from a nomad to a "normal" life

February 19, 2024

After 3,5 years without a fixed home and living a nomad life, in constant movement, between living in Hotels and housesitting, it is time again to start a new reality.

Last week, I signed the papers, got my keys and moved into a rental apartment in Zürich - a contract for a home without an expiration date.

I confess it feels weird. It feels scary—a mix of emotions ranging from relief to an identity crisis. The commitment to staying here for an undetermined time eases and uneases me. I guess it is my opportunity to finally make peace with Zurich (we have a love-hate relationship 😂).

The last few years have been of much movement and constant change, which I got used to. Moving and getting to know different places and people became what I learned to do best. It became my comfort zone. As a Hotel Nomad, my lifestyle was my job, and my job was my lifestyle. 

But in 2022, I no longer saw it as a sustainable way of living for my mental and physical health. The constant changes (an average of packing and unpacking every ten days) started to tire me, and I initiated the process of longing for another change.

2023 was a year of re-alignment, readjusting routes, and using the opportunity to tick off a few items on my bucket list, learning new skills, improving photography, and acquiring new perspectives while finding and creating my next professional calling. 

I still did a few Hotel immersions, but I also started selling more prints in Brazil and Switzerland, went to an incredible workshop in Patagonia, worked as a luxury travel guide in Portugal, learned how to Freedive in Bali and visited part of the family living in Australia. It was a year of a lot of movement again, but it was different than before and necessary for this next phase. 

I dedicated last summer to putting into motion ideas that were stored in the back of my mind for a long time. The second semester was focused on incubation - writing, understanding, connecting - and my return to Switzerland in November was a strategic one to build up a dream.

I knew 2024 wouldn't be an easy year, but one thing is knowing it in theory, and the other is actually living it. 

One part of me is hugely relieved to have found the apartment I was looking for: centrally located but still quiet, small and cosy, functional but homey, close to the water, gym, swimming pool and various coffee shops to work from. There is an inner excitement to start this new chapter.

Another part of me is mortified. Will I adapt to the city life? To a life that became unknown to me, but that is the comfort zone of many. How will it feel actually to stop?

Not only did I move to my new flat that I can now decorate my way, unpack everything from the bags, have a bookshelf with my favourite readings and share my address without hesitating when asked where I live - a place to call home, but I also made a significant decision professionally.

As mentioned above, as a Hotel Nomad, my lifestyle and my job were my lifestyle. With the shift in lifestyle, the change of job became a consequence of it. To create new movements and proper change, we need to change. Thus, I was faced with the (not so easy) decision that for the months to come, until I find my grounding again, I will stop doing the Hotel Nomad work as I did in the past.

I will dedicate most of my time to the newly created association unboxing cycles to raise awareness about the menstrual cycle. On the side, look for a part-time job to secure my basic income, as we are still in the fundraising phase of the project, and it has been a lot of investment but no return yet. 

The rollercoaster of emotions and challenges that come with being an entrepreneur will continue (or even intensify - in a good way, though) in the coming months. But my goal is to have a basic safety (emotionally and financially) to endure it all. 

Also, different from how I worked in the past few years with my sole proprietorship, this time, with the association, I have a direct and indirect team working with me. Fundraising, PR, marketing, community building, and so much more are involved in this new approach. We are building a project that will impact society as a whole and strive to open a conversation that has for (too) long been taboo. It is a project that not only is close to my heart but also combines all of the skills I gathered so far. (to read more about it, here to our website: unboxingcycles.com

After living the extremes - from a very corporate reality, Monday to Friday, 9 to 5 (or more like 8 to 6) to a completely unstructured, without routine, free, constantly moving lifestyle, it is now time to combine everything I learned throughout the process to create my own hybrid system. I learned what I like and what I don’t. I learned what is important for me and what isn’t, what is essential and what is obsolete. 

When looking at it now and putting all in words, it all makes sense, it is a strategic decision and one that feels good (now), but the process to come to where I am (accepting this new phase) wasn’t without turbulent times. It is a change in literally all aspects of my life. It resembles a bit of the time I first moved to Switzerland exactly 14 years ago (precisely on this day 19.02.2010 I arrived in Switzerland from Brazil to start a new phase). Fourteen years later, I find myself again in this position, but with a few more bags of life lived. However, the underlying fears resemble - who am I In this new environment? A little identity crisis is also happening internally - if I'm not a nomad photographer anymore, what am I? 

And just like that, I leave behind an old version of myself to start discovering a new me in formation. 

Deep down, I know the travelling and exploration of cultures and ways of living will not cease, but first, I need to rebuild solid structures to be then able to build up further expansions. I look forward to creating my safe space, a base where my belongings can stay, and I can return to whenever and from wherever I decide to explore. A space I can decorate as I please and use it as I need.

Can I still be a nomad in my heart even if I have a rent contract under my name without an expiration date? Perhaps a curious mind or an artist of life would define better this new version of self.

The inner exploration and transformation of this moment have just begun, and I look forward to everything this new chapter will bring. As it was back in 2010, this, too, is just the beginning of many more cycles to come.