Digital Nomad

Housesitting Outside of Paris in Ermont, France with Cats

July 31, 2018 By Kristen Suzanne

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.

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

July 23, 2018 By Kristen Suzanne

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…

We are Housesitting Our Way Around the World – You Can Do This, Too!

July 18, 2018 By Kristen Suzanne

housesitting rent-free — Housesitting our way around the world – Living rent-free!

Housesitting. Most people haven’t heard of it.

Well, get excited because you’re going to learn how housesitting is an amazing secret world that few people know about.

As I wrote in the last post, I’m sharing the how, what, when, where, why about being a Digital Nomad Family.

My big message is that you can do this, too! YES!

As I share everything we’re doing, you’ll see that, it’s possible to start planning your own trip abroad (or even just around North America). The point is that it’s possible to be location independent and design the life you want.

Let’s begin with Housesitting.

I won’t be surprised if you’ve never heard of it. Anyone I mention it to never has.

The important idea to know is that this is one of the keys to our living abroad.

It’s not the only way to live frugally around the world, but it’s a HUGE one, and it’s how we’re doing things right now.

Housesitting Paris — Housesitting outside of Paris. Yes, Paris!

Housesitting has made our travel-the-world dreams come true.

As a Digital Nomad Family, it’s been a way for our family to live “rent-free” while traveling the world. Let me say that again, we’re living rent-free! I think you can see how amazing this is.

Housesitting has saved us thousands of dollars!

We’ve been housesitting for over a year (on and off in 2017 in the United States before we moved abroad and consistently for the whole time we’ve been living in Europe and the UK for 2018).

Now, we are housesitting experts, and we wrote a book teaching you how to be one, too.

What is a Digital Nomad Family?

July 17, 2018 By Kristen Suzanne

What is a digital nomad family? And can you be one, too?

Let’s simply break it apart:

Digital:

Being a “digital” nomad family means: we make a living by digital means. Generally, we use our laptops to make money. Specifically, I write books and I write this blog. Greg writes and illustrates children’s books, plus he works as a business/marketing strategist with clients. That latter is phasing out a bit, so sometimes he takes on biz consulting clients and sometimes all his time is spent on books. He is also the man behind helping me maintain my website and my general tech support. (If this way of making money isn’t you, then stay tuned as I share on my blog exactly how we’re doing it, so you can, too.)

Nomad:

We move around the world. I expect we’ll be trying different areas of the world for many years since there is so much to see. Then, we’ll note our favorite places and find ourselves living there for longer periods of time. (I’ll share everything we’re learning along the way from picking places, finding places to stay, and traveling to and from. I’ll also share what I did wrong this first year so you can learn from my mistakes.)

Family:

We’re a family of three. I’m in my early 40s. Greg his early 50s. Our daughter started this journey when she was seven. (Future blog posts: How do we handle being around each other so much (noise-cancelling headphones anyone? just kidding) What about school? Do I ever want to pull my hair out? What about the family we left behind? How do I manage to work, travel, and care for my family all at the same time?)

That’s our life in a nutshell.

We move around the world and make a living anywhere, so long as we have a laptop (or iPhone/iPad) and an Internet connection. But, obviously, there’s so much more than that! And, that’s where this blog comes in.

Now that you know what a digital nomad family is, we can get started with exploring our daily lives and how we are doing it everything from:

Where we live
How we get there
What challenges we overcome
What we eat to stay healthy and fit
What we do about school for our daughter
How we handle family that is back home
What we did with all of our stuff
Health insurance
Finances and banking

And so much more!

That’s just a sampling of topics to come! Stay tuned and stay in touch with me on Twitter!

We’re a Digital Nomad Family & You Can Be One, Too!

July 17, 2018 By Kristen Suzanne

Eiffel Tower digital nomad family — Dreams coming true at the Eiffel Tower.

Do you dream of living in another part of the world?

Ever thought about what it would be like to live a digital nomad life or be a digital nomad family?

Well, listen up!

Because… you can do this.

It’s time for a change.

I’m living all over the world with my family. This is no family vacation though. No! We sold it all to live around the world and be a digital nomad family. (And, you can be one, too.)

We are happily homeless. :)

As I write this, we’re in gorgeous Wales, UK. We’ll be living in Southampton, England in August. In September, we will be living in France for a few weeks.

We’re loving our new life.

A famous travel writer, Ibn Battuta, said the following:

“Traveling, first it leaves you speechless and then turns you into a storyteller.”

And, that’s the future of my blog.

I’m bursting with stories to share about our travels so that you can do this, too! I’ve learned so much and continue to learn every day. You will discover how in the hell we ended up doing this, because it’s an amazing life that you can live, too.

Our love of travel, change, exploring, learning, and our desire to give our daughter the best possible future ever(!) drove our decision. We took a huge leap, and we wake up every day bursting with happiness and excitement because we’re living the dream.

Traveling Just Got Easier

June 21, 2018 By Kristen Suzanne

Digital nomad couple — Enjoying a pub in England as a digital nomad couple.

I had an exciting moment last week while traveling.

We were on our second trip coming from England to France on the Eurostar train. From the moment we entered St. Pancras train station in London, I felt a tiny bit of familiarity.

I’d been there before. I knew where I was going, and I knew what to do. However, I hadn’t appreciated it in the moment, because it didn’t really dawn on me. That would be later.

I remembered the first time we went there we didn’t give ourselves extra time, and getting through security was a tad stressful with so many unknowns. After finally getting through to the waiting area, we found it was already crowded with not much room to unload our heavy bags and relax.