About me and some questions

Sitter Questions, Advice & Chat
1

Hey, my name is Shannie.
For 3.5 years I’ve been a pet sitter in my country and loved it.
In the last 2-3 year I’m a digital nomad and traveling the summers in Europe and winters in the East.
I like to stay long terms in places as I mostly I work and it takes me time to explore.
Long term pet sittings from my experience are not that common.
In my country It was easy to move from places and sync it.
Moving globally with going to unknown places, arrange flights and it’s costs, can be challenging.

I’m wondering if this platform can work for me,
any explanations, personal experiences and advices are welcome(:

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Hello @shannie and a warm welcome to the Community Forum :wave:t2::slightly_smiling_face:

You will find many sits ranging in duration from overnight to a week to a few weeks and then several months to over a year. It can be challenging but very viable as other members on here will attest to.

For reference as a member you can also add your TrustedHousesitters profile on to your Forum profile by following the attached link, should you wish. This will then enable others to offer you helpful advice and feedback.

If you are unsure how to do this, or if you have any questions at all, do not hesitate to ask, we are all more than happy to help.

Also, remember you can use the spyglass symbol at the top of the page next to the TrustedHousesitters logo and search for any questions that you may have as they have most likely already been answered on here and of course if not then please just ask!

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My partner and I are digital nomads and full-time sitters since July 2020. We have mainly sat in Europe, but we’re just back from 3 months in Thailand and Singapore.

So it is definitely possible, long-term sits are out there, but needless to say there will be a lot of competition! Our sits are on average 3 weeks.

Flying obviously means you need to be well organized for it to be cost-effective. We tend to go for “longer sits” first and once we get that we build the rest around it. We have secured 1 sit in Italy from mid-Aug and plan on staying in the country till end of Nov, so are now actively looking for sits in that country.

Sits disappear super quick, so definitely set up notifications in the app and apply straight away.

We only work 2-3h a day. If you work full-time, bear in mind that dogs need walked, cats need played with,…

We love the lifestyle, it takes some organisation, but it’s soooo worth it!

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My husband and I have been housesitting full time since 2014, and we generally do longer sits–at least a few weeks to a month minimum. Sometimes we will do shorter ones to fill gaps between longer ones. We are also fine doing a series of shorter sits if we are planning on being in one region for awhile and know we can easily fill our schedule.

Because we sit full time and have a lot of flexibility, a lot of opportunities are potentially open to us. Often times, what we plan to do and what we actually end up doing often diverges quite a bit.

For example, we left the Us in mid-January for our first extended trip abroad since Covid. We booked a couple of sits in Greece and Turkey before we left. After that, we wanted to go to Asia or perhaps areas like Morocco or the Middle East.

But then we saw some sits in Europe that really appealed to us, and we really go with our gut when applying. So we ended up doing a sit in Prague and two in London, where we currently are for another 10 days. London in particular was never high on our list, but we absolutely love it, and are so glad we came. The sit in Prague was absolutely fabulous as well.

After London we are headed to Asia for 9 weeks in Vietnam and South Korea. We would like to stay in the region longer but know that plan could change depending on what opportunities arise elsewhere.

So the moral of that story is being open to where you may end up if you are booking as you go along especially. Don’t get too attached to a particular itinerary. Trust your intuition–it may lead you somewhere other than where you think you want to go, but it leads to great experiences.

The less flexibility there is, the more challenging getting sits will be. If someone is looking in a specific country or region, with a very specific start date, length of sit,etc…that will naturally narrow options. It might not be as easy to guarantee you will find the sits where you want them when you want them.

Exceptions would be regions like the UK and the US where any given time frame may have hundreds, or even a thousand or more, available listings.

Landing primarily longer term sits on a full time basis is not really difficult in our experience. The more flexible you can be, the easier it makes it.

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