Sounds too good to be true, right! But, YES, you can perform around-the-world travel with house sitting! This is a brand new thing that my friend was telling me about the other day. Turns out, there’s an entire website dedicated to matching holiday-goers with housesitters…
Jade’s Guide to Travel with House sitting
So, imagine the situation. A family go on holiday, and they worry about leaving their house unguarded. Or, if they are as anxious as a friend of mine, they worry about leaving the oven and all of the lights on and expect to come home to a burnt-down pile of ash.
Meanwhile, a young (or perhaps not-so-young) traveller, looking to save money on accommodation (or on basically anything – let’s face it) happens to want to travel around the area that the family live in.
Well, along comes this website and Bob’s your uncle! It’s a match made in smeggy heaven.
So, What is this Site, then?
Pets
Thinking about it, this might be a great way for me to get some canine love when I’m missing my doglets back in the UK… I have seven dogs, by the way. I will post a picture later! So yes! Animal lovers far away from home – forget cat cafes (you have to pay for them), house and pet-sitting are clearly where it’s at!
How Does It Work?
Well, from what I can see, Housecarers works very similarly to another website I used to go travelling with on the cheap before! Exciting stuff!
You can either choose the option “Find a house sitter” or “Browse houses to sit”.
As a traveller myself, I will obviously be choosing the “browse houses to sit” option whenever I next get a chance to take a trip somewhere.
The next step is easy! Just input your preferred destination and dates and click search! If you’re a bit like me and don’t have a specific place in mind, there’s also the handy option of selecting “ALL” for all countries. Lovely jubbly.
It’s free to sign up for both home owners and house sitters, which is smegging marvellous! Then you can mosey around creating your profile. As you can see from the screenshot I took below, you can show your availability and length of possible stay (3+ months is also an option?!), as well as give a brief background on yourself so that some nice home owners might trust you with their house.
My friend said that she used it to travel around Barcelona and other areas of Spain with her boyfriend. Very cushty! She did also add that, while the sign-up is free, you have to pay a fee to be able to contact the home owners. But! She said, as it was a one-off fee, it was definitely worth it because then she had accommodation sorted in different spots around Spain for as long as she and her boyfriend wanted! What a money saver!
Related Article: My Struggles to Transfer Money Abroad
I’m a bit jealous, to be honest. Living the Japanese dream working four jobs at the moment. Oh, life. Well, I will certainly be booking my accommodation with Housecarers next time I can get away!
Hope you enjoyed learning about this little travel nugget! Wish I’d known about it earlier (sigh).
Tara!
Jade xxx
Wow! I wish I had known about this when I was back in Japan and living the dream of traveling. I will def keep Housecarers in mind for future endeavors 🙂 LOVE YOUR DOGGIES!
I know right?! Such a great opportunity!