Nomad year 2022 – Road trips and house-sitting
Happy New Year 2023! In early January it’s always a good time to look back and summarize the past year, as well as to make plans for the new one. In our case, it means a summary post of our nomadic travels, expenses, work and revenues as well as sports. Nomad year 2022 was our fifth full year as digital nomads, and third in a row traveling almost only in Europe.
In the summary of the year 2021, we hoped that in 2022 we’d finally get back on track with visiting new countries and that we’d stay at least over the winter overseas, but here we still are, on our home continent. 2022 was a good year though, filled with road trips and pet-sitting, as well as exploring some new corners of Europe and Turkey.
In this post:
Winter in Spain and a visit to Finland
Road trip to the Balkans and exploring Serbia in May
Summer in Bulgaria
Road trip in Turkey in autumn
Road trip in Puglia, Italy and return to Andalusia
Travel statistics 2022
Costs and revenues 2022
FinnsAway travel blog and our other blogs
Sports and activities 2022
How does 2023 look like?
Winter in Spain and a visit to Finland
We started the year 2022 in our home country Finland, where we were on a short New Year visit after a house-sit in Riga in December 2021. We left our camper van in Finland and hopped in a plane (!) in early January. Flying for the first time in almost two years felt a bit odd, times have been strange for sure. We flew to Malaga in Spain and settled in Torrox Costa for a couple of weeks, dog-sitting for our friends, like we did in previous winter too.
From Torrox we moved to neighboring Nerja for a few days, and visited the famous Nerja Caves, that indeed are amazing. Nerja is a beautiful small city by the coast, and also a good starting point for hikes or trail runs in the hilly Sierras de Tejeda, Almijara y Alhama Nature Park, in the canyon of the Rio Chillar and to the beautiful white village of Frigiliana. From Nerja we continued by buses to Murcia region, shortly visiting Granada and meeting with friends in Velez-Rubio on the way. In Murcia our destination was the coastal city of Cartagena.
Next we headed to the Autonomo of Valencia on the east coast of Spain. We stayed for a few days in charming Alicante, before a ten-days house-sit in small village near Gandia. We took care of three dogs and a parrot in this beautiful region full of orange groves, forested hills and old villages. House-sits are an important part of our travels nowadays, letting us live “like locals”, focusing more on working, but of course also exploring the surroundings.
After Gandia, we already had the next house-sit booked on the island of Mallorca, and before that we stayed a couple of days in Valencia City. In Valencia we explored the impressive old city center and visited Tyris, a local craft beer brewery.
We took a short flight from Valencia to Palma de Mallorca on Mallorca island. We stayed for a couple of days in Palma, exploring the city and admiring the stunning cathedral of it, before continuing to the village of Calvia for a one-week house-sit with two charming dogs. Our stay in Calvia was filled with work, but we also made several scenic trail runs. After the dog-sit we rented a car and headed to explore the island more – Mallorca turned our to be a very scenic island with a lot of stunning villages and beautiful coastline.
From Mallorca we continued by a ferry to Barcelona in late February, for two more house-sits – one in the city center with two dogs and another near Sitges with two beagles and a cat. Also these house-sits were busy with working and dog-walks, but we also got to explore new neighborhoods.
In early March, we returned to Barcelona, and met with a Finnish friend who came to the city for a holiday. We also made a craft beer tour in and around Barcelona, visiting several excellent microbreweries, brew-pubs and craft beer restaurants. Nowadays we work as craft beer journalists not just for our own craft beer blog, but also for a Finnish craft beer magazine, writing articles about breweries and the genre in general in different countries.
From Barcelona we flew back to Finland again, to work in Oulu Music Festival in our former home town, and to visit friends and family.
Road trip to the Balkans and exploring Serbia in May
In late April it was time to begin the next “season” of our FinnsAway nomadic life. We packed our stuff in the camper van, and started a road trip through eastern Europe. This time we drove super-quickly through the Baltic countries, and only stayed for a few days in Poland, where we re-visited Krakow after over 10 years, and also visited microbreweries Artezan and PINTA. It would have been nice to explore Slovakia a bit more, but as we had a house-sit agreed in Budapest, we needed to hurry through Slovakia to Hungary.
In Budapest we made a ten-days house-sit with yet another lovely dog-duo, staying in a very centrally located apartment. Spring was amazing time to visit this beautiful city (even if we missed the famous cherry blossom of Tóth Árpád promenade). Also in Budapest we continued our craft beer “investigations”, and visited microbreweries Horizont and Mad Scientist.
