Kristen Suzanne

Writer. Digital Nomad. Foodie.

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Back in the USA After 6 Months of Travel – My Reflections

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Mom's colorful backyard - or "garden" as they'd call it in Europe
Mom’s colorful backyard – or “garden” as they’d call it in Europe

We are back in Arizona to visit family for six weeks.

I hesitate to say that we are “back home” because I believe that home is wherever my family is. Whether that is in Denmark, Thailand, Mexico, or Arizona, I make my home wherever we land with our belongings and proceed to live our day-to-day life.

Some people said that at the six-month mark of traveling they wanted to go back to the United States from home-sickness, but I personally didn’t feel that. When my brother-in-law unexpectedly asked me, while we were in the United Kingdom, what I missed the most about the USA, I quickly replied, “nothing” (save for family).

However, I did think it was good for my daughter to come home and see her Nana and her grandma. Long-term travel was harder for her than it was for us parents, though she’s adapting and enjoying it more over time. So, we decided to come back to Arizona, earlier than originally anticipated.

Repacking Bags for Optimal Travel

Turned out I started looking forward to coming to AZ because I’ve learned a lot about what I want to have with me while I’m traveling the world. During the past six months I found that there were things I brought that I did not need, and there were things that I wanted and did not have. So I will take advantage of this time here to restock my backpack before we set out on another world travel adventure. (That’s a future blog post.)

The First Thing I Noticed

When we came back to the U.S., the first thing I noticed was the wide roads and large vehicles everywhere. Coming from Europe where the roads are narrow and most of the vehicles are small, it was an interesting (and obvious) thing to compare.

I’m also noticing how accessible everything is and the number of choices are so plentiful here. I don’t know whether this is good or bad, as I don’t really have a feeling or opinion on it. But I know that if I want to get some ground beef, I have about six stores within 2 miles where I can buy it.

That was not the case in Europe. But you know what? We did just fine with one store – never needed so many choices.

Cheap Steak for My Carnivore Diet

I still eat a carnivore diet – still loving it – skin still glows, tummy still flat, PMS still awesome.

So, I will admit that I am very excited to be back in the land of the cheap ribeye (and T-Bone) steaks because I did miss those a bit.

Hello lovely T-Bone Steak - Carnivore Diet
Hello lovely T-Bone Steak – Carnivore Diet

When we landed, I immediately went to mygrocerydeals.com and searched for the best sales on steaks. I was instantly presented with many options, of course. I didn’t waste any time and went right out and stocked up.

But, I Love

Funny thing, I went about a week or so without my favorite ground beef patties, and when I made them yesterday I realized how badly I missed them – lol – humble ground beef. I’ve been eating carnivore but eating different things such as fish and sausages and steaks the past week. The ground beef was a welcome frugal carnivore option.

In Awe When Landing

When our air plane was landing in Phoenix and we were taxiing on the runway, I had this overwhelming sense come over me of how expanded and resilient I realized I had become in six months of travel.

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Convict Conditioning: The Easiest Way to Stay Strong & Fit While Traveling – Especially if You Hate Exercising

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Trying to stay fit while traveling in France.

Moving around the world has made the goal of fitness more difficult for me.

When we lived in the United States, it was easier because Greg belonged to a gym and I had some equipment at home. That all changed when we sold it all to move around the world.

I experimented with a few different ways to stay fit.

  1. I downloaded and subscribed to the SWORKIT app.
  2. I walked a lot.
  3. I carved out time here that there to do walking lunges and pushups throughout the day.

But I started having a hard time sticking to it after a bit.

[Read more…] about Convict Conditioning: The Easiest Way to Stay Strong & Fit While Traveling – Especially if You Hate Exercising

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Keeping My Kid Entertained While We Travel the World as a Digital Nomad Family

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Digital nomad kid loving pups while housesitting – iPad not far from her.

As a world traveling family (specifically, a digital nomad family), we don’t have a lot of “stuff” and we’ve been moving around at a fairly speedy clip. I aim for our future (2019) to slow-travel more. I’d like to land in a country and stay for 2 to 3 months before moving. But that doesn’t change the fact that we don’t carry a lot of things.

As you can imagine, this applies to our daughter as well.

We can’t bring bins of Lego blocks or multiple dolls and stuffed animals. She doesn’t have a lot of toys. Close to none pretty much. However, she keeps herself busy.

What in the hell does my young kid do without toys?

She survives. Heck, I like to think she thrives. We do the best we can so that she doesn’t feel like she’s missing out on things.

Here’s what my digital nomad kid does for entertainment as she travels the world. The list applies to things she’s doing where we “live.” (That’s housesitting or renting an apartment via Air BnB.) It does not include the times she meets kids in the local neighborhood or parks or camps she takes. Those things happen regularly, too, but not always on a day-to-day basis. Below is what is daily.

