Hi Group! We are Canadian housesitters with approx 20 excellent reviews, who’ve mainly sat in Canada, but enjoyed a few great ones in France in the spring. We are long-term travelling (‘temporarily’ retired) and considering spending 2-3 months in the UK in the spring. We’d like to mainly housesit our way slowly around, and there’s always SO many listings for England (in particular), that I think it work out, but I’m still curious what success people have had in securing sits.
Given the competition we’re all experiencing with the 5 application limit, I’m hesitant to book a long-stay flight, unless I’m quite confident we can mostly rely on housesits. Traveling on the C$ vs the Pound is a little daunting when trying to budget!
Curious if anyone, especially non-UK sitters can speak to this? I can’t imagine it will be an issue with the number of postings, but still good to hear 1st hand. We’re also headed to New Zealand in the new year and have found those harder to secure (either here or with Kiwi HS). However, there are of course less of them and highly competitive.
Appreciate any thoughts/feedback.
Thank you everyone!
I’m an American who started sitting in March and have done three U.K. sits and will soon start a fourth. I’m selective — I go only where there are easy walks to groceries and other amenities and avoid rural sits. As a solo sitter who telecommutes, I also look for sits with pets I can reasonably manage alone. I’ve not found it hard to get sits. So far, I’ve done them right outside of Cambridge, in London and in Stratford-upon-Avon. My next will be in Glasgow.
I’m in the US, last spring I went to the UK and had three sits, each about two weeks long. It was pretty easy to arrange them, all for cats and all near public transport. There are always tons of sits in The UK.
@HOOPS4 , you shouldn’t have a problem booking UK sits because there are so many of them. I’m from the US, have had two extended trips there and plan to go back again within the year. When I’ve gone, I’ve bought a one-way ticket as it allows for more flexibility. Once you’re there you can decide on your return ticket.
A year ago, newly subscribed to THS and with 0 reviews on this site, but 2 on a Canadian one, we secured 3 sits in England for the late 2023 spring that were one after the other. That was an approximately 45% success rate.
Very interestingly, all the HO’s that accepted us had visited our province in the past, and I believe that was one of the details that made them notice us.
My suggestions would be:
apply to a longer sit first and soon (or a few, as a believe that it’s better to keep applying, then sift thru the results), then add a few before and after to complete your mosaic.
There’s a bank holiday (stat. holiday) around the second weekend of May (double check) and many people take a few extra days off. You’ll probably notice many HO’s are looking for HS’s at that time.
-Be discerning: unless you are planning on renting a car, check whether the on-again off-again rail strike is still happening as that threw a monkey wrench in our plans.
We would have loved to go to Cornwall, but figured out that getting there would have taken forever. Unless you can make your way there one sit after another, it’s quite remote to reach by train.
As you may already know, if you end up needing to be at two opposite ends of the country in a short amount of time, you can book very inexpensive flights with low cost airlines.
I have done it the other way - UK resident and sat for 8 months in North America. We had no problem getting sits wherever we were. Target travellers, they love our life style and can spend a whole three course dinner swapping stories. People are very curious about THS concept and it’s as if it’s a great thing to “bag” an International sitter. A thing to brag about to their friends and colleagues.
We too are heading for NZ this December. Two sits confirmed from this site, another three from Kiwi Sitters. Yes, THS doesn’t have the presence in New Zealand as it has in other countries but the ones we have managed to arrange look fantastic.
Good luck in your travels.
Just be careful about buying a one way ticket, in some countries they can ask to see your return especially now travelling from the UK as stays for us in Europe are limited to 90 days. Also a lot of insurance cover is invalid without proof of return if you have a claim, for instance an accident they wouldn’t cover your ticket home . Also how many days you can travel may be limited. In the UK its common for 90 days to be the maximum. Leaving your own home empty for insurance is 30 days unless someone regularly checks and sleeps in occasionally. It will vary depending where you live.
We’re Canadian sitters and started off doing local house sits. A year into being members we applied on two international sits - on in Dublin and one in Australia. We had applied about seven months in advance of the sits. We were also nervous about booking plane tickets, etc. in case something happened. Happily nothing did and we had two great international sits. The HO’s in Dublin invited us back for a second sit. I’m on the lookout for another Dublin sit as I’m originally from there and haven’t been back since prior COVID. We also have travel insurance that will cover us if the person who is “hosting” us such as the homeowner becomes injured and can’t make their trip. We did have to use this once when a homeowner had to cancel due to an accident. Best of luck!
Haha, good points! And yes, we’ve found that it’s a great way to meet simliar minded people as well. Well done on the NZ sits too. We got a bit too set in having an itinerary and it boxed us in a little. Still checking & perhaps something will come up still.
I’m a US sitter who started with TH in summer 2019. Did 4 US sits, but managed to get 2 UK sits over a month in Sept/Oct 2019 - 3 weeks at 19th C listed castle in Somerset and a week in Edinburgh. Not quite sure why I was selected since I only had a few reviews but both were great. Then a few more in the US then got lucky with 2 weeks in Juju island, Korea in spring 2020. And covid hit and a string of international sits that would have basically been a round-the-world in 3 months ticket got cancelled and I sat around the US for the rest of 2020 and 2021.
Once travel became possible again, I started applying for UK sits and was very fortunate -
by then I had lots of good reviews and I managed to put together 3 separate strings of 2 months each of sitting in the UK (5, 5, 4 sits) . I returned to the US between each string as I had some things to do at home. Concur with the suggestion to find 1 sit and then build around it. Unless you are willing to rent a car, look for sits with good transportation or negotiate with the HOs on sharing the cost of a rental. Back in 2019, UK folks could add visitors to their auto insurance cheaply. Post-covid, that seems not to be possible (or maybe because I was over 70 years old).
I count myself as very fortunate. And with experience I’ve gotten pretty good at stringing sits together. Did 3 sits over 6 weeks in Australia and several west coast of the US strings as well.
Good luck.
Hi HOOPS4 - I’m a Kiwi (NZ’er) living in Europe and I recommend trying info@housesitters.co.nz We have used this company many times on our return trips to New Zealand and have had great success with them. Trusted Housesitters doesn’t seem to have lots of housesitting vacancies in NZ but I get masses of opportunities emailled to me every day from The Housesitting Company - especially with the Christmas break/summer holidays coming up. They have good insurance and you need to provide a police report regarding any criminal history you may have, plus they do a video interview with you. They allow us to still receive the vacancies even if we have not paid our annual charge (which is also very reasonable - last one I paid was $59, but don’t know if it has gone up or not), just you can’t apply if you haven’t paid, which allows for payment if plans suddenly change and you want to apply for a sit. I simply pay the charge then. Their customer service is prompt with emails answered within a couple of days. I hope this helps you - good luck!