How to become a house sitter and see the world for free

Have you ever heard about house sitting?

When we were travelling in India a couple of weeks ago, other travellers often asked us where we were going next.

The conversation usually went like this.

“We are house sitting in Dubai.”

“Oh, you are doing house keeping in Dubai! Why?”

“No. We are house sitting in Dubai.”

or

“We are house sitting in Dubai. “

“Oh, you are baby sitting in Dubai!”

“No. We are house sitting in Dubai.”

 

To our surprise, none of them knew what house and pet sitting meant.

We realised that not as many people as we had thought knew about housesitting and about interesting opportunities that house sitting websites bring.

So, in this post we would like to tell you what house sitting is and would like to share with you what house sitting means to us and what we think about this new way of travelling, or even a new way of living.

 

How to become a house sitter and

see the world for free

 

What is house sitting?

House sitting websites connect home and pet owners with sitters.

Home owners who usually have got pets too seek a reliable person/people to take care of their fur friends and their house/apartment while they are away (on a holiday or a business trip).

Sitters can be:

• pet lovers who want to care for these pets and at the same time have a holiday in an interesting destination which they love or haven’t been to yet
• travellers/long-term travellers or nomads like us who love pets and welcome the opportunity to have a break from travels at some beautiful place and save money on accommodation at the same time
• people who love pets and want to live rent-free. They choose house sitting as a lifestyle and they house sit in one town/area/country. We also heard about people who rented their house, house sat and saved money for another house. 🙂

So, it’s a kind of exchange. Home owners don’t pay anything to the sitters for taking care of their pets and home. Sitters get accommodation for free in exchange for taking care of pets and a house, while still having lots of time to explore the town and the area.

We found out about house sitting last year when Petra came to Australia and was looking for an inexpensive way to stay in Sydney for some time until she decides if she wants to stay longer, or not.

She discovered house sitting websites by chance on one forum on the Internet.

She signed up for Aussie Housesitters and created a profile.

In the end, she ended up staying with a friend and stopped looking for house sitting opportunities.

When we both met in Australia a few weeks later, we decided to travel along the east coast a bit. Christmas was around the corner and we thought it would be nice to house sit over Christmas and New Year’s Eve in some beautiful area on the coast or in Sydney near the beach.

Ulladulla, Australia

And that’s exactly how we spent our last Christmas and New Year’s Eve – in Sydney taking care of a lovely and very independent cat Kiki and an apartment in one of the most exiting parts of Sydney close to amazing beaches.

The owners were a couple from New Zealand who were going back home for Christmas. We even became friends and stayed with them some more days when they came back to Sydney from New Zealand.  Then we made a decision to go travelling to New Zealand (which, by the way, turned out to be one of our best travel experiences ever! You might want to have a look on our posts about New Zealand too) and were invited to stay with their family in Wellington for a couple of days. All of that was very nice and we kept house sitting in our minds.

A few months later, when travelling in Malaysia we found two interesting house sittings, one in Thailand for 2 months, and one in the Seychelles for 2 weeks – both starting the same day.

We applied for both and we got them both! We were so excited!

After considering all our circumstances we decided to house sit in northern Thailand.

The beautiful and comfortable house was set in a lush green tropical garden, around 3 km from the nearest village. We were supposed to take care of two fish 🙂 and a neighbour’s lovely dog Blondie. She came to see us every day. Each of us had a private room with an attached bathroom. We could use the owners’ car to go to the local market to buy fresh fruit and vegetables, or to go for a one day trip. We had such a good time there! The owners were very nice and we are still in touch with them.

Veru and Blondie in Thailand

 

Our next plan was to venture to India and Africa.

We expected India to be a challenging country to travel in and knew we’d need to have a rest after India before going to Africa for sure. Moreover, Christmas was again around the corner. How fast the time flies!

We found a cheap flight from Delhi to Dubai and then from Dubai to East Africa where we were heading next. That’s why we decided to look for a house sitting opportunity in Dubai for Christmas and New Year’s Eve.

We found two, asked for both and got both of them again. We chose the one which was a house on the outskirts of Dubai with two adorable doggies, Kobi and Beau. The Canadian owners were going home for Christmas.

At the moment of writing this post, we are having a perfect time with our new friends Kobi and Beau in Dubai, going out for walks with them, swimming in a pool, having a rest after a long and tiring journey in India, working on the blog and other on-line jobs, planning our next adventures and exploring Dubai, of course, too.

The house is very comfortable, each of us has got a large bedroom with a bathroom. We relax in its lovely garden and can use the owners’ jeep to go grocery shopping. A gardener comes every day and a cleaner twice a week. We got along with the owner very well and are looking forward to seeing her and meeting her husband when they come back.

