Would you be willing to share how you have found your nonstop sits? I am particularly interested in European sits. Thanks. Ken
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@Junipers whatever back up plan will give you peace of mind should the unexpected happen .
This could be :
Friends in the area
A rainy day fund ( funds to pay for accommodation )
Some sitters travel with an RV ( or tents )and camp between sits
Depending on the countries you plan to visit there maybe other house sitting platforms you can join to give you more house sitting options .This Forum is a great source for this type of country specific information from experienced international house sitters.
Whatever works for you .
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Hello @ksprang - you can use THS, Nomador, country or city located FB house sitting groups to get you busy. We typically book our initial flight to Europe (we need visas) and then start to fill it. Use the dates you have, type in anywhere and then zoom in on the map to see what’s possible. For example from Switzerland it’s easy to head to Germany and Austria or France and Belgium the other way. Flix buses are a good network to move you around major cities in Europe too. Cheap flights are still possible between most cities, cabin bags only keeps the costs down. This year we did Switzerland, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Holland, Portugal, Prague, Belgium, Paris, Copenhagen, Switzerland and back flying Turkey for 3 months consistently (87 days) and probably paid for about 8 nights in hotels total outside our sits. All ours were through THS on this trip.
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Sorry to hear this. Im presumibg they ran out of food, as in didn’t leave enough. I’ve been on 2 week suits and this has happened twice ( I posted a question about it on here once) . I don’t really think it’s fair at all to not leave enough food, things, packets and dry food aren’t going to go off. On both occasions I contacted the owners and was told that the cat was too fat anyway (!!!). I got food out of my own pocket. The other I bought it and the money was swapped with payment the milk delivery they’d forgotten to cancel. This still didn’t account for using your time and petrol (both rural sits) to go to buy food, lug it back etc. I’m sure some people will say it doesn’t matter they just get it when getting their own supplies but I think that misses the point.
Thanks for the promotion of my book Geoff! 
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Thank you @Romana 
Hey Junipers.
I was tagged earlier in the thread - my husband and I do house/pet sitting full time with a few fun ‘holidays’ thrown in throughout the year too. I’ve just written a book on it called “The Housesitter’s Guide to the Galaxy”.
The advice you’ve been given on this thread is great, so I won’t repeat it!
The thing I find the hardest is the isolation - it’s difficult to make friends when you’re only in the area for a month, and catching up with friends on facetime only goes to far towards the real thing.
Do you have an instagram account? If you want to keep in touch and get any more advice or even meet up if we end up in similar areas just send me a message. Our account is @hitchedhikingandhousesitting
Jess
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Yes. For a longer sit I would like to be in a city where I could join a language class.
Or something else. In France, I could look for a course to get the Acaced pet sitting certificate, for example.
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Hi Ken, I keep my eye on my saved searches and when I see something I like I jump on it. Once I have an “anchor” sit then I add new saved searches with date ranges on either side of that sit. Sometimes I will take a less desirable sit to land me the anchor, like I did in Spain, then it’s easier for other hosts to take a chance since I can truthfully say that I will be there anyway, People often have worries about a sitter showing up for an international sit but travel delays and accidents can happen anywhere.
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Many thanks
I could never envisage going full time, we have a 50% ratio of sits we have actually enjoyed. Happy for the occasional petsit, but good luck in your venture
I’ve been doing it for 6 of the last 7 years. I didn’t plan it, I just sort of fell into it. I think the hardest thing is when I can’t find longer sits and wind up moving around a lot. It’s pretty tiring. And when I can’t find back-to-back options I either have to spend on an Air BnB or find a friend to stay with. After 7 years of this I’m more hesitant to impose on friends, though affording the Air BnBs is hard for me. I sit only locally on the east coast of the US, usually New England and the mid-Atlantic states. I have a storage unit in NY and a car, and I drive around and try to plan sits near my storage unit or routes passing through there when I need to pop in and switch out seasonal clothing or winter tires and such.
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Besides putting that in your review, it doesn’t seem like there’s much recourse if homeowners coming back early. I had to cancel a trip at the last minute, and rather than wrecking my housesitters plans. I stayed with my son and his wife for a week. That just seems obvious to me hopefully more people will be compassionate to your schedule in the future.
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Thank you! It’s been a while since o checked back in here. Lots of friendly people with good advice though. I think the timing is better for me now. I look forward to the adventure!
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I thought it would be relatively easy in the UK to string together a bunch of nice easy sits. But not really, maybe it is the wrong time of the year. Now I have even applied to sit an “energetic” dog. And I did not get it - owner found a solution outside THS.
Life as a full-timer seems tough to me.
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We’ve been full time since February in England. I’d say it’s medium difficult. We’ve had a gap of one night and will have a weekend free coming up but we aren’t looking for a sit over that weekend. It’s been a mixture of pets for us. I’d say our niche is energetic dogs but we’ve just started a month with two cats. Im slightly playing chicken with booking summer sits but maybe i should start trying to lock them in! Currently booked to mid-June minus a week’s gap somewhere in there. Is the struggle lack of owner responses @pietkuip ? I’ve had many who haven’t replied to me but then eventually do
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Yes, that is one of the problems. There is a sit where their first response came after 12 days. I got it confirmed on day 18, after prompting them.
Oh goodness didn’t realise there was another book with the same name as mine! Thanks for popping both on the thread
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