I am sure you will find one 
In the five years that I have been doing pet sits here and abroad we prefer having a car so that we can explore a bit of the area that we are house sitting in. We generally like pet sitting in small towns and rural areas. I am almost always asked if I will have my own transportation as the pet sitters most of the time are concerned just in case there is a vet emergency. We have had two situations over the years where dogs have needed to get to a vet unexpectedly. Another time we knew ahead of time that two vet visits were needed and the owners did offer the use of their second vehicle.
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I understand that it is convenient to use the HOs car in rural locations but as Provence and Frances also mentioned, it isn’t that easy in Europe, because either the insurance contract doesn’t allow other drivers or wouldn’t pay if anything happened.
Here the insurance goes with the car, not with the driver and I have no idea how a sitter’s insurance might cover anything. Additionally, many people here drive company cars and only the spouses are allowed to drive. Even children over 18 can’t drive these cars, because insurance fees for new drivers are much more expensive than for experienced ones.
Even if it was possible to let a foreigner drive, our insurance system is based on accident free years. The longer you drive without having anything damaged the cheaper the yearly fee becomes. And if you do have an accident you go back to higher fees and it takes years to reach the lower level again.
These are troubles I think are not worth it for me.
But again, this thread isn’t about wether a HO lets the sitter drive their car or not, but about a third option when this isn’t possible and car rental is too expensive.
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Thanks for the helpful thread, @anon39388349.
I wasn’t sure if Mobility, the largest car sharing company in Switzerland, would allow those who don’t have a Swiss address to rent a car. But according to the FAQs page, all that you need is an email address and a credit card.
The website indicates that you’re allowed to transport an animal in the car as long as you use a carrier or blanket and remove any animal hair when you’re finished with the car.
Mobility has a trial subscription for CHF 43 for 4 months. This would be a good amount of time for most sits.
There are 1,530 Mobility stations in Switzerland. Many of them are at train stations and other convenient locations.
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Scooter share companies also exist too which is cool. Our strategy if we can’t use an owners car is to choose a city where car rental prices are dirt cheap ($10-$20 a day). It takes research but we had great luck with this in Italy, Spain, and Cyprus. For example we rented a car in Milan for $10 a day and drove through 20 countries and saved a bunch. You can even use blablacar to help pay for gasoline and tolls. Also you can find really cheap/GORGEOUS countryside airbnbs too between housesits. And in some countries you can drop off the car in a different city for little to no difference in price. But in the USA we’ve had no luck with this as car rentals and airbnbs are ridiculously overpriced no matter the location.
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It would great to have transport options added to filters. There is a sitters need car option. Why not a near rail station option and accesssible by bus?
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Thank you all for your comments. I have picked up some really useful information 
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Hi @IanK welcome to the forum and thank you for joining in the conversation, having member’s feedback is so incredibly valuable for the team and that is such a good suggestion .
Enjoy connecting with other members in our community and thank you again for being here.
Angela & The Team
Good tip for sitters who only need a car for grocery shopping etc., but in case the owner requires the sitter to drive their pets around, it’s worth checking the T&C’s to make sure that pets are allowed and/or if there’s special requirements such as enhanced cleaning fees.
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For sitters in Florida
I will be out of the country for 6 months. I have a Honda CRV. Will be sitting in a parking lot. Anybody wants to rent? If interested please respond by Direct Message only …
Thank you.
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Surprisingly I’ve found great deals with big companies all over the place like with Hertz, Avis, Alamo, Eurocar, Sixt, but also companies that are only in one city/region but I would avoid these unless they have a lot of positive ratings because they tend to be less professional and have crap cars (at least this was my experience in Spain). The low price generally comes down to the country and city you’re picking up the car in but with that said COVID has made finding decent car rental prices a real challenge so we had to get creative this year for how to get to cities with cheaper car rentals (example rent the car in Toledo, Spain instead of Madrid.) or just bite the bullet and pay more if we didn’t have time to go get the car in a neighboring city.
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Car rental and car sharing companies do not allow animals, in the US and Canada at least.
Taxis, Ubers, Lyfts–it’s usually up to the driver. I’d say most would say no.
I agree, but I also think it’s easy for HOs to tick boxes. That might be misleading (e.g., transportation options may be very occasional, not going directly to shops, and/or too far a walk for many people). Parking options – also an important factor.
I read a listing this week for Washington, DC, and the HOs included useful details about distance to Metro, availability of buses, etc.
Good points but it would be great to have an initial indication of available public transport. I can’t drive, so any place requiring a car is out for me. It would then be up to the sitter to check frequencies. I have always made checks about locations before committing, not only transport.
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I have to say one of the reasons we opt for certain locations in various countries would be the opportunity to take advantage of efficient and readily availability of public transportation. I’d not really thought of driving a HOs car, and most especially not in ‘drive on the left’ countries. I know my limitations and prefer public transport. I’d rent something in the other countries if we felt the need. I’ve driven extensively in Germany, and must say the speed limits, or lack thereof, on the autobahn are interesting to say the least 
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I will have to check into car sharing. Thanks for the idea.
It would be great if homeowners were more specific as to where they live and vicinity re shops, restaurants etc. I just did a video chat with homeowners yesterday as I was being considered for their sit. I had asked them a few times if a car was required and received no reply. During the video chat they mentioned they weren’t within walking distance of shops, restaurants. That was the end of my interest in the sit as I’m not interested in renting a car and would not have applied on the sit if I had known this. We would have saved both our time if this had been noted in the listing.
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