I’d love to hear your thoughts on either HO or Sitter picking up or dropping off at the airport. I already know the ultimate answer: whatever you agree upon.
But what are your thoughts:
1. Distance? 20-minute drive vs. two hours
2. If the sitter brings his own car – whose do you use?
3. Should the sitter offer? Or wait for HO to ask?
4. How do you decide?
I’d love to hear from experienced THS folks.
I’m a HO and I offer to pick up sitters from the airport or train station, and drop them off at the end of the sit. For us it about an hour and a half drive.
I don’t expect or ask for them to drop off/pick us up at the airport / train station. One sitter did very nicely offer that to us and we took them up on it.
HO who doesn’t own a car - obviously I can’t pick anyone up. I give very detailed directions from all transit options to my home - I did meet one sitter at the light rail station as they were not confident about getting to my place from there.
I haven’t had sitters bring their own car but I wouldn’t want/accept them offering me a ride to or from the airport.
We travel by car to our sits so we have never asked to be picked up . We haven’t been asked to drop the hosts off at the airport or train station either (even when it’s been only 5-15 mins drive away ). Hosts have made their own arrangements.
It would be a different situation when the hosts have offered use of their car for the sitter to use during the sit , then requesting that the sitter drop them off at the airport / train station might be considered a sensible and reasonable request .
The local airport to us is 35 minutes, the major airport is 1.5hrs. Looking back, most of our sitters have driven here and we’ve booked taxis for ourselves to/from the airport.
I’ve picked up / dropped off a couple sitters from local airport or bus because:
A) they were going to use my car for the sit and
B) it’s hard and expensive to get public transportation to my house
Only our most recent sit did the sitters drive us to the local airport and pick us up (I drove both ways) because they were borrowing my car. They offered and since it was the closer airport we accepted.
TBH I’m kind of an anxious traveler and don’t want to have to make small talk on the way to or from the airport. In general, I’d rather take a shuttle, pop in my earbuds, and drift off.
There has only been 3 of our sits where the owner has picked us up and/or dropped us off, and in all 3 places, they offered, we didn’t ask. 2 of those was just a short 10 minute drive away. The other one was about a 20 minute drive.
We’ve either used taxi’s, public transport, or our own car for the rest.
We’ve never had the use of an owners car as yet, but simply because we haven’t needed it, we love doing the local-thing, rather than the tourist-thing.
When travelling in our own car (so, in the UK), we’ve transported one dog to the vets, and took various dogs out for walks if they travel well, it was never asked for by an owner to do so, the vets was just a one off, and we didn’t HAVE to take them in the car to walk, there’s always been lovely walks on the doorstep.
We typically pick up sitters at an airport 1.5 hrs drive. That gives us 1.5 hrs to better get to know them and them you. It has worked out well. On a few occasions, sitters have dropped us off at the airport on their offer. We always use our vehicles.
A quarter of our sitters arrived by their vehicle. We have never been in a sitter’s vehicle.
Of course, the details are worked out between us and the sitter’s.
Hi @KDdid
As full-time global sitters for 14 years and 155+ sits, we just keep it practical and talk it through during the pre-sit check-in.
A light touch works well for us — something like: “If it’s useful to you, we’re happy to help with airport plans or local drives using your car. It can also make things easier for us, especially for outings or a vet visit if needed.”
That way everyone knows the option is there, but nothing is assumed.
I’ve never asked for rides, but have been offered a bunch, which I’ve often accepted and appreciated.
I have no problems with reciprocating within reason. No one has asked me to get up unreasonably early and/or drive more than say 20 minutes.
You’ve answered your own question with “whatever you agree upon”, and yes, I think much depends on the individual sit and how your preliminary conversations go.
I think it’s generous of HOs to offer, especially given that in the last day or 2 they likely have much to do in preparaing for their trip, let alone having to drop all that to run to the airport.
I’ve never been in the situation of driving the HO to the airport or being asked to.
I had one lovely couple offer to pick me up – about an hour through awful traffic. It was a bit late as I’d already arranged a car, and personally, so far, I’ve preferred to rent a car, because if anything happened to the owners’ car, it’s a black mark on my sitter record and a mess to deal with; I’d rather keep that between me & a rental company – some twit could back into you in a parking lot, no fault of your own, and then you’ve got to deal with letting the HO’s car get damaged. I’d just rather avoid that.
So anyway, the other thing with the lovely folks who offered to come get me, was that I’d be arriving very late at night. What if the flight was delayed, or my suitcase lost (which happened on my previous trip to the same area) – they could be sitting waiting for me for a long time. I’ve sat through 6-hour delays, wrong-airport diversions, and had said suitcase not make a connection – so stuff happens. I didn’t want to inconvenience the HOs right off the launch, if anything went sideways flying out of Canada in the winter weather. They said they didn’t mind at all, and probably wouldn’t have. Still.
The other thing to consider, maybe, is how long is your journey, what is your arrival time, and what kind of traveller are you? Can you have a great nap on the plane and arrive all bright and refreshed, or are you more likely a somewhat frazzled exhausted mess? [me 
] It takes forever to get anywhere from here; I’ll have been up for 20+ hours, probably; I don’t want to talk to anyone or try to make a good impression. So I will go to a hotel or Airbnb and crash, then plan to arrive at the sit hopefully in a better state in the morning! 
That’s just me though, and “how I decide”. 
Two hosts from international sits picked us up from the airport and train station. There was another host who offered the use of their car in Canada and therefore I offered to drive them to the airport when I discovered she was going to call an Uber.
