I am not legally authorized to work in the United Kingdom, so I would never apply for a sit there. However, I can legally sit in any Schengen-area country. It is maddening that every time I search for sits in Europe, 90% of the results are for the UK, where I cannot go, and it takes me forever to scroll through all the delightful sits that I cannot do before finding one that I can. The map feature is not helpful because of where the UK lines up on the map! I’m always slicing off poor little Spain or poor little Sweden.
It would be so awesome to have a search for “Schengen area” sits, or at least the ability to EXCLUDE certain countries from search results (I don’t want to have to INCLUDE the 29 Schengen-area countries every single time!)
It occurs to me that being able to EXCLUDE Schengen area might be helpful for others who would have trouble traveling to Schengen zones.
I’m well aware that I can sort by newest etc but still. I get it that TrustedHousesitters started in the UK, and I would truly love to sit there, but I’m not willing to take the risk. And even without the legal ramifications, there are probably people who just don’t want to go to a given country and would like to exclude those countries from a search result. If THS is trying to get bigger and bigger (and I’m glad they are!), making it easier to sort through bigger and bigger datasets would be very welcome.
Any advice on how to address this, fellow sitters?
The UK is in Europe, so it’s always going to show up in that particular search.
Considering you can search ‘USA’, you would think it wouldn’t be that hard to create a Schengen Zone, or even Mainland Europe search term, when there’s been quite a few ask for it in the past.
But that was precisely my point - that does not work. I want to see everything from Finland to Portugal and all of the Schengen areas in between. There is NO WAY, at least in any of the browsers that I have tried, to see all of those countries WITHOUT seeing England, Scotland, etc. If the UK had only one or two listings, it would be no big deal. But there are DOZENS.
Can you please show me a screenshot of what your screen looks like when you can see the Schengen area without the UK? Perhaps I have a setting or something I could change to make my view match yours.
I’m saying view a few countries at a time. Then move the map to see a few different countries. There is no need to see them all at once when moving the map will suffice. Make note of the ones that are interesting, I like to write things down as my memory isn’t what it used to be. I might even write down a few notes about each one so I don’t have to go back to it before deciding which ones I want to apply to.
If I want to go to Europe (and by that I mean the countries I am legally allowed to work in in Europe, not ALL of the technical definition of Europe), I want to see all my options at once. If there’s a three week stay with two cats in Portugal, I want to weigh that against the 10 day stay with 2 cats and a turtle in Norway. I typically filter by start date, which will NOT allow “reverse sort” by the latest start date, which is what I want.
Since the Schengen area is such a well-defined zone in terms of visas, movement and stay restrictions, etc., I would think this would be a very useful search for lots of users. For example, some sitters will have to leave the Schengen area to avoid staying more than 90 days in a 180 day period, so for them going to “non-Schengen Europe” would be GREAT. A simple filter for “Schengen vs. non-Schengen” would a super useful feature.
The map is useful but has many flaws. For example, if I search for “United States”, the first result is always great. But if I move the map, it starts showing me things in Canada - where I cannot legally sit - or in Mexico - where I do not want to sit. I would like to move the map and have “United States” stay as a filter.
A Schengen zone search is a great idea and relatively easy to code and implement. But, I don’t think it will ever happen, the VC owners of THS wouldn’t see any way it would increase the revenue stream, ergo, it’s not worth their while or money.
If I were advising the VC owners I might ask how much it costs THS to acquire a new subscriber vs. keep an existing one. And what their plan is to address things if a competitor comes along and implements many of these ideas that don’t, on the surface, seem to provide an immediate revenue stream but do provide a better user experience. Users will switch to, and stick with, the platform with the best experience. I’m aware there’s no apparent, viable alternative to THS right now. But people used to say that about AOL and Blackberry.
Of course, I don’t know what THS’ long-term strategy is. I can’t believe it’s just about having more subscribers; given that a year of membership costs about the same as a good hotel night in a major city, something else must be afoot. If keeping the users happy is not key to their strategy, I wonder what is?
I think THS has quite a head start on any new would be competitors, it would be difficult to break their monopoly now. There are lots of improvements that could enhance the user experience, yet almost none make it to production. I’d like to see 2 FA enabled for a start, along with much better search tools and filters. It’s my opinion that the strategy is solely to grow the number of hosts and sitters, that seems to happen primarily through word of mouth and occasional press articles at the moment. I do wonder what my maximum subscription fee limit is, the £129 I paid for renewal recently is probably about it. I can get repeat sits easily enough through WhatsApp and email, I also get frequently asked by friends and their friends. I don’t need the sits as a means to provide accommodation for a working nomadic lifestyle, I do it for fun and there are other platforms that I’m also with e.g. HelpX.
@KittySitter, this has been requested quite a few times from THS.
Example below even framed graphic with numerous definitions of “continental europe” (including Schengen, probably the most useful) that are clearly defined and surely would be technically able to adopt.
That doesn’t help if you want to set an alert. Most THS Sitters set Alerts for areas/dates they’d like to apply for. Using a map and shifting it half a dozen times to see options is not practical when planning - especially since many nice sits are posted, disappear in minutes (Paris for example) or hours (London, NYC, Rome)
It is literally so easy. You can’t see all the sits at once anyway. You are not losing any time by shifting the map. You still have to click on each one and read it. Favorite or apply to the ones you like, move on.
