I think we’d vaguely heard about house/pet sitting prior to 2024, but it wasn’t something we’d really considered. Then, researching various options for a three month trip around North America, we decided the idea of looking after people’s homes and pets in exchange for a free stay had some merit.
One of the objectives of the trip was to visit a number of axe throwing venues in Canada, USA and Mexico (I started doing business consultancy for axe throwing businesses in 2023 after establishing my own venue), so we knew that the trip would be a lot of moving around.
Adding a few house sits to our itinerary seemed a great way to keep our costs down and to take a break from hotel living. We decided it was worth giving it a go.
Trusted House Sitters
Not knowing much about house sitting, we signed up to Trusted House Sitters, a house/pet sitting platform connecting hosts and sitters worldwide. There are other similar sitting businesses around, but we haven’t tried any others, so I couldn’t say how they compare. We found THS easy to work with and reasonably priced (they charge an annual membership to get access to their site).
There were certainly plenty of hosts on THS looking for sitters in the USA. There weren’t many in Mexico, so we didn’t sit there. (We didn’t sit in Canada either, but only because we were only there for a week or so. We like Canada, but the focus was on the USA this trip).
There were a number of places we wanted to visit in the USA, but few hard dates to meet, so we were very flexible on locations. This flexibility may have helped us get sits. We were accepted for plenty of sits in the locations we were interested in, despite having very little experience or reviews on our THS profile.
Our approach was to work our travel plans around the sits, and fill in with hotels as needed. This did mean that we ended up spending more time on sits in places that we might not otherwise have thought of. For example, we spent more than a month on various sits around Texas. We did see that as positive though. We enjoy exploring new places, and discovering the less obvious things about local communities. I think house sitting really helps in that, particularly as most hosts were keen to share local knowledge.
A Pet Sitting Holiday Of Domestic Normalcy
The whole house sit experience, although just regular domestic normalcy for most people, was actually more of a holiday for us (given that we hadn’t lived in a house for about four years at that point).
That included looking after a lovely collection of pets, predominantly dogs. We’ve always liked dogs, but when our last dog, Rosie, died in 2023, we decided it was better not to have another one given our often changing nomadic lifestyle. To have these furry friends to take care of temporarily, was a nice bonus for us.
Pet sitting is a big part of the house sitting setup, although it is possible on THS (and presumably other platforms), to filter out particular types of sit, eg dogs only et al. There would have been a lot fewer choices without dogs though.
It did mean that, when we are at house sits, we tended to stay put. Occasionally, we did venture out for a few hours (most hosts were happy for us to leave their pets for 2-4 hours). We enjoyed exploring the locality, and even visiting the odd axe throwing venue. Usually this was in places where there was good local public transport, eg visiting the bats in Austin.
In a couple of places, the hosts lent us their car to use, for shopping etc, and even to take a dog to the beach at Half Moon Bay, in California.
As a general rule though, we spent our time doing the touristy stuff and axe throwing visits during our hotel stints. The regular house sits punctuated the travelling with regular breaks, to gave us opportunity to catch up on online work (on stable wifi) and household tasks, such as clothes washing and cooking our own meals.
We liked the balance of non-stop travel across the USA (via various forms of public transport) and the domestic intermissions of the house sits. We mostly went for longer sits, of a fortnight or more, to create a good break, but there were also a few short stops, where they fitted nicely into our schedule.
Our First (Of Many) House/Pet Sits
We were fortunate to have had a just about perfect first sit to ease us in. The sit was near Chicago and the hosts had used THS for a while. They were very well organised, which helped a lot. We had a good chat with them via video conferencing in the UK, before we left, but also met them for lunch before they left on holiday.
I think spending time with the hosts and their pets beforehand was really helpful in understanding the setup, and the pets’ needs. Although, on one or two of our sits, we never met the hosts (other than via video call), and the sit went fine.
The Chicago pets were three Galgos (rescued Spanish Greyhounds). They were very lovable and good with people, although not so keen on other dogs.
They were all very well trained and we had plenty of clear instructions on how to manage them.
Their main vice was attempting to catch the various small mammals and birds that visited their wonderfully wild large back garden. We had good instructions about scaring any wildlife away before letting the dogs into the garden and didn’t have any mishaps 🙂
Getting The House Sitting Bug
That first sit was a big encouragement, and we moved on with more confidence to look after a further 9 dogs, 3 cats, and a tortoise at various points over the 5000 mile trip around the USA.
Each of the house sits had their own charms, and we loved the variety. Most were in small town or suburban settings, but ranging from large detached houses to one bedroom flats. The pets were equally diverse, albeit predominantly dogs. We learned a lot about what makes a good sit, for both host, pet, and sitter, and decided to continue to sit once back in the UK. More recently, we’ve adopted house sitting, as our primary mode of nomadic living, even selling the motorhome we mainly used as ‘home’ while in the UK.
There are a few things I like about house sitting. It is nice to have a surrogate pet to look after, and the whole homely lifestyle that goes along with that, while still having the freedom and interest of changing scenery on a regular basis. It is certainly a cheap way to enjoy that lifestyle too. (Although, overall, our accommodation expenditure for the USA trip was more expensive than our usual monthly expenditure. The sits may have been free, but the hotels/motels/hostels in between were more expensive. That said, we could have had done more sits if we had been even more flexible on where we went.)
The main thing that appeals to me about house sitting though is that it is a direct non-monetary exchange of ‘favours’ that benefits everybody. The hosts do us a favour by providing their home for free and in exchange we return the favour by looking after their house and pets. Hosts get someone reliable to take care of their house, with the peace of mind that comes from that. Pets are looked after in their own comfortable environment, and sitters get a free stay in a different location. It’s a win-win for everyone concerned!