 

So, what does housesitting mean for us?

Longer and pleasant stops at interesting places during our travels, the opportunity to have a home and rest for a while, take care of animals, which we love  – we used to have three dogs, a German Shepard and two Labradors. Another advantage of house sitting is that we can live like locals for some time in a part of the globe that we choose. And all the adventures are for free! 🙂

 

How does this all sound to you?

Would you like to house sit from time to time at amazing places?

If yes, keep on reading.

Choose a good house sitting website. We used to use Aussie Housitters in Australia (the chance that the Australians accept foreigners is very low but you may find foreigners living there like we found the Kiwi couple who accepted us). On this website you can find house sitting opportunities only in Australia.

Later we signed up with Trusted Housesitters. We decided for them because anybody can browse through house sitting offers without having to set up a profile and pay the fee. You can register and pay the membership fee once you are really sure that there are interesting house sitting opportunities for you and you want to apply for them.

Currently there are three plans: 75 USD for a 3 months membership, 99 USD for an annual membership and 119 USD for a combined annual membership (you can house sit and look for house sitters for your pets and house too).

Recently, we have also been looking at House Carers. You can first go through the list of houses to sit too.   The annual fee for sitters is 50 USD.

Nomador is another good house sitting website, but meant to be mostly for French speakers. Again, browsing first without paying the fee is possible.

There are other house sitting websites, but you can’t browse through the house sits without paying the fee first. So you never know if there are any house sits you would like and would like to apply for.

It would be wonderful to house sit in one of those houses at the far end of this beach, wouldn’t it?

Jarvis Bay, Australia

 

You have chosen a house sitting website. What next?

Create a very attractive profile so that the owners can see who you are. Write as many positive things that you can say about yourself as possible –  but be honest.

Get the first reference. It might be a bit tricky but it’s very important to have at least one reference, otherwise your chances that you will be accepted are very low. Figure it out.

When we asked for our first house sitting in Sydney, we provided the owners with our references from Couchsurfing.

 

How does it work then?

You have set up your profile, paid the fee, found a beautiful house to sit and now want to contact the owner.

Write a nice personal message, don’t forget to mention the owners’ names and the pets’ names if they have any pets (most of them do).

Explain briefly who you are and why you want to house and pet sit for them. They can read more about you in your profile. Be polite.

Be fast. Write the owners immediately after seeing the ad –  there are many sitters searching and owners get a lot of applications.

Don’t forget that there are two sides of the matter. Even if you really want to get the housesitting, chose carefully and ask about everything that is important for you, such as fast Wi-Fi (that’s what  we really need and always ask about it) and everything that is not obvious from the ad. You can even ask for more photos, if there’s just one.

If both parties agree, then they Skype to see each other and talk more.

If both sides say yes, the owner should delete the ad or mark the ad by saying “sitter found”. You are supposed to provide the owners with details of your flight so that they can be sure you certainly will come.

You arrive at least a day ahead to meet the owner who will explain you everything and you will get to know the pets too.

It’s always nice when the owners prepare some meal for sitters on their arrival (often after a long journey or a flight) and then the sitters cook for the owners the day they return home.

If you eat anything in the house, replace it.

The main rule for sitters is – take good care of the pets and the house, clean the house on regular basis and leave it in the same condition, at least. Ideally, maintain the house so well that owners will find it even in a better state than it was before they left.

 

Be aware. Usually, neither of the two parties pays anything. The owners don’t pay to sitters anything  and sitters don’t pay any bills. In case of long term house sits (months, often even 1 year), the owners sometimes want the sitters to pay the bills. It’s completely up to you, of course, if you want to house sit and pay.

We think that you might pay the bills if there are no animals to be taken care of and the apartment or a house is located in a very attractive town. Otherwise taking care of pets and a house and paying the bills sounds like someone wants to take advantage of you.

If the house is in a location with no public transport, the owners should allow you to use their car  provided you have a valid and clean (international) driving licence.

To our surprise, we often see ads that offer house sittings in guest houses whose owners want sitters to work as cleaners, receptionists and managers at the same time. This is definitely not the original idea of house sitting. This should be a paid position, and advertised on other websites. There are also other websites offering hostel, hotel and farm jobs where travellers can help just a couple of hours (usually 4) from Monday to Friday and get accommodation and 3 meals daily, such as helpx, workaway and woofing.

 

What do you think about house sitting? Did you sit anywhere? Did you like it? Or are you the owner? Were you afraid to invite a stranger to your house? What is your experience?

We would love to hear from you!

Did you like this post? Would you like to be the first to know that we’ve published a new post?

Just Click the ‘Like’ button on our Facebook Page and receive all our updates on your Facebook!