We are not aware of any change in attitude towards international travel, or housesits, other than to US destinations or by US persons. World’s a wonderfully big place with plenty places to adventure.
If someone flags a post & it gets removed for breaking the content rules, the responses are also removed, regardless of what they were. Which makes sense; things would be a bit disjointed otherwise.
Yes. It was our first time using it to go to Canada, and we should have looked further into the rules.
We assumed that because it was a service both parties paid into, no one was making money directly, and we saw other people using it to travel, that it was okay.
Thankfully, they were very kind and still let us go through. Next time, we’ll make sure to do what you said. Thank you!
It’s a totally logical assumption…and this is an interesting additional point that could be made. 
But yeah, “tourism” will still be the safest answer… 
See I think this is the problem when someone goes in and out of a country purely to sit. You really are just going for the sit which is “working”. When Bonnie comes to Australia for example she comes to “visit family” I don’t know if she would come this far just to “sit”. In most countries it is considered “working”.