In May we drove to Belgrade, the lively capital of Serbia. We had only visited Belgrade very shortly before, over ten years ago, so it was time to get to know this historical city better. We had a pleasure to meet both local and Finnish friends who live in the city, and had great time exploring different corners of the city.
In late May we made a road trip in eastern Serbia, visiting some wonderful nature destinations as well as several historical sites. Highlights of the trip included castles like Golubac Fortress, nature destinations like Lazar’s Canyon and historical landmarks like Felix Romuliana. When staying in Niš, we were also happy to make friends with a lovely couple of fellow travelers.
Summer in Bulgaria
In the end of May we crossed the border from Serbia to Bulgaria, and headed to Belogradchik for a couple of days, to explore the unique conglomerate rock formations of the area, both from hiking trails and from the handsome ruins of the Belogradchik Fortress.
In the beginning of June we started a three-month house-sit in Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, that we had already visited a couple of times during our travels. We settled in Gorna Banya area outside the city center, in a huge house where we took care of one dog, five cats, chickens, pigeons, dozens of budgies and finches, as well as a big garden. It turned our to be a rather laborous house-sit, but on the other hand, at least we had something else to do than just work.
During our stay in Sofia we participated in Balkan Wine Festival and A-to-Jazz music festival, made a few walking tours exploring the city, hiked on top of Vitosha mountain and made a lot of trail runs around Gorna Banya and on the slopes of Vitosha. Oh and of course we also got to know the local craft beer scene and visited a lot of Sofia-based microbreweries and craft beer pubs.
When the house-sit in Sofia ended in the beginning of September, we headed to Rila Mountains for a three-days hike, and to Bansko, a skiing village by the Pirin mountains, that has grown to be also a popular base for digital nomads. Both of these mountain areas offer wonderful trails for hiking.
From Bansko we returned for a week to Serbia, to participate a craft beer festival in Niš and to meet with our friends. Already during our road trip in May, we had visited several Serbian microbreweries, like Dogma, Kabinet and Crow, and now we had a pleasure to meet them again, as well as to get to know several other small breweries. Serbia is a great craft beer country actually, with growing amount of breweries that are proud to brew quality beers.
Road trip in Turkey in autumn
In late September we drove through Bulgaria to Turkey, stopping in Plovdiv on the way. We had fell for Plovdiv during our previous visit back in 2017, and were happy to explore more and to see how the city has developed further. Plovdiv is a wonderful place really, full of history and amazing architecture.
From Plovdiv we drove to Istanbul, stopping on a small camping site in Sultanköy on the way. When planning a road trip in Turkey, Istanbul was an obvious stop, since we had never before had a chance to get to know this iconic city. We stayed in the Asian side of Istanbul, first cat-sitting in Üsküdar and then a couple days in more laid-back Kadiköy. We loved the scenic ferry rides over the Bosphorus, between Europe and Asia, walked around a lot on both sides and saw some of the must-see sights of the city.
After Istanbul we drove to small Amasra by the Black Sea in northern Turkey. Amasra is not super well-known internationally, but quite a famous holiday destination for many Turks. It’s a historical town built in very scenic surroundings, and, with not so much to do and not so many people, it felt very calming after the hustle and bustle of Istanbul.
From Amasra we headed south to visit the city of Safranbolu, a historical caravan stop by the Silk Road, famous for Ottoman architecture and saffron flowers. Then we stopped for a couple of days in Ankara, to see what the capital of Turkey is like. Ankara turned out to be more historical than we thought, with an old citadel, historical Ottoman quarters and even some Roman era ruins. It’s also a culture city, where the characteristics of the cultures of different parts of the country meet.
From Ankara we drove to the amazing Cappadocia area, where we settled for a few days in Göreme. This small village, turned into a tourism hub, is the place where the famous hot air balloon flights depart, every morning at sunrise. We did amazing trail runs in the stunning valleys around Göreme, admiring the “fairy chimney” towers and other rock formations.
The next stage of the road trip was to drive to the south coast and follow it towards west, exploring the ruins of some historical Lycian cities on the way and enjoying the amazing coastal views. We drove via Konya to Antalya, and from there followed the Turquoise Coast, stopping for a night or two in Göynük, Adrasan Beach and in Kaş. We also did two house-sits in southwestern Turkey, one in a small village above Fethiye and another near beautiful Dalyan.
On the way towards Greece in mid November, we stopped in the famous ancient city of Ephesus. We had seen quite some ancient cities in Turkey before that, but this one really amazed us – Ephesus is simply stunning! It once was one of the largest and most important cities in the ancient Mediterranean world, and the comprehensive ruins include some wonderful Hellenistic and Roman sites.
