We work full time at jobs that don’t travel well. We each have 4 weeks annual leave so our vacation time is precious. Wondering if there are many like us? Most sitters seem to be retired or digital nomads.
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Digital nomad here…
This app is more for people like us or people who are on permanent vacations I think ..
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There are all kinds of sitters. Once a year to full time to holidays with kids. Singles, couples and families use THS. Go for it! #onesizedoesntfitall
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It may depend somewhat on where you live. I work remotely and enjoy the occasional change of scenery. We have lovely destinations within an hour’s drive of my house, so even if I had a less portable job, I could use the app for weekend getaways. If I were planning to use my vacation days, I would probably book a portion of the time in a hotel/airbnb to allow time without the responsibility of pet care.
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One of the forum members sits on weekends with her kids, for instance. There are many types of sitters and they’re not necessarily represented in the forum. And if you want, you can check sitter profiles and see that many don’t sit frequently.
Key thing is, whatever kind of sitter you might be, do you get enough value out of your membership to make it worth your while? That’s subjective.
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@NoelNoel I think that many forum members are full time sitters / retired or digital nomads and therefore frequently on the site looking for sits and contributing to the forum .
This forum ratio of majority full time sitters probably doesn’t represent THS members as a whole -
THS don’t publish stats but looking at sitters reviews there are many only do one or two sits a year and many others that do mostly short ( weekend only sits .
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Yes, that would be us too 
. We seek short sits when we’re free, then hunt the good ones outside of school holidays to avoid high flight costs but also mid december-ny.
This year we’ve not done many as had season tickets for the Crusaders (nz super rugby team) &watched them win the final 
.
Now sniffing out some elusive sits 
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I am not sure if this is still accurate but I remember THS once sharing a stat on the forum that the average sitter sat 30 days a year. I would have thought it was more and it suggests that the bulk of sitters are not doing this full-time or for extended periods.
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Are you asking because you are simply curious or are you asking because you are considering signing up and want to get advice/information?
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I still work full time, but can work remotely if I get it approved. I do sits fairly regularly to travel and to see my grandaughter who lives in a different state than myself. I’m fortunate enough to have co-workers who work with me on our work schedules when I run off to pet sits! I’m blessed!
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We have just joined, and we both work full time. Our plan is to sit during work annual leave or long weekends for now, then, when we retire ( which we are hoping will be in 5 years), we will get longer sits in all corners of the globe!
I’m a holiday sitter. I work full time in a workplace, although I occasionally have worked a couple of days from home while sitting.
I think it is likely, like Silversitters says, that the ratio on forum is more nomads here than IRL. Holiday sitters would in many cases just look for a sit for their holiday, and not invest too much in forum, IMO. I think the ratio sitters-hosts is also in favor of sitters on forum, and many hosts wouldn’t invest too much besides their sit. A host even told me they would turn off their account outside of the sit.
I also sit in weekends, sometimes. I recently had a weekend sit in a town an hour from here, having a base for walks in that area.
Thanks folks, really interesting. So my sense is correct, that most people–or at least most people in the forums–are not tied to a small amount of annual leave. I can’t imagine sitting 30 nts a year at this point, as that’s every ounce of my annual leave + a bunch of weekends. 
I am mostly just curious. We joined about a year ago, and have had 2 sits, one localish (4 hrs’ drive, pretty local by Canadian standards) and one overseas–for us that meant in the UK. The local one was just to establish a record, and we did end up falling in love with the pets, as expected. 
The UK one was part of our 2-week vacation to England and France. We loved being able to slow down for 5 days in a charming village, and be comfortable, but we feel like similar sits probably are not going to be a huge part of our vacation plans for the next few years. For one thing, I hate getting up early on vacay (on workdays too, tbh, but what are you going to do…), and for another, the company of our adorable canine friend meant we really weren’t able to explore much, maybe 4 hrs away tops. Our own dogs have never been early risers, and are always happy to snuggle til we decide to get up on the weekends. The 3 dogs we’ve sat for so far were all 6:30-7 am types. We’d never short change the pet(s) in our care, so maybe it’s not a great fit for now. Maybe we need to look for cat sits, and we like cats well enough, but we really, really love dogs. We are a few years from retirement, and can really see the value of sitting when we are able to travel more slowly.
We do have another local-ish sit booked in a few months, Thurs-Sun, and we’ll be able to WFH for a couple of days–but my job requires that I never take my work outside of Canada. The next sit is a nice getaway, the property is on the seashore and we get to hang with 2 new doggie friends. We’ve travelled domestically extensively and rarely use our time off for trips within Canada anymore.
I wonder if other vacation-sitters have thoughts on how to do the pet/sit justice and still feel like you got the most out of your time off? For now we’ll continue to look for the occasional regional sit, and maybe browse hopefully for sits that fit our travel plans.
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Garfield curious about how the holiday sits work for you–you say you mostly sit cats, so you are able to explore more/leave them for longer?
We are in the same boat, retirement is about 4 yrs away.
Mostly curious, but advice always appreciated!
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Yes, I like the idea of the “elusive” sit, all the stars must align. We booked our travel before we booked the UK sit because we felt it made our application stronger–though there weren’t that many to apply to that fit our dates. Do you book travel first, or sits first, if for sits that are not local?
Yes, I agree, it’s subjective, and it’s low-enough cost that it doesn’t have to be amazing to be worth while for us. I do think there’s naiveté for new members, on how vacationing while sitting work in reality. Probably the same for hosts, around how easy or difficult it is to find a fit, and host.
We also live in a beautiful part of the world and would appreciate the ease of some short getaways. It’s not quite what we had in mind when we joined, though I have to say so far the connection with the pets is even more rewarding than I’d anticipated.
Sologal, so you have been able to work family visits into sits? I suppose if it’s, say, 30m or so to get to where your granddaughter is, then you’d have a few hours before the pet(s) need you again?