Nomad year 2023 – From Europe to Africa
Happy New Year 2024! It’s again the time of the year 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 & revenues and sports. 2023 was our sixth full year as digital nomads, and after three years of traveling almost only in Europe, 2023 took us to new destinations.
In the summary of the year 2022, we wrote that “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?”. And so it happened, that since August 2023 we have been exploring new countries in East Africa!
In this post:
House-sitting and road trips in Spain
Spring in Spain and Portugal
Road trip from Spain to Finland
Via Doha to Kenya
Game drives and white beaches in Kenya
Visiting Uganda and Rwanda
Tour in Zambia, Botswana and Zimbabwe
December in Kenya
Travel statistics 2023
Costs and revenues 2023
FinnsAway travel blog and our other blogs
Sports and activities 2023
How does 2024 look like?
House-sitting and road trips in Spain
We rang in the new year 2023 in Andalusia, Spain. We were (once again, this was fourth time already!) staying in Torrox Costa, house-sitting for our friends, who were on a holiday trip in India. This time we were not just taking care of our old friend Pate-the-dog, but also his new cute “little sister” Piña, as well as a flock of chickens and a duck. All the animals lived on a small “ranch”, an orchard about three kilometers from the apartment. We visited the ranch twice a day, and in addition to feeding the animals, we took care of watering the avocado, mango and banana trees. Natural benefits of this sit included a daily harvest of eggs and picking delicious avocados to eat.
The house-sit tied us to staying put in Torrox Costa, which is a lovely, but in mid February it was time to explore again. We made a road trip by our small camper van in western Andalusia, visiting some beautiful nature destinations like El Torcal de Antequera nature park and several beautiful old towns and villages in Cádiz region. The higlights included for example exploring Setenil de las Bodegas, Arcos de la Frontera, Jerez de la Frontera, and visiting a lovely local brewery called Malandar in Rota.
Rota was the westernmost point of this road trip, and from there we returned towards Malaga region, mostly along the coast line. We stopped in some lovely (but very quiet on Feb) surf villages, like El Palmar de Vejer, and visited Vejer de la Frontera, Tarifa, Castillo de Castellar and Gibraltar on the way to east.
In late Feb to early March we stopped for a week in charming Estepona, a coastal town on the Costa del Sol. We made there another house-sit, taking care of Eddy, a gigantic dog that loved to go for walks and otherwise just to sleep and eat of course.
From Estepona we drove back to Torrox Costa, left our van there for a few weeks, and flew from Malaga to Finland. The main purpose of this visit was to work in Oulu Music Festival in our former home town, and to visit friends and family. A visit to Finland in March / April has been a yearly tradition during the whole nomadic life actually, except for 2021, when the festival was streamed and we worked from Spain, helping with organizing the stream concerts.
Spring in Spain and Portugal
After a few weeks in Finland it was time to continue our journey in southern Europe. We flew back to Spain to reunite with our camper van, but as flights to Malaga were rather expensive, we decided to fly to Alicante instead, and traveled from there by buses to Torrox Costa. On the way we visited Almeria, a new city for us. Almeria turned out to be a nice town, with a handsome Alcazaba fortress looming above it.
After a short meet-up with our friends (and furry / feathery friends) in Torrox Costa, it was time for more “vanlife”, a new road trip in Spain and Portugal. We started by driving to Benalmadena to meet with our Finnish friends and blogger colleagues who where staying there as part of a longer trip. After this joyful meetup we headed north to Córdoba, another new city for us in Andalusia. We had heard a lot of good things about Córdoba, and it really is a stunning city with a lot of historical sights and beautiful old alleys!
From Córdoba we drove to Portugal in the beginning of May, and made a month-long road trip in central and northern parts of the country. We also did three house-sits on the way, taking care of adorable dogs near Lisbon and in Foz do Arelho by the Atlantic coast, and a cat in Porto.
During the road trip we explored a bunch of beautiful towns and villages. We started from Elvas by the Spanish border, then shortly re-visited Lisbon and followed the coast north from there, shortly visiting Ericeira (and the Mean Sardine brewery in there) and Peniche.
