In 2017 when we started thinking about travelling full time, we heard about a relatively new concept of worldwide house and pet sitting. Little did we know that this would become such a huge part of our travelling future. We love animals and missed having our own pets but because we wanted to travel more it meant we couldn’t have our own. After researching a number of sites, back then, offering house and pet sitting we joined the largest International Pet/House sitting community – and began applying for our very first house sitting stay.
This was to be the start of our plan to embark on a life of house and pet sitting our way around the World.
Now, if like us you love animals and you love travel, then house/pet sitting could be a great way to help your travel funds stretch further, as it can save you loads on accommodation costs. Not only that, but it allows you the opportunity to ‘live like a local’ in the owners home. You get to meet new people and make friends along the way and best of all you get to have the company of different pets.
When we first started out we figured that starting our house sitting locally would allowed us to visit the home owners so that they could meet us, especially as initially we had no reviews and nothing but our Profile for the owners to go on. We hoped that, in time, our Ratings and Reviews posted by owners, would help to support our international pet and house sit applications, where it would not be possible to meet the owners, with the only way of introduction being our profile and a video call.
Building great reviews has certainly been key to us getting some of the best sits, after building a bank of reviews in the UK we set off to the USA and spent 3 months pet sitting our way around California.
Pet sitting is a win/win for both pet sitters and owners. The owners get to travel with peace of mind because their home and pets are being exceptionally well cared for in their own home and with no costly boarding expenses. Travelling house and pet sitters like us, get to enjoy time staying in beautiful cities, coast’s and countryside’s around the world giving lots of love to pets and caring for homes – you could be staying in a Caribbean waterfront villa with a cat and a dog for two months or 2 weeks in a Manhattan flat …. what’s not to like!
There are a few online websites for home and pet owners to advertise their ‘sitter’ requests.
Our top choice and favourite by far, is Trustedhousesitters, it is the one that we use most regularly. It has the largest international house sitting community – over 70 countries – and we can fully recommend it because we are premium paying members ourselves and have completed more than 50 sits through them. Once you’ve signed up you can set up phone alerts that send you the latest sits in any locations of your choice. A great little addition that gives you the opportunity to apply as soon as sits are listed.
In our opinion they have the greatest number of listings and the highest quality of listings too. What would you say to “Three months on the Caribbean island of Barbados”, “A month in a Chateau in France” or 2 weeks in a house with pool in Hollywood, Los Angeles.
Just a sample of the many truly fabulous travel opportunities!
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