Looks like we’ll miss each other this time @Crookie - we’ll arrive UK late June, but live on the Sunshine Coast when not travelling or caravanning so it not out of the question for next year. Safe travels!
I’ve changed our summer plans to involve long-haul drives rather than trips abroad. It’s a bummer, but also a great opportunity to explore the interior of the country. Hopefully airfares will find their way back down after the summer season. If not, I’ll probably look at travel to inexpensive places and not worry about the sitting aspect for a while.
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We are off an age that “there is no pockets in a shroud “ is significant. If we want to go, we go. We might not be around the next chance we get to go to some of these beautiful places.
However, if we do go it’s always for a significant period of time - months. It just feels more worthwhile.
Each country seems to have pros and cons of expenses. Some places are cheap to eat out. Others, it’s cheaper to maker your own. One tip, eat where the locals eat. Never eat in an empty restaurant or cafe. Try to pick up some of the local language and always smile.
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Money is no longer a contributing factor in my decision process for anything. That does not mean I am reckless but rather strategic in planning where and duration of how long I choose to be in a country I desire to be in.
What I can’t afford is to put things in a bucket list and wait for some day…
Life is now.
Tomorrow may be too late and there will be no regrets.
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A lot of replies here seem to be from people who have to take intercontinental flights, but exactly the same plays out when you live in Europe and consider sitting in another country.
I’ve had to let quite a few sits go in the past 6 months because airfares were just too high. This is generally for sits that start within 1 wk to 1 month. I’ve been surprised though that even with a month ‘advance notice’, I’ve had to let quite a few sits go. E.g. I try not to pay more than ~200 euro max on travel for a 1 wk sit, but flights have been in the 350-900 euro range… Well, just for a wk in which I’ll be working from home a good deal as well, it’s not worth it except if I really really want to visit that particular place.
And yes, the 5 application rule of course makes it harder: today I applied for a sit in Rome. I was looking at flights and then realized that actually I should quickly send them a ‘placeholder note’, mentioning I was looking at flight as otherwise the sit would be gone from the listings before I’d had a chance to complete my flight search.
I felt bad about it: send them a quick placeholder flight ‘hi, apologies to do this but I’m looking at flights’, then continue searching flights, thereafter come to the conclusion that it’s difficult to find something affordable for those specific dates hence send them a note that I can only do X, but not Y and not sure if that’s useful after all… And yes, the sit had already reached the 5 application limit by the time I sent my (2nd) proper response after I had considered flight cost & availability for the requested dates
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Hi @Bluehorse it’s the same for some domestic flights in Australia. Flying from Brisbane to Perth, 5 hours from east to west coast, is very expensive. There are so many Western Australia sits we would love to do (we are in Brisbane, Queensland) that we don’t even bother looking at the listings now.
Haha…yes same happened to us but the other way round. We were visiting our daughter in 2013 who lives in Melbourne. I can remember buying 2 glasses of wine in Federation Square and working out that in GBP it was £9. A glass of wine in the U.K. then would have been approx £5. The exchange rate certainly does make a difference
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Ferry prices continent-uk are also higher!
Just came back from the UK & agree the exchange from Canadian to Pounds is quite a hit. As you say Crookie the price looks reasonable for home then the exchange hits.
Not just flight prices, flight times as well. Been wanting to visit Berlin but the flight times are just terrible.
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This is the reason I’ve yet to apply for a sit overseas. It’s ridiculous. Even some of the domestic fares. Summer is the worst as it’s peak time for traveling…
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Some of the times are absolutely insane. I’ve aeen flights that typically a four or 5 hour flight that take 17 hours. It’s really maddening.
Yes, and the much higher cost of AirBnB, hotels and restaurant costs compared to prepandemic.
I’d love to book a flight overseas just to house sit in New Zealand even but it’s the same price of going to visit my family in Asia. Ridiculous.
We tend to book sits in the places we intend travelling anyway. E.g we would not book a flight to Australia from Europe for just one sit. We would string a few together to make it worthwhile. Last time we sat in Australia we were already near by- in Bali- so flew to Perth from there- the closest point in Aus with lots of sits (4-5 hours flight) and cheap at that time to fly. We booked 3 months of practically back to back sits. Another time we had to fly out of Indonesia for a ‘visa run’ so looked for a suitable sit in a nearby country- landed a fabulous 2 week cat sit in Kuala Lumpur -in a condo with gorgeous pool & gym. We’ve often stopped over in KL, and love it there, so a 2 week stay with no overnight costs was great!
The only time we flew in specially for 1 sit was when we were invited for a 3 week sit one early autumn in Provence, our favourite part of the south of France! A villa, pool, 2 gorgeous dogs & 2 sweet kitties and use of car! We were in Germany at the time and flights down to France are cheap in the offseason so it was a no brainer!
Last winter we set off for our winter travels- got the cheapest flight to India (for dental work!) With the intention to fly on to Bali later in the winter so we booked a 3 week Christmas sit in Singapore en route to Indonesia. We always choose 3/4 week sits over Christmas to avoid the high flight & accomodation costs over the holidays and to have a home from home and it all fell into place perfectly!
We never let costs (within reason!) get in the way- its all about strategic planning!
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I’ve noticed that prime summer season European flights from the UK since last summer are 3 times more expensive this year. Maybe in line with demand back up?
This has affected my plans for European sits over the summer and I’m now looking at sits in the UK for this period.
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Flights overall have gone up. I work in southeast Alaska every summer and they’re much higher this year than last year. Considering I’m flying from Northern California its pretty crazy. I’ve peaked at some off season europe flights from the west coast U.S. and they’ve gone up considerably. The service though, has gone downhill.