Then we turned inland to visit the historical cities of Tomar and Coimbra. Tomar is best known as the home of the Convento de Cristo and Tomar Castle, a medieval castle-monastery complex that is one of the finest national monuments of the country. Also Coimbra is a medieval town, famous for the old, UNESCO listed University of Coimbra.
From Coimbra we continued to Foz do Douro and Porto, and then further north to Braga. During this road trip in Portugal, one of our targets was to get to know the craft beer culture of the country, and we visited several interesting microbreweries and a lovely craft beer festival. Jump to Craft Beer Nomads blog to read about beer culture and microbreweries in Portugal!
The last destinations in Portugal were the handsome Peneda-Geres National Park and Ponte de Lima in the northernmost part of the country. In the national park we enjoyed the fresh mountain air on the trails and visited some old, sleepy villages. The visit to Ponte de Lima was short, but we loved the vibe of this small town by Limia river.
Road trip from Spain to Finland
In early June we started the long drive from the Iberian Peninsula all the way across Europe to Finland. We took our time to explore interesting places on the way though, starting from the most northwestern autonomous community of Spain, Galicia, famous for stunning coastline and the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela. Highlights of our tour in Galicia included towns like Santiago, Pontedeume and Viveiro and exploring the famous, absolutely stunning Playa de las Cathedrales beach, known for cathedral-like rock formations.
Continuing east, we drove through the autonomous communities of Asturias and Cantabria, and visited some beautiful beaches on the way. Unfortunately we didn’t have time to go hiking to Picos de Europa National Park this time, but we should return for more hikes in that amazing area!
Also the drive through the Basque Country was this time rather quick. We shortly re-visited Bilbao and Ondarroa, and stopped to admire the Butron Castle. Furthermore, we continued our craft beer tour by visiting Laugar brewery near Bilbao and Bidassoa Basque Brewery in Irun, next to French border.
In France we headed towards Dijon, shortly visiting Limoges on our way. Dijon may be best known for the famous Dijon mustard, but it’s also home to a bunch of sights from along its long history, including Notre Dame de Dijon church, Dijon Cathedral and the Palace of the Dukes and the States of Burgundy.
Alsace region by the German border has during the years become very dear to us, and again we had a chance to stay there for a while, in our friends’ house in Gueberschwihr. This area is famous for wine routes and medieval towns and villages with lovely, half-timbered houses. During our stay we had to mostly focus on work, but we did explore some new villages for us, like Riquewihr.
The drive through Germany in early July was fast, and we only stopped for a while to visit some castles and villages by the Rhine River on our way north. In northern Germany we visited Wismar, a coastal down known for its well-preserved medieval buildings and with history as a Hanseatic town.
To get to the Nordic Countries, we took a ferry from Sassnitz in Germany to Rønne on Bornholm, a Danish island in the Baltic Sea. We made a road trip around this idyllic island and visited local microbreweries on our way.
Another ferry took us from Bornholm to lovely Ystad in southern Sweden. In Sweden the plan was to combine exploring new towns and cities with visiting microbreweries. And that’s what we did, heading first to Malmö and Malmö Brewing co, and then Gothenburg and Jonsered.
Sadly, we didn’t have enough time to travel slowly, but hurried through the southern part of Sweden to Uppsala and Stockholm. We stayed for a day exploring Uppsala, and then visited Omnipollo Brewery near Stockholm. It would’ve been great to stay for at least a couple of days in Stockholm, but since we were kind of on the clock, we took a ferry to Finland after a very short visit.
We don’t usually visit our home country twice a year, but another visit this summer visit was a must. We had Toni’s sisters wedding to attend to, as well as birthday parties and work-related things too. It was great to be in Finland during summer, and we had nice time visiting friends and family.
Via Doha to Kenya
In August it was time for new adventure abroad, this time without our camper van. After several years traveling mostly just in Europe, we finally headed to new countries overseas! A lot is happening in Africa related to our work with a Finnish startup company Manna Insect, and we headed to East Africa for a combined business-study and leisure trip. The best way to get to Kenya was to fly with Qatar Airways, and we made a two-day stopover in sizzling hot Doha on our way to Nairobi.
The highlight of our visit to Doha was exploring the old parts of the city, especially Souq Waqif, a large, old market area with traditional buildings, shops, galleries and restaurants, as well as royal horse stables and a camel pen. In dusk we walked along the famous Corniche Promenade and admired the skyline during and after the sunset.