We’ve been picked up by hosts from airports, stations & from completed nearby sits. They have then given us their car on three occasions. A 20 minute collection would be a yes on either side, two hours is a lot but if a host really wants a sitter & there’s no public transport then might be a good plan. Hosts car to be used in general as the sitters are only coming because the host has a need but again, discuss it. Either party can bring it up when you’re agreeing and arranging arrival and departure details for the sit. A lot of our sits are international so we don’t have a car of our own. We’re literally just having the chat with an upcoming host who has offered a pick up halfway & use of their second car for vets and groceries which is a bonus! #threeweeksitincoming
I have been picked up and dropped off at airports, railway stations and bus stations. Have been more than happy to reciprocate by driving the homeowners to wherever they need to depart from - the longest was 1.5 hours to the airport but hey, I didn’t have anywhere else to be! As long as the request is that, a request, I don’t care at all. When asked as a given, I do take exception but do it anyway lol Life’s too hard to concern myself with such triviality if it doesn’t really affect me and usually the deed is reciprocated.
@Silversitters, makes complete sense.
Our profile of completed housesits is probably quite different. Most of our housesits have been outside our home country. ~20 of ~50 housesits have included use of pet parent vehicle. Most of our housesits have a flight component - with housesitter and/or pet parent taking international flight.
#1 Very fair point. Especially as it’s a round trip drive. Most of our collections / drop-offs have been less than one hour travel, and commonly perhaps 30 minutes. We would not expect pet parents to collect us from a location two hours drive from property, and vice versa for drop-off. But we can imagine situations where longer distance may be reasonable - say if no/limited transit options.
#2 Most of our PP drop-offs have used PP vehicle. We suspect - perhaps wrongly but understandably - that some PP use the drop-off drive as a reality check on our driving competence using their vehicle on their local roads. We bounce readily between manual vs automatic vehicles and between left vs right hand drive road systems.
#3 In some instances we state in application that use of vehicle is an important part of our decision - especially in cases of rural location; limited transit options; expensive car rental for non-residents (e.g. UK peak months); and/or credible requirement for pet responsibilities. During video call, if PP freely offers use of vehicle then we often freely offer airport drop-off/collection.
#4 Subjective. We find that this topic can provide insight into pet parent mindset, values and fit with ourselves - that can impact our broader appetite to confirm sit. We’re sensible and reasonable people but we’ll happily walk away from a video call if we perceive employer mindset or dealbreaker issues.
More broadly, we observe a range of related motivations. Some PP / HS may perceive drop-off/collection as a friendly two-way gesture of support. Some PP / HS may be trying to save money (travel, car rental, airport parking). Some PP / HS may be focussed on optimal pet care.
@KDdid, how would you answer your own questions?
We have been picked up from the airport a couple of times and in both cases had use of the hosts car. With one of those HOs we reciprocated the airport drop off/pick up. The others were picked up friends they were travelling. Both times the airport was less than one hour drive.
Once we’d booked a sit in Spain 3 months ahead and we were travelling in our own car. 2 weeks before the start date the hosts casually messaged “oh we were going to ask if you could drive us to the airport (in our car) & pick us up at the end. We’ll be landing at 1.30am?”!! The airport was over an hour away and their trip was only 12 days. They could easily have driven themselves to the airport and got super cheap airport parking there in Spain. We found that request quite unreasonable at such a late stage and with such antisocial hours. Actually pretty cheeky. They were not thinking of our comfort or convenience at all! So we refused the request and subsequently cancelled the sit. If we’d been flying in and they’d been flying at more sociable times and we could have benefitted from use of their car it would have been a different Story. But this felt like they just wanted an unpaid Chauffeur!
So I would say it really does depend on the situation, the travel plans of both, distance from airport, public transport etc etc Neither side should be unnecessarily inconvenienced.
We live in a rural area of Greece, about 30 minutes from the train station in Corinth.
We offer to pickup/drop off if the sitter doesn’t have a car. We will be letting our next sitter use our vehicle, and if the flights can be timed to line up, they will bring our car to us at the station when we return, they’ll hop on the train back to Athens airport and we will head home, thus saving some driving for everyone.
This could potentially be done at the start of the trip too, but we prefer to show them around the property and the neighborhood and go through everything on site.
I’m going to answer #4 first: “Ask THS!
If anyone has read this far, I have an idea for sitters. During the interview ask, “How do you suggest I get to your place from xxxx?”
@KDdid, this is a fabulous question. An open question. And one that, in many cultures, can be asked without the risk of causing offense. It is polite but peer-peer, not employee-employer. We also apply this same approach of open questions to other topics - such as pet responsibilities, pet exercise and arrival/departure timing. We find that it typically yields a win-win outcome, or a decision by either party not to progress. We see this clarity as a fundamental purpose of the video call.
Re #4, feel free to ask THS. But THS provides a matching platform, terms of service and review mechanism. Most other topics are agreed between pet parent and housesitter. Use of vehicle is not part of THS Terms of Service. So we expect that THS would neither express an opinion nor enforce any outcome on this matter.
Completely understand that you worked in insurance. Policy terms vary greatly by jurisdiction (car vs driver insured). Pet Parents vary enormously in their situation. And cars differ a great deal in their value. We have driven new premium Teslas to 300,000km+ bangers, in several countries. Each proved helpful in securing a win-win outcome. We believe in transparency so agree details upfront, and ask that PP write a brief note that expressly gives us permission to use their vehicle for date range (to void any claims of theft).
There is no right answer. Context is important. As is collective risk appetite.
#4 I should have said, “Ask THS community on the forum, as I did.” 
Sitter here.
We usually suggest that we drop the HO at the airport, this prompts them into offering to pick us up. We repeat at the end, it works very well if flight times allow. We’ve also at the end of a sit driven to the airport and left their car in a car park, with the key discretely hidden in an agreed spot in the car. This way a few hours can pass before the HO picks it up to get home…