How We Stayed in SWITZERLAND for FREE (almost)

Good morning from Switzerland. This is our last day in paradise today and as you can see we've made a friend for the week. We really didn't have many expectations coming into this. We thought we're going to spend a lot of money just to survive for the week but we got so much more. As you last recall we took a bus back from Colmar France into Zurich. Our host Luke picked us up in Zurich and drove us all the way back to his home here in Lachen and this is where we've been for the last six days. Good morning from Colmar France. We've been here for two nights and right now we are at the bus station because we have a three-hour bus ride to Zurich Switzerland. We've made it to Zurich and now we have to find our host who was nice enough to pick us up here at the bus station and take us to his house. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you too. What's the dog's name? This is Iris. Our first night here was just spent walking around town with Luke getting acclimated. He took us grocery shopping and even bought us dinner. It was incredible. We anticipated spending the next day with him just learning how to take care of the animals but we got so much more than we expected. We went on a hike in Switzerland. Just take a moment and look at how beautiful this hike was. When we showed up into Lachen we were like wow look at those mountains. Wonder if we'll have the opportunity to go and climb them and here we are the next day. Couldn't get any better. Everything's up hill. We're doing great. You can't really see them but you might be able to hear. There's cows with cowbells right below. Something that we've always wanted to do like literally a bucket list moment and here we were just kind of randomly doing it. Thought he was gonna come with us. Luke was also a slightly faster hiker than we were and we didn't expect to do this at all. We were kind of dying. We totally invited ourselves on this hike with him. He's a lot faster and has much longer legs. Switzerland does not believe in switchbacks. It's just straight up. One of the best parts about European hikes are the mountain huts. I think we're hiking to a mountain hut. I think we made it but I have no idea. Luke ordered an apple wine and I had this really cool bottle. These little things are how the cows drink. This is my waste of water. We stopped at one mountain hut for a drink and we're gonna go to the top because there's like two more huts. I think we're going to grab some lunch and then start heading down. We made it. Czech Switzerland off the list. Look at this. Look at those mountains and there's cows at the top. Our whole goal coming to Switzerland was to stay for free and see it because we really can't afford to otherwise and we'll still explain how we did that. This surpassed everything that we ever could have expected. This is our lunch spot. This is lunch, potato salad, sausage, and apple wine. Come here. Can you catch the dog if he goes down? We finished our sausage, potato salad, and apple wine and now we're going to head back down. A different route. Still see the lake the whole way. I really wish I had my drone right now but I had to give it to my cousin while we were in Sweden because we were going to two different countries where the drone is not allowed. So we're gonna have to make that sacrifice for a couple of months. We were told that it would be about four hours. We ended up spending about eight hours out on the trails and hiked over 12 and a half miles. It was perfect in every single way. The fact that we were able to do this and Luke let us join him, I mean you can't expect that out of a host but it was so so nice and we can't thank him enough for it. Not only did we get to go on a hike in the most magical place and see dozens of cows but we also were given a box of Swiss chocolate before Luke left. It was delicious. We totally ate all of it but it was oh it's as good as people talk about. The last six days have more or less just been walking Aries around town. I don't know how this week could get any better. It's been a great week. This guy eats better than us sometimes. We do have seven Daegus back at the house that we're also taking care of but they don't really like to be touched by strangers so we just kind of watered and fed them and left them alone to be honest. But he's been awesome. As we were planning our final weeks in Europe, the remaining countries that we haven't visited, most of them were very expensive so I started to look for alternative accommodation to help us with some of those costs. A few months ago Nathan signed up for Trusted House Sitters. It's a website where basically you watch people's pets while they're away in business or vacation in exchange for staying at their home for free. This was our very first experience using this website and it could not have gone any better. The membership to the website is a couple hundred dollars a year so this wasn't technically free but it's about as good as it gets. And then we can sign up for any other post team anywhere else in the world for the rest of the year. A lot of Trusted House Sitter post teams don't really give you the opportunity to travel around while you're there so it's not the best for vacationers but it's perfect for us. One more reason why I think our host was amazing is because he did give us the opportunity to travel around. Ares, our furry companion for the week, has his own train card. You have to buy him a half fare ticket and we can take him anywhere. We only had enough time to explore the town that we were in but it was nice knowing we had the opportunity to leave if we wanted to. You can find Trusted House Sitter post teams pretty much anywhere in the world but it's actually most popular in some really expensive countries. Switzerland, UK, Australia, and New Zealand so we will try this at least one more time, I hope. Staying in Switzerland for an entire week and watching a dog really has been as great as it sounds but I think what really made this stay so incredible was Luke, our host. He was incredibly welcoming and just went above and beyond and it just it really made our week all the more special because we always stress about spending money and the fact that he helped cover a lot of costs for us just made our week more enjoyable. But we cannot thank you enough for giving us this week. Ares was great. I really hope we get to meet both of you again someday. This is our last walk with Ares and now we have a train and a plane to catch. If you like this video please subscribe, give us a like, if you want to help us out even more check out our Patreon page.