Game drives and white beaches in Kenya
We settled in Nairobi for the first 1,5 months in Africa, and it sort of became our new base. It’s a wonderful, bustling city, and a great hub for exploring Kenya and for flying elsewhere in East Africa. During the first weeks in Nairobi we made our first safari tours ever! We started from Nairobi National Park, located right next to the city. During a game drive in the park it’s possible to see wild animals with the Nairobi skyline or the Nairobi-Mombasa train track in the background. We saw a lot of wild animals during our morning game drive, including several lions!
In mid September we made a short holiday trip to the Kenyan coast, visiting Mombasa and Diani Beach. Already the train ride from Nairobi was wonderful, as we spotted a lot of elephants, giraffes and zebras on the way! Mombasa is a busy port town and the second largest city of Kenya. The most interesting part of the city is the Old Town, a maze of narrow alleys lined with partly dilapidated buildings from different eras.
Diani Beach is a popular beach holiday destination, but in September it was not busy, and we loved our walks along the quiet, white beaches, dipping into the turquoise Indian Ocean and eating and having cocktails in beach bars.
The second safari tour we made in Kenya was to Amboseli National Park, famous for large herds of elephants and stunning views of Mount Kilimanjaro. We made a two-day all inclusive tour from Nairobi, staying in a lodge right next to the park, and saw a bunch of wildlife, including a lot of elephants, during the two game drives in Amboseli.
Visiting Uganda and Rwanda
In October we traveled via Kisumu to Jinja and Kampala in Uganda. In Jinja, a city by the source of Nile River and Lake Victoria, we visited Furaha Home, a Finnish-funded home-like place for underprivileged and orphaned girls. In Kampala, the bustling capital of Uganda, our stay was mostly work-related, but we also explored the city a bit, and of course visited Banange Brewing, a local microbrewery.
From Kampala we continued to Ssese Islands in Lake Victoria. Ssese is an archipelago of all together 84 islands, and holds treasures like white beaches, tropical forests and wild animals like vervet monkeys, sitatunga antelopes and several rare bird species.
The next destination was Kigali, the surprisingly modern capital of Rwanda. We traveled there from Bugala island with a small ferry, shared taxi and minibuses, via Masaka, Mbarara and Katuna border. Kigali has been growing a lot, and big parts of the city have been rebuilt since the 1994 genocide. We walked a lot exploring the city, and visited the impressive, sad Kigali Genocide Memorial and mass graves.
From Kigali we continued west, to Kibuye on the shores of Lake Kivu. Lake Kivu actually is one of the three exploding lakes in the world, meaning that it’s known to undergo limnic eruptions. This is a rare natural disaster in which dissolved carbon dioxide, and in Lake Kivu’s case also methane, suddenly erupts from deep lake waters, forming a gas cloud capable of asphyxiating wildlife, livestock, and millions of people living in the surrounding valleys. Sounds terrifying, but at least for now the lake is in stable stage. After a few days in Kibuye we returned to Kigali, and traveled with long distance buses to Kampala and back to Nairobi.
Tour in Zambia, Botswana and Zimbabwe
In November it was time to head south, first to Zambia. We had a work-related project in Lusaka, the capital of Zambia, and stayed there altogether for around three weeks. We learned to like Lusaka, that is not as busy city as Nairobi and Kampala. One of the highlights of the stay was a visit to the Elephant Orphanage of Lusaka National Park. We got to see how the baby elephants were fed, and while watching they goofing around, we learned a lot about how elephant babies are saved, nurtured and slowly released back to wilderness.
From Lusaka we traveled by bus to Livingston, and from there visited the neighboring countries Botswana and Zimbabwe. These were very short visits, but we fell for the nature and wildlife on the shores of Zambezi and Chobe Rivers. In Botswana we saw a lot of baboons and warthogs just hanging around everywhere, and made a great boat safari in Chobe National Park. Chobe River is home to a huge amount of hippos, and we were lucky to see a lot of them, and other wildlife, during the boat ride.
In Zimbabwe our destination was the town of Victoria Falls, and of course the world-famous waterfalls next to it. It’s hard to even try to describe how beautiful sight those mighty waterfalls are, and it’s even harder try to capture them in pictures and videos, as they just don’t do justice to the actual beauty of the place. Our early morning visit was perfect, with very beautiful light and almost no other visitors, so for a while we were the only ones on the best viewpoints.
