Hello again Provence,
I am not quite sure how things eventuated the way they did over those 10 years, however we were extremely fortunate to be able to have one house sit after the other with enough time for travel between them. For example flying from Istanbul to Whitehorse over 50 hours and travelling 300km by car at the end of a house sit in the morning to start another in the afternoon in France. Of course we used stop over accomodation where necessary between linking travel connections.
An example of our fortune was a group of friends in Turkey that individually wanted us to housesit around the same time. We made them aware that we had a 3 month visa period that we could stay in Turkey and as they knew each other, as we did, they got together and worked out a holiday roster that allowed us to go from one house to the other (a couple just a 100m stroll) by foot over a 3 month period.
Or if I look at it the other way perhaps we were extremely organised in locking everything together seemlessly. Haha!
When we started our adventure in 2010 we decided to close our own house up in Perth Western Australia for the 12 months travel we planned, though at that point we only had a 7week house sit organised in Thailand and had a one way ticket to there. We had no idea where was next.
Once things cascaded into us being able to secure house sits in other parts of the world, we decided to rent our own home for the whole time we were away. So fortunate for us we did have something to come home to and had in fact booked to return to Australia in March before Covid struck, to move back into our house and catch up with family and friends for a short while before departing again. Last November we planned and booked to return to Perth on March 17th which in retrospect was extremely timely. In fact part of that booking had a return component to go back to France on September 14th, travel and house sitting which is now impossible (for us and those owners) with strict restrictions in place.
The only change to our travelling plans we have made since Covid has changed the way the world interacts is that when we start to house sit travel again, we will simply close the door on our house, so in the event that we need to return for any reason we will have a place to move back into immediately.
I read how many full-time sitters, as we are, have had to make adjustments to their travel style and bunker down out of necessity as their commitment to this lifestyle was 100% shedding of all their possession for the opportunities that abound. I feel for those people however do smile that in all cases I read a combination of our THS community and the instinct to survive this has surfaced and made those people safe.
Also Debra and I reflect on the fact that we took the opportunity all those years ago to embark on something unknown and have not, in one case, regretted it.
Regards
Peter