From Ephesus we continued to Izmir, and then drove via Çanakkale back to European side, and then to Alexandroupoli in Greece. This time we didn’t have much time for exploring Greece, so we just stayed for a couple of days in Thessaloniki, stopped to see the Edessa waterfalls and then crossed the border to Albania. We stayed for a night by Lake Ohrid, before driving to Dürres to take a ferry to Bari in Italy.
Road trip in Puglia, Italy and return to Andalusia
Even if we have been in Italy for several times, we had never explored the southernmost parts of the country, except for Sicily. So now the plan was to make a road trip in Puglia (Apulia) region in the “heel of the boot”. And oh boy that area is lovely, filled with charming small villages and stunning historical towns. In addition to Bari, we visited Gioia del Colle, Alberobello, Locorotondo, Ostuni, Lecce and Gallipoli, all of them wonderful places but also very different from each other.
After the “beautiful towns of Puglia” tour (and yes, we know that there is still so many that we didn’t visit!), we settled for a few days in tiny Ruggiano village near the southernmost tip of the “heel” of Italy. From there we explored the coastline and made some scenic runs in the middle of olive groves and through the neighboring villages. On our way back north, we stopped for a night in Taranto, but couldn’t explore this historical city much due to heavy rain.
The next stop on our road trip was the stunning town of Matera, in Basilicata region right next to Puglia. This small town, especially famous for the picturesque Sassi area, a complex of cave dwellings carved into the mountainside, has become more and more popular after being one of filming locations of the latest 007 movie No Time to Die. In November the town was actually surprisingly quiet, and we got to explore the streets of Sassi almost by ourselves.
From Matera we drove to rainy Naples and continued to Formia to meet with our dear Finnish friends, who had come to Italy on their holiday trip to southern Europe. After the four-days joyful reunion, we then took a ferry from Civitavecchia port to Barcelona in Spain. For the winter months, we had promised to go again back to Andalusia, to make a long house-sit for our friends. So we drove quickly through eastern Spain to Malaga region, and settled in Torrox Costa in early December. We’ll stay here until February, focusing on working but also enjoying the nature, warm weather and sunny skies of this area that advertises itself with the slogan “best climate in Europe”.
Travel statistics 2022
Visited countries: 14, no new countries
Ways of traveling:
– 3 flights
– roughly 14 000 kilometers road tripping with our own van
– 4 long distance ferry trips
– several bus trips in Spain
– some local transportation in several countries.
Accommodation:
– 201 nights house-sitting
– 73 nights in apartments, guesthouses or hostels
– 57 nights with family or friends
– 26 nights in our camper van (mostly in camping sites)
– 5 free nights related to collaborations or work
– 3 nights overnight traveling (ferries / airport)
Costs and revenues of nomad year 2022
Below is the summary graph of all the costs of our life during the year 2022. We traveled around more than in 2021 (when there was still a lot of Covid-19 related travel restrictions), but still stayed most of the year in Europe. It was another budget-friendly year when it comes to costs of living, since the total costs were less than 15 000 € for two people. Let’s take a look at what this sum consists of.
Accommodation costs sum up to 2 094 €, which is on average 21,36 € for us two per night (excluding all free-of-charge accommodation of course). As described above in the travel statistics, we stayed altogether 201 nights house-sitting (free of charge), so the total accommodation costs of the year were again pretty low. For finding house-sits, we mostly use Trusted Housesitters platform (join with this link and get a 25 % discount!).
Grocery costs, that include all the food and drinks (also wine and craft beer) bought from grocery stores during the year, sum up to 4 809 €, which is on average 13,18 € per day for us two. Restaurant costs were altogether 2 629 € (7,20 € per day). This is a lot more than in 2021 (when Covid-19 restrictions still limited things a lot), but still not super high, since we don’t eat out a lot. Also, it’s worth noticing that more than half of the restaurant costs are alcohol, mostly craft beer – it’s our (nice but quite expensive) hobby to taste local brews in craft beer pubs wherever we go!
Traveling costs, altogether 2 659 € (7,28 € per day), consist of fuel (1 340 €), ferry tickets (455 €) and flights (277 €), rental cars (90 €), bus&train tickets in Spain (200 €) and some occasional parking costs, road taxes and local transport like metro tickets. Other costs, altogether 1 525 €, include (sports) clothes, (running) shoes, camping gear and accessories (total 926,76 €), and all small purchases like housing goods, cosmetics, toiletries and presents, as well as entrance fees to attractions and ATM fees for example. As nomads we are minimalists in that sense, that we don’t buy anything unnecessary and we don’t go shopping just for fun.
