Thanks gang for your help last week in providing info about Australia. I got the VISA application approved within a few minutes of applying and relayed that info to a few pet parents. I ended up booking a 5 week sit in Sydney on AussieHouseSitters. I’ll try adding on Brisbane and somewhere around great barrier reef after Sydney to take advantage of the 90 day tourist visa. Thanks to everyone who gave me their input.
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@IHeartAnimals, well done. Sounds like a fabulous adventure 
. For distant adventure trips, we tend to book one-way flights (really!) and then explore incremental housesits to extend the trip. Fingers crossed that you enjoy a super time. Perhaps you’ve been good this year and Santa gave you this trip 
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One way tickets are a risk because in some countries you must be able to produce a return date ticket. Also if you claim on insurance it probably wouldn’t be paid because on the claim you need a copy of your return flight. I only say this because I worked for the ombudsman dealing with complaints about why travel claims were refused
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Fair point. I believe Australia is a country Where immigration is eager to know when you intend to leave. So Maybe a flexible ticket.
@Chrissy, thank you. That’s an excellent point. Worth noting that housesitting is a different context to a typical family vacation so suspect fewer insurable costs. For example, we have no accommodation cost and no checked luggage (travelling for months on carry-on luggage is wonderful!).
Guess risk-reward. We do love the freedom associated with flexibly embracing opportunity. Letting the wind blow. Carpe diem 
We’d love to know details of countries in which immigration policies require a return flight. For those countries, we’d be sure to book return flights.
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Countries that require an onward ticket are Peru, New Zealand, Australia, the United Kingdom, U.S.A, Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, Cambodia, Laos, Brazil, Colombia, India, Costa Rica, Mexico and Panama.
You may be lucky and may not be asked your destination, and they won’t ask for an onward ticket. That would be your risk and no insurance cover would apply should anything go wrong.
Even though a country does not have it in their rules, they can still ask. As a precaution, always book an onward/return ticket before travelling to any country
I was in a road accident in France and they wanted my insurance when I was on a stretcher in A&E. The ambulance charge would have been 500€ and 2 days hospital stay 1500€. The first thing on the claim form was my return date and ticket copies.
Please always list anything medical on the insurance because in the case of any costly treatment they request your doctors records before they agree to go ahead. Don’t be tempted to lie as it will be refused under non disclosure
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Any country can require proof of onward travel. In my experience you’re more likely to be asked by the airline at check-in to show proof than by immigration at arrival because if you’re declined entry due to the airline not doing their side of the job, they have to cover the expense.
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@IHeartAnimals congratulations! 
That is just wonderful! So much you will get to see in five weeks. Put Taronga Park Zoo at the top of your list in Sydney, it’s a zoo like you will never see anywhere else in the world and the views of the harbour and bridge from up there are just unbelievable. It’s a zoo but the animals are more free than you. It’s a full day to see it all but you won’t regret it. Tickets online easier.
Nth Qld, the Great Barrier Reef, will be unbearably hot at that time of year so try to keep as close down the coastline as possible. Like Cairns will be soooooo hot, even for a Queenslander and sun worshipper like myself I couldn’t handle it 
It’s, humid, hot and wet. Brisbane will be very hot but beautiful, Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast areas not to be missed.
Best of luck and have fun 
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Thanks for so much info @ziggy
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This is important. My travel insurance specifically says my trip must start and finish in my home country and “the return journey has been booked before leaving”. So a one way-ticket trip would not be covered for anything including medical emergency or accidents even if I booked a return ticket if that was done after I started the trip.
Mine is also annual so for trips over 31 days it has to be extended at a cost and done before I depart.
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That’s exactly right. I am off to Thailand and Australia in spring, not housesitting, and my insurance has been calculated until the day I am back home. So I have paid £146 extra. Mine is yearly travel 31 days which is normal. I even had to confirm the flight before they would accept the insurance cover. I had been through it with them and completed a new medical declaration, and they put it on hold with a reference number. Then once booked because it got back at 6.30 am it needed another day added to the cost.
It’s also worth noting most house insurance only covers leaving your home empty for 30 days at a time someone needs to sleep in one night and the 30 days starts again.
A lot of people work on “it won’t happen to me basis” but with all the weather events etc besides accidents and illness it isn’t worth the risk.
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@Chrissy, thanks again. Informative list. Will reflect on your thoughtful counsel. Makes a lot of sense.
We do maintain medical insurance coverage during housesit adventures. Not cheap (especially if visit US) but we’re ok with that. Unexpected health issues are not a risk that we’re willing to take. As you rightly noted, stuff happens.
Thanks, it’s because I spent half my life trying to sort out the mess that people have got themselves into by not getting proper cover.
When I see go funding pages for relatives trying to get someone home through illness, accident, or even death, I know without reading it that they don’t have full cover or none at all. Otherwise, the insurance would fly them home.
For my road accident in France, I rested and recovered there but the insurance had a private medical plane on standby at Southampton in case I needed to be flown home. They phoned every day for a week to check I was ok.
That’s the difference, I don’t want to be a doom and gloom prophet but you just never know!
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@IHeartAnimals I hope you can factor in time to go to the Blue Mountains whike you’re in Sydney
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@Crookie we just confirmed today and starting to do our research. Luckily, our family can go on excursions by splitting up on our sits if necessary so that half of us can always be at the property to take care of the pets. I’ll look into those blue mountains. Thank u
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Hey everyone,
Just a quick nudge to ask if we can keep things on topic!
It’s always great to see discussions open up, and the information shared is super useful, but it might be worth starting a new discussion around tickets and insurance so that we can continue using this discussion to celebrate @IHeartAnimals great news - and maybe share some suggestions for things to do in Sydney!
@IHeartAnimals - I really hope that you pop on the Forum and share photos and updates about your time in Australia, when it comes around!
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@IHeartAnimals how exciting! If you want, let me know which area of Sydney and I might have some tips. We lived there for many years. But it’s huge, so I may not know your area well.
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Hi @botvot the area is called birrong. It’s quite a jump from Kuala Lumpur so I wanted to make sure we secured a longer sit to have proper time since we usually go out mostly on the weekends
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@IHeartAnimals gee you got me with Birrong, I haven’t heard of that one! I see it’s 22 klms south west of Sydney, warm area. It’s on the Bankstown train line into Sydney. Within the City of Canterbury Bankstown. Looks like you can get to the Blue Mountains (Katoomba) easily enough from there, stunning area
I also recently joined AussieHousesitters to try and secure some sits in Australia (Sydney or Melbourne) over their summer holidays. So far I’ve found it impossible.
I have 48 5 star reviews on THS and used to live & work in both cities, so that can’t really be the issue.
Nonetheless, what I’ve noticed so far:
- not many new sits each day - I look for cats or small animals primarily. Lucky to see 1 new sit a day popping up in either city and I’m talking about their summer holidays thus high season
- HO profiles often very limited; some as little as half a sentence and 1 picture
- very slow response from HOs to none
- if they do reply, they all remark how they’ve been swamped by applicants (so the idea that AHS is an easier place to line up a sit than THS does not seem to hold up)
- I get the impression that there’s quite a strong preference for Australia based sitters rather than someone coming in from abroad