December in Kenya
After flying back to Nairobi from Lusaka, we stayed the last month of the year in Kenya. We settled again in Nairobi, and the city started to feel very familiar, in a good way. Before Christmas we made a few days trip to Naivasha and surroundings in the Great Rift Valley. It was an adventure trip that included two self-guided visits to national parks of the area. At first we hiked on top of Mount Longonot, a volcano in a national park by the same name. Longonot is a dormant volcano, with forest-filled crater and a hiking path going around the rim. A beautiful place, and on our way up we saw four giraffes!
The next day it was time for a bicycle safari, in Hells Gate National Park. Hells Gate in known for towering cliffs, deep gorges, steep rock towers and volcanoes. As there are no predators or elephants, the park can be explored by bike or on foot. We made a 25 km loop in the park and saw a lot of zebras, giraffes, antelopes, warthogs, baboons and birds. For the Christmas and New year we returned to Nairobi.
Travel statistics 2023
Visited countries: 14 in total, 7 new countries
Ways of traveling:
– 6 flights
– roughly 8000 kilometers with our camper van
– 3 long distance ferry trips
– 3 long distance train trips
– several long distance bus trips in Spain and East Africa
– a lot of local transportation by bus, uber etc. in East Africa
Accommodation:
– 112 nights in apartments, guest-houses or hostels (mostly via Booking.com and Airbnb)
– 83 nights related to business traveling
– 70 nights house-sitting
– 59 free nights with family or friends
– 37 nights in our camper van (camping sites / wild camping)
– 2 free nights related to collaboration
– 2 nights overnight traveling (bus / airport)
Costs and revenues of nomad year 2023
Below is the summary graph of all the costs of our life during the year 2023. We traveled the first half of the year with our van in Europa, and from August onwards in East Africa. It was another budget-friendly year, with total costs of less than 17 000 € for two people. Let’s take a look at what this sum consists of.
Accommodation costs sum up to 2 905,22 €, which is on average 21,36 € per night for those 136 nights that we paid for (so excluding all free-of-charge accommodation like house-sitting and business). Coincidentally, this average price per night is exactly the same than in 2022. As described above in the travel statistics, we stayed altogether 70 nights house-sitting, 83 nights related to work, and 59 nights with family and friends. Counting in also cost-free nights wild camping, collaborating and overnight traveling, we stayed altogether 229 nights free of charge, which is a lot, and thus the total accommodation costs of the year were again quite low.
Grocery costs, that include all the food and drinks (also quite a lot of wine and craft beer…) bought from supermarkets and other stores, sum up to 4 310,25 €, which is on average 11,81 € per day. It’s roughly 500 euros less than in 2022, when we traveled more in Europe. Restaurant costs were altogether 2 674,24 € (7,33 € per day). This is very close to the figure from 2022, even if in Africa we have eaten out way more often than in Europe. Also, it’s worth noticing that more than half of the restaurant costs are (again) alcohol drinks, mostly craft beer – it’s our nice but quite expensive hobby to taste local brews in craft beer pubs wherever we go!
Traveling (transportation) costs, altogether 2 714,22 € (7,44 € per day), consist of fuel (1 106,89 €), flights (455,64 €) bus and train tickets (479,15 €) ferry tickets (279,07 €), uber / other taxis (146,26 €), local transportation (179,44 €), and some occasional parking costs and road taxes. Furthermore, in this category there are visa costs of 56,13 € (visas to Zimbabwe). In addition to these travel costs that we paid ourselves, there were business related travel costs like flights and visas to Kenya, that were covered by our customer, so they are not listed here.
This year we added an new category called Tourism, for costs of adventures and entrance fees (previously these costs were listed under other costs). In 2023 we spent altogether 1 002,11 € for activities like safari tours in Kenya and tickets to Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe, to a boat tour on Chobe River in Botswana and Elephant Orphanage in Zambia. This is way more than we have used for adventures anywhere ever, but worth every penny!
Other costs, altogether 1 823,42 €, includes clothes and (running) shoes (617,48 €), presents (386,95 €), car repair and washing costs (179,30 €), healthcare costs (93,56 €), hairdressers (84 €) and all small purchases like cosmetics, toiletries, housing goods and camping gas. In addition, in this category there are ATM fees and local SIM cards + prepaid data in Africa.
In addition to these above listed costs of traveling and living abroad, we have the so called Yearly costs category, altogether 861,14 €. This sum consists of insurance costs for us and the car (in total 600,26 €), car taxes (42,21 €), phone bills (204,67 €) and new credit cards (14,00 €). Also, there is a yearly category called Equipment, that in 2023 included new phones for us both and a pair of wireless microphones, together 651,57 €.
Adding up all the above mentioned together, the price tag of our nomad year was 16 942,17 € for us two (so 8 471 € per person), which is on average 1 411,85 € per month or 46,42 € per day for the two of us. Taking into account that this includes everything from food to accommodation and from toiletries to travel costs, it’s really not much money, and we like to think that this is yet another proof that nomadic life or long-term traveling doesn’t have to be expensive.
On the revenue side, we worked through our own company, doing business development, international sales & marketing, web-development, content creation and other tasks for Finnish companies (in 2023 mostly for Manna Insect) and for Oulu Music Festival. In addition, we also got some rental income (minus costs) of the apartment that we own in Finland. Total turnover was roughly 90 000 €, and we paid ourselves revenues altogether around 50 000 €, so 25 000 € each. That’s not a huge amount, but easily covers all the expenses of the year, and instead of eating our buffers, we were again able to save money for years to come.
FinnsAway travel blog and our other blogs
2023 was the second quiet year for this FinnsAway travel blog site. We only published a handful of new posts, mostly from Africa during the second half of the year. It has been hard to find enough time for this blog, even if do have a bunch of travel stories to tell. FinnsAway has been active in social media though, since we have published a lot of travel related content on our Facebook page as well as in our Instragram account. In 2024 the plan is to write more about our travels and nomadic life on this site, and also otherwise develop the site further.
Most read posts in 2023
The list 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 posts about Cyprus are surprisingly popular year after year. Part of the most read posts are quite old already, and we should update both the content and the appearance. The vast majority of readers come to the blog via Google searches.
Sports and activities 2023
We love active lifestyle and outdoor adventures, and do quite a lot of sports to help us stay healthy and fit. In 2022 we ran more than 2 000 kilometres, and in 2023 we clocked in altogether 1865 running kilometres (155,4 km per month), including 10 half-marathons. That’s a lot of running, trail running and treadmill running, and even if the total is less than in 2022 that was a very good year with running.
In addition we went to gym whenever we had one in use in our accommodation, so mostly during our stay in Nairobi. We did some short treks in Spain and in Kenya, but didn’t do any long hikes in 2023. When in Finland in March, we went cross-country skiing. All in all it was a sporty year, but I think that for the past couple of years we have been focusing too much on the running target, and haven’t been doing enough other sports, like weight-training or bodyweight training.
For 2024 the target is to do expand the range of sports – we’ll definitely still run a lot, but also we’ll go to gym more often and do at least one multi-day hike as well as day hikes. If you are interested in our sports statistics, check out our monthly activity summaries on the Sports page.
How does 2024 look like?
The year started in Kenya, and the plan is to stay in East Africa until early March. Then we will once again fly to Finland to work in the Oulu Music Festival. After that our plans are not set, but we are thinking about a road trip with our camper van in eastern Europe during the spring and summer. Also, we’ll need to make a trip to London at some point, since we noticed that we have some cash reserve in pound notes that are no longer valid and cant be exchanged abroad. But it’s always a pleasure to visit London, right?
For the autumn and winter we’ll most probably again fly somewhere warm and tropical. We definitely want to come back to Africa to explore more at some point, so maybe already in 2024. On the other hand, it’s been way too long since we’ve traveled in South-East Asia, so that’s also an option. We’ll definitely also do some more house-sitting in 2024 – here in East Africa we haven’t been house-sitting at all, it’s not very well known concept around here.
Thank you for following our journey, and have a freat New Year 2024!
Read also the previous summaries:
Nomad year 2022
Nomad year 2021
Nomad year 2020
Nomad year 2019
Nomad year 2018
and Discounts
