Thelife
Natalia Lusinski
Natalia Lusinski in Switzerland.
- I bought a one-way ticket to Switzerland to work as a goat-sitter after my grandmother's death.
- Soon, I learned that sometimes the most spontaneous decisions we make turn out to be the best ones.
- As a result of that one-way ticket, I've been traveling the world as a digital nomad for more than 18 months.
In January 2017, I moved to Switzerland for a goat. Actually, two goats. My best friend, my grandma, had died a few months prior, and I needed to get away from big-city life - there were countless reminders of her at every turn.
When I saw a Facebook post about a woman needing a goat-sitter in the middle of the Swiss Alps, nothing but mountains and silence around, I was in. She wanted a "digital nomad," so that the person could work remotely between goat responsibilities. In exchange, she'd offer free housing. Since I was already remote writer, it was perfect.
When my grandma's heart stopped beating in 2016, it felt like mine did, too; I figured the goats would be the perfect antidote to my grief. In January 2017, I bought a one-way ticket to Switzerland, via Iceland - little did I know that it would change my life.
As promised, the goat-sitting house was surrounded by the Swiss Alps and looked like a farmhouse version of a Barbie Dreamhouse. The snow-capped mountains were so beautiful, they looked like someone had drawn them into the flat landscape.
However, looks can be deceiving; it turned out that goat-sitting wasn't as serene as advertised. The farmhouse was unheated and I lived in the attic - I felt like Cinderella. I spent a lot of time shoveling (the goats didn't like snow, and there was a lot of it). As a result, my carpal tunnel became so bad that I could barely type, let alone chop firewood - another thing I needed to do for work.
It also seemed that the goats needed a full-time nanny more than a sitter, and my main focus had to be my remote writing jobs. Plus, one goat loved ramming his horns into my thighs, leaving me with purple bruises as souvenirs.
I was supposed to keep the job for two or three months, but 12 days later, I retired from goat-sitting. However, I discovered one important thing: I didn't need to goat-sit to sustain my digital nomad life. Instead, I decided to explore more cities in Switzerland, and then change countries every month or so. Along the way, I learned several lessons, including the following: