A 10-Year Nomadic Lifestyle: How Housesitting Helped 2 Nomads Travel France

What does it really take to live a nomadic lifestyle for 10 years? For Linda and Mark, the answer has included becoming housesitters, remote work, slow travel and a determination to experience life beyond the traditional home base. After years of travelling through France and beyond, the couple have discovered that housesitting can offer something hotels and short-term rentals cannot: the chance to live in real homes, care for pets, meet local people and experience a place as more than a tourist.

The 10-Year Nomadic Lifestyle: How to Trade Your Rent for a Life on the Road

The view from a corporate desk is often limited to the next two-week vacation, a carrot dangled at the end of a long, fluorescent-lit stick. This professional “stuckness” feeds the myth that world travel is a luxury reserved for the ultra-wealthy or the retired. In reality, the “slow movement” has democratized global exploration for a growing community of 30 to 50 million digital nomads.

By shifting from a tourist mindset to a lifestyle strategist, it is possible to live more vibrantly on the road than in a fixed apartment. After 10 years on the road, we discovered that housesitting was an affordable way to travel while getting closer to the communities we visited.

How Housesitting Makes a Nomadic Lifestyle More Affordable

The economics of traditional travel are designed for consumers, but long-term success requires becoming a provider of care. Platforms like HouseSit Match flip the script, allowing travellers to exchange home and pet care for high-quality accommodation. Instead of haemorrhaging funds on nightly hotel rates, nomads can secure a year of housing for the price of a single administrative fee.

For the cost of one night accommodation in a hotel you can get an entire years membership and find opportunities to help and immerse yourself in a community while getting a glimpse of someone else way of life. It really expands your mind because each experience gives you more information about the world around you.

This particular French housesit came through HouseSit Match, connecting Linda and Mark with homeowners who needed trusted care for their home and pets while they were away.

This strategy of house sitting effectively deletes the “rent” column from a monthly budget, freeing up capital for better opportunities, more meaningful travel and deeper experiences. The annual cost of accessing this global network is surprisingly low, making the barrier to entry almost non-existent for those willing to embrace responsibility. It is a fundamental shift from paying for a bed to earning a home.

“For an £89 annual housesitters joining fee, that’s like less than the price of one night in a hostel… you can do a year’s worth of accommodation for nothing.”

The “Pool Guy” Effect: Finding the Soul of a Place

Traditional tourism encourages “skimming over the top,” where travellers collect landmarks but never truly engage with the community. Slow travel demands “deep immersion,” staying in a village long enough to witness the unscripted rhythm of local life. Whether it is chatting with the “pool guys” during a routine maintenance visit or meeting neighbours with decades of local history, these interactions provide the true value of the journey.

In a small French village, this depth might mean visiting a local café and learning exactly where the SS used to sit during the occupation. You might find yourself reading Moondrop to Gascony, the memoir of a young female resistance officer, while standing on the very ground where she coordinated secret landings. This is “getting into the skin” of a place, a sensation that no guided tour can replicate.

The Office is Everywhere (Even by a River in Cognac)

The modern remote work reality is far more kinetic than a home office, as demonstrated by the founders of Nomad Stays. Business is no longer tethered to a desk; it happens while sitting on a riverbank in Cognac or navigating the backroads of Europe on a motorbike. With a reliable internet connection, high-level strategy calls can be conducted from virtually anywhere the “footloose and fancy-free” nomadic lifestyle takes you.

While entrepreneurs often work seven days a week, the trade-off is the immediate proximity to intellectual and sensory stimulation. You might finish a video meeting with a tech start-up and immediately walk into a historic Hennessy brandy factory and riding through the vineyards and take in fields of sunflowers in full bloom. This “always-on” state is balanced by the thrill of the new, ensuring that work feels less like a grind and more like a part of the adventure. And housesitting abroad makes our nomadic lifestyle even more exciting.

“If you have that footloose and fancy-free position as a digital nomad, actually you are wherever you work… there’s excitement there, it’s more stimulating.”

Serendipity vs. The Algorithm

Technology facilitates the logistics—using AI tools like Perplexity for market research or Claude for content—but it cannot manufacture human connection. This was evident when a traveller’s car computer literally melted in 44-degree heat because European cars aren’t built to “Australian standards.”

This mishap led to the discovery of Blah Blah Car, a ride-sharing app or taking the opportunity to house sit via these platforms opens you up to experiencing more for less.

True travel joy is found in the serendipity that an app cannot schedule, such as an hour-long chat with a Dutch neighbour who spent his life working in Africa. These human moments are often supported by proactive local communities, like the tiny French village where a mayor secured a €750,000 grant to build a centre for music and community mending. While AI makes the journey smoother, the “skin” of the world remains stubbornly, and beautifully, human. And perhaps that is the unique gift of travel: the people you meet along the way.

The Extended Family of “Prince Luca”

Full-time travel can sometimes feel sterile, especially when moving between empty holiday rentals or impersonal hotels. Niche platforms solve this emotional void by reintroducing the warmth of animals into the nomad’s life. Caring for “Prince Luca,” a regal Burmese cat who requires walking on a leash, provides a sense of purpose and a bridge to the local culture.

These animals act as an “extended family,” preventing the traveller from feeling like a ghost in someone else’s home. Whether the cat is causing a ruckus near an expensive Asian vase or demanding a walk, these quirks create a “non-sterile” environment. It transforms a temporary stay into a lived experience, providing the domestic comfort necessary to sustain a decade on the road.

“You don’t want to go into a sterile place all the time… you want to go to somewhere where there’s a family and… the pet connection becomes an extended family for us as we’re traveling.”

Could Housesitting Be Your Route to a More Nomadic Lifestyle?

The world is significantly smaller and more accessible than it appears from behind a corporate desk. In Australia, a three-hour drive might only get you to the next town for a pizza, but in Europe, a two-hour trip can land you in a different country with a different language. This density makes it easier than ever to “slice your life with your travels,” integrating your profession with your passions.

Ultimately, the nomadic lifestyle is a series of strategic choices rather than a financial impossibility. With community grants revitalizing rural villages and affordable transport apps bridging the gaps, the only real barrier is perspective. Why wait for a brief annual holiday when you can choose to live your life exactly where your curiosity takes you? Furthermore, by giving your time to take care of someone else’s pets and house you feel useful and make great friends all around the world.

Forget expensive hotels and help out a family by housesitting. It is slow travel at its most rewarding: living in a place, caring for a home and becoming part of everyday life.

BIO

Linda McCall is the co‑founder and CMO of Nomad Stays, an adventure nomadic lifestyle entrepreneur who has been living as a digital nomad for over a decade. An ex‑Australian airline industry professional turned start-up mentor, she has travelled to more than 70 countries, ridden solo by motorcycle across three continents, and now calls France home while building the global travel‑tech platform NomadStays.

Further Reading

At HouseSit Match we like to share useful blogs and practical advice about housesitters, housesitting and pet sitting. We hope you find this small selection of our blogs useful, including this one the nomadic lifestyle useful.

Top 10 Housesitting Protocols for First Time Homeowners

Housesitters keep pets safe at home and save money

What a housesitter does – Top 10 responsibilities

Top 10 tips for catsitting

Top dogsitting tips for beginners

The Affordable Alternative to Dog Kennels

What is House Sitting?