Free spirit Konrad Warzecha was bored and burnt out when he found himself managing a hostel in Iceland.
Born in Australia to Polish parents, he had a natural wanderlust that saw him travel the world for eight years, eventually ending up volunteering at the accommodation in Selfoss, near Reykjavik, during Covid.
‘I started doing renovations and rebuilding, but then ended up owning the business,’ Konrad, 38, tells Metro over Zoom from his current home in Portugal.
‘By winter 2021, I had been working for 18 months non-stop, without a single weekend off. I was greeting people, cleaning up, managing, always on the phone, doing the taxes.
‘It felt like life had lost its meaning. I had no energy and felt resentful and frustrated,’ he explains.
But then Konrad met Caro, a 26-year-old trainee teacher from Germany, who was staying at the hostel.
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While there had been a ‘mutual attraction’, Caro lived with her boyfriend back home, so Konrad didn’t think of her romantically. ‘For me, she was another guest, and I was just a host,’ he insists.
Even so, the two stayed in touch once Caro went home, often chatting about their shared love of dogs and travel plans.
A few weeks later, when Konrad was starting to make plans to shut down the hostel for two weeks as a Christmas gift to himself, Caro told him she wanted to return.
Desperate to see her again, Konrad gave her the best room, and it became ‘a perfect arrangement’ – he had someone to talk to while he figured out what to do next and Caro had a free holiday.
‘We were like housemates. I didn’t have to look after her or clean her room. She would make her own food, and sometimes we’d have breakfast or lunch together, or we’d go on adventures,’ he remembers.
‘It was all spontaneous and we had this amazing time. I remember we were driving in the middle of nowhere and a brown horse appeared out of the snowy landscape.’
Seven days after Caro had arrived, a metre of snow fell in just a few hours, trapping them in the lodge.
They stayed inside, watched movies and ate together in the hostel’s yoga room, until the snow subsided after two weeks and Konrad finally took Caro to the airport to fly home.
‘I was quite sad. We had no plans to meet again. It had just been a great, spontaneous holiday that we’d had together,’ he remembers. But then Caro messaged one day to say she had split up with her boyfriend.
‘In that moment, I gave her a call and she told me she was returning to live with her family. I was excited because it meant there was a possibility something could happen between us,’ he remembers.
Konrad started winding down his business and within weeks, Caro had visited Iceland and they at last shared their first kiss in the famous geothermal spa, the Blue Lagoon.
Then, after Konrad sold the hostel, he visited Caro in her hometown of Bochum before travelling around the Balkans and Poland alone.
‘A nice hotel was going to cost about €2,000 for two weeks in one of the most uninspiring towns. So I Googled house-sitting and found somewhere five minutes from Caro’s. It was the perfect solution.’
Keen to explore the world together, the following month the couple booked tickets to Australia, bought a camper van and travelled the east coast for four months, a trip that spanned 19,000 km.
‘We were stopping in hotels, Airbnbs and campsites, but it was cramped being in a van all the time, and living like this didn’t make sense financially.’
So, after Caro could finish her studies in 2025, the pair carried on their world tour – this time doing it via house sits.
Since then, it has become the couple’s way of life.
In the past three years, they have visited 36 countries together, housesitting in 12.
The rest of the time they use hotels and holiday rentals.
They earn through Caro’s website, Caro’s Class, which helps German educators navigate the qualification system, and Konrad’s Housesitter’s Guide, a free resource for people to learn about housesitting.
Despite their globetrotting lifestyle, Konrad says they spend less on travel than most people spend staying still.
‘Sometimes you get incredible houses. We’ve stayed in a French chalet in the Alps, overlooking the mountains for a whole month,’ says Konrad.
‘It felt like we were on holiday there because the two cats would only come in in the morning and afternoon for some food.
We’d give them some pats, and all the rest of the time was ours to explore the lakes and have a proper Alps summer – going to the bakery, enjoying fresh produce. It was amazing.’
‘We’ve been to Switzerland, which is full of luxury villas and mansions. We’ve stayed in places that we could never imagine owning, with the most stunning views everywhere you look.’
They love the opportunity house-sitting gives them to explore the world and connect with animals, each with their own needs and personalities.
‘If you want to be a good house sitter, you need three qualities: being a good communicator, the ability to look after animals well and being a clean and tidy person – you need to be respectful to the owner’s property.’
And they plan their days around the animals, never going on long trips if they are in charge of a dog.
But it isn’t always a perfect lifestyle.
‘We did arrive at a house-sit in Greece and there was an infestation. That was a tricky two weeks. We ended up with fleas, went crazy with the cleaning and had to have a quarantine zone. We got bitten quite a lot.’
On another occasion, they looked after a reactive dog that would lunge at them in the bedroom. And they had to put a hen to sleep.
‘At one place in Portugal, we unfortunately had to euthanise a chicken because it was sick and couldn’t walk anymore. So after talking to the owners we took it to the vet.
‘That was a hard moment for us, because we genuinely love the animals we’re looking after,’ remembers Konrad.
‘But there’s been nothing bad enough to make us reconsider house-sitting. We get to travel all over the world, staying in beautiful homes without having to settle anywhere. It’s the best of both worlds.’
Now in Portugal with breathtaking views of the ocean, Konrad and Caro are happy for the time being. They will spend six months in their current house overlooking the mountains while the owner spends some time in Switzerland.
They’ve watched a once-in-a-lifetime solar eclipse and a meteor shower from their balcony and plan to spend Christmas housesitting in France – and the sense of wonder remains.
‘Everywhere we go, it feels like something amazing is happening to us,’ adds Konrad. ‘We are so grateful to live this millionaire’s lifestyle, travelling the world with nothing holding us back.’