Email At-A-Glance

Here's what's inside:

• 🥳 Let's celebrate together!
• 🤓 All Guides have been updated
• 🇨🇭 Q&A: 2 years of living in Switzerland
• ▶️ 4 years on YouTube
• 💍 13 years of marriage

Hi, Reader!

If you've hung out with us for a while, then you know we love a reason to celebrate. And this month holds a few significant milestones for us:

• 2 years of living in Switzerland
• 4 years on YouTube
• 13 years of marriage

We recently invited you to ask some questions about these topics, and you guys delivered.

We're pulling back the curtain and answering your biggest questions!

All Guides have been Updated for 2025 Summer Travels

Real quick, we just wanted you to know that all of our Swiss Travel Guides have been updated for 2025.

If you purchased a guide, you should have received an email with more details.

Happy planning! 🥳

2 years of living in Switzerland

Flashback pics from our first month as Swiss residents (May 2023):

Q: How were you able to move to Switzerland?

We both have Italian dual citizenship. (Read more about it here). So we are living here as EU citizens and not as Americans. That's because it's WAY easier to move to Switzerland as a European than an American.

(Curious if you're eligible for Italian citizenship? Start here.)

Psst — a lot of you (particularly non-Europeans) asked for advice on how to move to Switzerland. Sorry, that's not our area of expertise!

Q: Is it really expensive to live in Switzerland?

Surprisingly, our cost of living and taxes are very comparable to our middle-class life in Middle Tennessee.

What's more expensive in Switzerland: food (grocery stores and restaurants), transportation (especially if you own a car), and rent (we own a home in TN but are renting an apartment in Switzerland)

What's more affordable in Switzerland: health insurance (the USA has the most expensive rates in the world...but Switzerland is second), cell phone service, utilities (like internet, water, and electricity)

Q: Will you stay in Switzerland or move back to the USA?

Right now, we plan to stay in Switzerland. Because we love it, it fits our lifestyle, we're building a community here, and it's a great place to raise a family.

But don't get us wrong, we dearly miss our family and closest friends from the States. That's why we prioritize taking a trip back every year!

Q: Has learning German been harder or easier than you expected?

At first it was easy because you start with the basics like counting and foods and colors. Then it was hard because we were learning on our own. Once we hired a private teacher, our language progressed so rapidly! We only took lessons for a few months but that got us to a basic conversational level.

We paused lessons last year but continued slowly learning on our own. We have to pass a language test to renew our residency permit after living here for 5 years, so we will keep learning until then!

The best practice: Sundays at church. The service and music are in German (sometimes a Swiss German dialect 🤪) and 75% of the people only speak German.

Q: Have you made local Swiss friends or mostly expats?

Nearly all of them are Swiss. Everyone at our church is Swiss, and so are our neighbors, but we do have a few friends from English-speaking countries.

4 years on YouTube

Our most-popular videos:

Q: Why did you start YouTube?

Back in 2016 when we started traveling Europe full-time, we shared photos of our trip in a private Facebook Group. But that felt like it wasn't enough.

So then we started making Instagram stories in 2020. And those still felt like they didn't capture everything well.

So YouTube was the next right step. We started in May 2021.

Q: When did you decide to make Aplins in the Alps your full-time jobs?

After we started on YouTube, we took a YouTube course to enhance our skills. In that class, we learned that it's tough to make a full-time income from YouTube revenue alone...and that's when we developed our Swiss Travel Guides.

Since March 2024, Aplins in the Alps has been our full-time business!

Now we focus all of our time on creating the most helpful Swiss videos on the internet and done-for-you (yet adaptable) Switzerland itineraries.

Q: Do you get recognized a lot?

Yep, nearly every time we go out to the touristy places in the Summer 😎

Honestly, you guys are SO kind, encouraging, and fun! Your gratitude encourages us to keep doing what we're doing.

So yes, if you see us, please stop and say hello!

Q: What's your favorite video you've ever filmed?

Jana: Our video in Lviv, Ukraine! We did so many random and really cool things there. But as for Swiss videos, probably when we went to Gornergrat.

Brett: It's a tie between our overnight hike to Obersteinberg and the second video we ever filmed because we were just out doing what we loved and capturing it with no idea whether or not people would want to watch it 🤣

Q: How long does it take to make one YouTube video?

40 hours combined, give or take! First we brainstorm ideas and make a loose content calendar together. Then Brett outlines, Jana scripts, and we both film and edit the video. And then there are YouTube captions, thumbnails, descriptions, links, etc. Plus our blog and email too!

13 years of marriage

Q: How did you meet?

On a blind date! Brett was coaching competitive gymnastics and Jana was a part-time babysitter while in university. One of the families we both knew set us up.

We met in March (had amazing local food and live music at a quaint country restaurant), knew by April that we were a perfect match, told our parents in May that we wanted to get married, got engaged in August, and married the following May!

Q: Has moving abroad changed your relationship?

We've always been best friends and love spending everyday together. So that has actually been enhanced by living abroad!

But living abroad has taught us to notice and compliment each other more, especially on days we feel lonely or make plans with a new friend, or when the language feels impossible and exhausting, or when we just plain ol' miss our family and best friends from the USA.

Q: How do you handle disagreements when traveling?

Traveling, researching, filming, taking photos, and enjoying the experience takes a lot of energy! We've learned to communicate super thoroughly, give extra patience to each other, and never run out of snacks and water, haha!

We've also learned to trust and lean on each others strengths. For example, Jana is better at navigating when we're driving and Brett is better at navigating when we're walking or hiking. So when we both have a strong opinion, we try to default to the one who's usually correct more often 😉

Q: What’s the most challenging travel experience you’ve had together?

Disclaimer: Learn from our mistakes and don't do the same things we did 🙃

We had all of our luggage stolen in 2019. It was in the trunk of our rental car in France but someone broke a window and took everything. We even had to get emergency passports. But in a way it was nice because we had zero expectations after that since we were clothes-less, phone-less, computer-less, camera-less — we just spent our last few days being tourists (wearing clothes from the grocery store, haha)!