In addition to these costs of traveling and living abroad, we have the so called Yearly Costs category, altogether 1 153 € in 2022. This sum consists of insurance costs (in total 796,46 €), car taxes (122,85 €), phone bills (144,47 €) and the Trusted Housesitters member fee. Also, there is a yearly category called Equipment, that in 2022 only included small equipment purchases, like a router, headphones and some cords, altogether 118 €.
Adding up everything together, the price tag of our nomad year was 14 987 € for us two, which is on average 1 249 € per month or 41,06 € per day for the 2 of us. For more detailed cost information, check out also our monthly cost summaries and travel cost posts from different countries on the Finances page.
On the revenue side, we received salary income through our company, for business development, web-development, international sales & marketing and content creation work that we did mostly for Finnish companies and from working for the Oulu Music Festival. In addition, we also got rental income of our apartment in Finland. In total the yearly revenues sum up to around 35 000 € (for the two of us).
FinnsAway travel blog and our other blogs
2022 was second super quiet year for this FinnsAway travel blog site. We only published a handful of new posts – somehow it has been very hard to find time for this blog, even if we’d have SO much travel stories to tell. FinnsAway has been more active in social media, since we have been publishing a lot of travel related content on our Facebook page as well as in our Instragram account. Maybe in the future we’ll turn the website itself to be focused more on digital nomad life, and post about travel destinations mostly in social media. But let’s see, in any case we need to pay more attention to this site, editing old posts and developing the site itself.
Most read posts in 2022
The list of most popular posts in FinnsAway blog has remained quite stable for the past couple of years. In general, our hiking related content reaches a lot of readers, and several posts about Cyprus are popular year after year. The vast majority of readers come to the blog via Google searches.
In addition to FinnsAway blog, we write posts in our Craft Beer Nomads blog, a site that is focused on microbreweries and craft beer culture in general in different countries. The beer blog has been way more active than FinnsAway, since we have made a lot of brewery visits and share introductions of microbreweries in the blog. We also have an active Finnish blog for our followers in Finland, Elämää Nomadina, a site that is focused on our story as nomadic travelers, including informative articles about this lifestyle as well as a travel diary. In addition, we have a (rather inactive) site dedicated to house-sitting, Nomad Housesitters.
Sports and activities 2022
We want to live active life and do sports to help us to stay healthy and to keep fit. For 2022 we had set an ambitious target to run 2 000 kilometers during the year, including at least one half marathon each month. We managed to run on average nearly 170 kilometers per month, altogether 2022 km during the year (and yes it actually was a coincidence that the amount is same than the year) and we did indeed run 12 half marathons too. That’s a lot of running and trail running, let’s see if we are going to continue the same level this year.
During the summer in Sofia we had a gym room in use, and did quite a lot weight training. We also at times went to outdoor gyms, went cross-country skiing when in Finland, made one longer hike (55 km in three days in Rila Mountains) and a couple of shorter day hikes and walked quite a lot, also with dogs when house-sitting. So yes, it was a sporty year, but maybe still too unilateral, mainly focused on running. So in 2023, more body weight training and stretching needed, or maybe yoga or something!
For more sports statistics, check out our monthly activity summaries on the Sports page.
How does 2023 look like?
We started the year in Spain, and after a couple of months here in Andalusia, we most probably will fly to Finland to again work in the Oulu Music Festival in March. After that, our plans are pretty much open for the whole year. If we’ll leave our van in Spain, we of course need to pick it up, so maybe we will make another road trip in Europe in late spring / early summer. We also have a wedding in Finland in early August that we can’t miss, so that means another trip to our home country.
We have been longing to go overseas for quite some time now, so I think that finally in the autumn we’ll leave Europe behind for a few months at least, but we haven’t decided whether we are going to go to South-East Asia or to South America, or maybe to Africa? In any case, we want to explore some new, more tropical destinations. As usual, our work will travel with us, but we’ll also try to take some time off – as a digital nomad and an entrepreneur it can be very challenging to be on a real holiday, even if many people seem to think that we are on a never-ending vacation. But anyway, we hope that 2023 will be a great year full of travels, and hopefully we’ll stay healthy and happy!
Thank you for following our journey, and have a wonderful New Year 2023!
Read also the previous summaries:
Nomad year 2021
Nomad year 2020
Nomad year 2019
Nomad year 2018
and Discounts