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Digital Nomads Housesitting in Cardiff, Wales

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airport - ready for our next digital nomad housesitting adventure
At the airport – ready for our next digital nomad housesitting adventure

We’re moving around the United Kingdom and getting intimate with it. Having spent so many weeks here, in fact about 4 months (in total) this year, we’re really getting to know it.

One of our favorite places to visit was Cardiff, Wales.

Housesitting: the ultimate in the sharing economy model.

We continued our journey of housesitting our way around the world (<– that’s a link to the book we wrote about housesitting). This means we’re living in “free” accommodations in exchange for the caring of someone’s house (and usually animals).

I mentioned in the last post how we met with someone I’d met playing Words with Friends (for years!). That was fun.

For the main part of the Cardiff visit, however, we did a housesit for a lovely family who had a sweet dog to care for.

dog housesitting
Great dog we’re watching while housesitting.

The home was three stories tall and had plenty of space.

That’s one of the benefits of housesitting while traveling. We’re not cramped in a small apartment rental or hotel room. We find ourselves in lovely, spacious homes complete with great wifi, comfy couches, and clean beds.

And fun appliances for making coffee!

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Housesitting Outside of Paris in Ermont, France with Cats

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Housesitting apartment and working
Working in the apartment outside of Paris where we’re housesitting.

We’re housesitting our way around Europe and the United Kingdom this year. It’s been an amazing journey so far, being able to travel so much and housesitting makes that possible. I mean, think about it, staying in great houses, oftentimes having access to a car or living in places with easy public transport, meeting amazing people, living like locals.

Housesitting has turned out to be one of the best decisions we ever made.

Did you ever think about traveling to France, and staying a short train ride from Paris, but you thought going to France was too expensive? Well, it’s not! With housesitting and searching for cheap airline tickets (I like using the app by Kiwi.com), you can really travel the world with your family and not break the bank.

We just did it ourselves (using Nomador housesitting website for this particular housesit in France).

Housesitting has made our travel dreams come true and we’ve done it both in the United States and abroad. It really is a phenomenal way to travel.

Check out our book on housesitting so you can learn how to do this, too. 

For one of the four times we housesat in Paris, we completed a great little housesit in Ermont, France.

This city is about a 20-minute train ride west of Paris. I had to pinch myself on occasion to realize how close we were to Paris and that we stayed in such a great apartment. Even though we weren’t paying in the financial sense, we did have a job to do: care for the apartment and cats. That’s actually fun though!

Traveling the world (or anywhere in the USA) is great with housesitting when you have kids because the animals make great playmates.

Ermont, France was one of our favorite housesits. The homeowners were so amazing (and now they’re our friends who we can visit anytime!). The animals we cared for were easy going, cool cats.

housesitting kitchen
Adorable kitchen where we housesat in France.

The apartment was perfect, and there was a bakery right downstairs! I always got a kick out of seeing people routinely walking on the sidewalks carrying their daily baguette. That’s a bit of the cultural immersion I’m seeking while traveling the world.

french butcher
French butcher with local beef for my carnivore diet.

We also had a most amazing butcher just down the street. Again, all walkable. This butcher sold locally sourced meat and it was the most delicious beef I’d ever had. I splurged a few times because my body was screaming for beef.

Housesitting cats in France.
1 of 2 cats we housesat in France. Housesitting is so cool!

Housesitting our way around the world has made such a difference for our travels.

We’re meeting so many great people, and traveling is taken to another level when housesitting. We can now say that in the past 6 months we’ve become friends with 10 new families. We keep in touch via email and it’s so neat to have expanded our network like this.

If you’re curious about housesitting or traveling the world, reach out to me via twitter or email. I’d love to help if you have any questions.

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My Carnivore Diet: I Eat 2 Pounds of Beef a Day!

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Carnivore diet beef patties
This is what I eat twice a day. That’s it. Carnivore Diet – I love it.

We’re living in the UK for the next couple of months for our world travels. That means one thing: I can eat a frugal carnivore diet!

I wrote a book on why I like eating a carnivore diet and how to get started doing it. It’s called The Carnivore Diet Handbook.

Today, I’m sharing how I’ve been eating every day for the past weeks on a carnivore diet.

You see, I’ve gone on-and-off the carnivore diet a couple of times since January, when I started this seemingly weird diet. Travel and meat costs in other countries determines it. But, when I can, I opt for carnivore.

I plan on eating this way going forward, until we’re back in France housesitting (this means we’re traveling the world without paying for accommodations! – I wrote a book about that, too! Check it out here!). We will be in France in September.

I won’t eat as much meat in France, because it’s not frugal – dammit. But, I have some new things planned to help me eat more carnivore-ish while there. Stay tuned to see if my experiments work.

One of my favorite parts of the carnivore diet continues to be is how fucking EASY it is.

I save so much time with this simple way of eating. I have more energy. I’m not constantly planning what to eat or looking at recipes on Pinterest at night when I should be sleeping.

Here’s my daily carnivore diet…

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