit dark in the first room, busy, expensive
Black Kettle
This place is absolutely huge and great to work from all day. It’s very bright and spacious with lots of work spaces all with power sockets. The breakfast was fairly good and they had crispy beef bacon (yum!) but it is expensive especially as they add on GST and service charge.
Pros: big open space, huge variety of seats to work from (tables, shared benches, and bar space), power sockets everywhere, reliable wifi (for Penang)
Cons: expensive, busy and loud at peak times (solved with headphones), slow and poor service
We only spent a week in George Town so we didn’t get a chance to try out all of the places I had pinned for working. Here are some others that looked good that you might want to try!
This was our second time in George Town and we visited all of the tourist attractions the previous time so this trip was spent just working — and eating of course. We really love George Town and want to explore more of Penang in the future, but we were tiring of the terrible internet and incredibly hot August weather. Our next stop is a short trip to Kuala Lumpur!
Be sure to check out our next posts for where we work in Kuala Lumpur, and then we will be writing a guide to living and working in Bali as we slow down and stay there until the end of the year!
Thanks for reading!
Originally published at travel.squarecat.io on 8 September 2019
