Hi from New York!

[alternativetravelers]

Hi everyone! Been really enjoying connecting with others in the community, but realized I haven’t properly introduced ourselves yet!

We’re Sam and Veren, though it’s me, Sam behind the keyboard here on the forum Here’s me with one of my favorite pups in Madrid, Spain:

We’re full time house sitters (temporarily grounded due to covid-19) that have been members of TrustedHousesitters since 2015. We’ve house sat all over the U.S. and Europe, and lived in Madrid, Spain for a few years as well. We prefer longer house sits (1-3 months) in urban areas, though we have also done more remote sits like an off-grid, solar powered house with 17 animals in the Caribbean (US Virgin Islands)! We tend to return to NYC at least once a year for repeat sits and to see our family and friends there. And when we can get there, we return to Madrid as often as possible - Spain has our heart!

We are bloggers and podcasters at AlternativeTravelers.com, where we write all about house sitting and responsible/vegan travel. It’s our absolute passion to introduce others to the house sitting community and to create a better world through travel. House sitting has given us such freedom, so many amazing experiences and connections with great people and pets around the world, that we just looove welcoming others into the community! We even wrote a book last year, The House Sitting Handbook, to help others live their dream life through house sitting.

We’re also very passionate about sustainable travel that’s better for the environment and local communities. We don’t own a car (another reason we prefer urban situations), and are always trying to reduce our negative impact and increase our positive one on all the places we visit. Actually, we think that house sitting is a great part of sustainable travel since it’s true home sharing and reuse of space/resources, as sitters are occupying a home that would otherwise be vacant.

Ahh I could keep going here but I’ll stop Here’s a photo of me and my partner Veren at San Juan Gaztelugatxe in northern Spain (fellow Game of Thrones fans might recognize the location!)

Been really enjoying connecting with others here. And in case anyone’s on Instagram, that’s my social media of choice, so would love to connect over there as well @alternativetravelers!

[ScrewTheAverage]

It’s wonderful to meet you both! We’ve run across your blog in the past and enjoy it, so thank you for writing about your experiences

We’re very similar in our travel styles, we too prefer urban sits because we’d rather not drive and haven’t owned a car in years. We’re also very environmentally conscious and do our best to limit our foot print.

We visited Spain in 2017 and we loved it. It’s a place we continue to think about returning to and is even a place we could live (when we’re ready to settle a bit… ). We hope we’ll be lucky enough that our paths will cross and we’ll be able to meet!

[Julie]

Hi Sam and Veren, great to meet you. What a fantastic journey you’ve had.
We’re Julie and Jonathan. We’ve been house sitting just over 3 years with THS.
Interested to read your House sitting handbook.
We too are quiet, in the UK, at the present time.
Last year we had 3 months exploring California with house sitting as we went, this is us with Mookie in San Fran.
Before house sitting we spent a lot of time in Spain, mostly Andalusia and Costa Blanca. We love Barcelona and Cadiz and Estepona and Costa Brava and Alicante.

[alternativetravelers]

Oh how cool that you came across our site before. And yess to Spain!! I think we will end up living there whenever we feel like settling down…whenever that happens, cuz it’s not yet! Haha.

Also yes to crossing paths someday!! Love meeting fellow house sitters on the road, it doesn’t happen enough. But hopefully more so with this forum and in the future when travel opens up more!

[alternativetravelers]

Hi guys! What an awesome photo. Is that a Samoyed?! So fluffy! We were meant to spend 3 months in the Bay area (Berkeley) this year from March-July but sadly that sit was covid-cancelled. We hope to be able to do it sometime in the future.

Spain is so great, isn’t it! And there are a lot of house sits there too, with many expats that often return to their countries of origin. Cadiz is such a magical little city. I was fortunate enough to be there for Carnival once, so festive!

[Angela-CommunityManager]

Sam & Veren @alternativetravelers thank you for your amazing introduction, photos and posts … it’s great to have you in the community sharing all of your experiences, we hope you enjoy the conversations and connecting with other members.

Stay safe and well but most importantly, stay connected.