The Life of a Digital Nomad: Housesitting for a Friend & Leaving Canada

Last month started in Montreal and ended in the Austrian Alps.

June 1, I woke up on my red-eye flight to Montreal. I then squeezed in a city brunch with other nomadic friends who happened to be there too, before getting picked up by my good friend Gen, who drove me to her new home in the Cantons-de-l'est.

Discovering a new part of Quebec

I settled in her country home for almost 3 weeks, looking after my favourite dog in the world, Yukon, and catching up with my friend when she wasn't away working.

It was an early summer, the sun was hot, the days long. It was great. And I was able to go to Quebec City for a few days to catch up with family, and attend my niece's 5th birthday.

Being a nomad with a base on the other side of the country means I miss a lot of family events. I tend to prioritize Christmas over any other time of the year. So this was the first birthday I attended since my niece and nephew were born. It was worth it. I genuinely felt they were both happy to see me, and I felt lucky to be in their lives.

I flew back to the West Coast on June 19, worked from the city the next day and drove to the mountains for the weekend. I had a great plan to spend a couple days in Squamish and then my workweek back on Bowen island... but I knew there was something odd happening with my Jeep and well, let's just say nothing went according to plan.

Yukon, my niece and me at tea time

The Jeep problem was bigger than I had hoped, was more expensive than I could technically afford, and had me go back to the garage a couple times as it wasn't all fixed the first time.

So my anticipated 5 days on Bowen turned into 36 hours. I was stressed to get everything organized in time for my upcoming Europe trip. Stressed to be overstaying my welcome in the crowded Squamish house. Stressed about racking up my credit card to save my Jeep, my only real home.

But as with all stressful events, I survived. And kinda thrived. I left my little island on the morning of the 27th for an in-person work day in Vancouver, then ran last minute city errands in preparation for my trip, and slept about 5 hours to make it to the airport for the first morning flight.

My friend Vicky and I were flying stand by and everything was looking great. Until it wasn't. And we almost didn't make it on. And we learned that the later flight got cancelled so we almost got stuck in Vancouver. And once in Toronto, we found out my checked back didn't make it and wouldn't follow us to Vienna until the next day. So 24 hours late. It had all my hiking gear, and some of Vicky's. Damn.

Disclaimer: My flight from Montreal back to Vancouver was already booked (and non-refundable) when I planned my Europe adventure. I am fully aware of my added environmental impact. But I decided to keep my flight nevertheless to attend a work event and facilitate connections with my travel buddy from Vancouver to Vienna.

Once in Vienna, we had to come up with a plan B. It was already June 29 and we were meant to start hiking on the 30th. All our huts were booked. We couldn't delay...

So we booked a hotel in the city centre, visited Princess Sissi's museum, went to a ballet-opera-orchestra show and rushed back to the airport in the morning to grab my bag. This is how to turn a negative into a positive! It was a long train journey to Innsbruck and getting there was just one part of the puzzle.

We still had to find the hotel we booked for after the hike, repack, change, store the stuff we didn't need, and figure out transport to the trailhead. It was getting so late, I emailed the hut about our arrival, to make sure they would keep some dinner for us (they replied that they never let anyone go to bed hungry!). Halfheartedly, we opted to catch the gondola that would then take us to a chairlift and shorten our walk down to 45min. It was cheating, but it was also already 4pm.

The first hut, Jun 30

On the way there, I couldn't visualize our plan and I wondered why... A quick Google search confirmed that the last gondola ride up was at 4.30pm. It was about 4.25 and we were still on the train! So in a split second, just in time, we were able to get off the train early and get to the trailhead (different spot than the gondola). We walked out into a thunderstorm. The train had already ascended into the mountains and the 30 degrees we felt in Innsbruck now felt like 16!

It was an interesting start to our adventure, and there wasn't any cheat head start after all. After hiking 1117m up the mountain, we arrived at the hut happy, hungry, and excited for our week ahead in the Karwendel range, Tyrol. 🏔