Hope you’re all enjoying the Forum so far and thanks so much for all your early involvement!
Today we’re posting a ‘Question of the week’ and, as the current climate continues to evolve, we thought it would be interesting to find out your thoughts around current travel plans.
Do you have any planned trips this year? Or have you decided to hold off for now? How has Covid changed your pet care plans - or has it? Let us know by commenting below.
Thanks, look forward to hearing all your thoughts!
COVID has been keeping me closer to home. As an owner/sitter I’m usually looking forward to my trip from the cold dampness of Portland Oregon to some other place filled with warmth and sunshine. Hadn’t truly understood the draw of the snow bird until after 60. For the last 4 years I’ve spent our winter in either Australia or New Zealand. We even had an invite to sit again with one of the best dogs ever, Lola the labradoodle from Christchurch. But, alas, closer to home.
So, Ive been doing searches on anywhere warm In the US since there are so few countries where we can travel. Looking for October through February.
In the meantime, I’ve also applied and had an interview to be a Campground Host in our RV in Death Valley National Park. I hope there will be some dogs and cats to love while there as mine will probably stay home in Oregon with another Trusted Housesitter.
Resourceful and desperate to be out of the cold. Any other ideas and suggestions???
We have a six month housesit starting in two weeks, hoping this will get us to a more “normal” way of travel by the time it ends next April. We have completed five housesits since COVID happened, so far have had no problems, except the heat in Las Vegas, smile. But can’t wait to be able to go international again!! Counting the days.
We will be in Reno, Nevada. It started out as a 2 month sit, then they changed it to 2 months, then a Christmas break, then another 3 months - Then they decided there was not a good enough reason to come back in December, so this 2 month sit evolved into a 6 month sit. You just never know when you apply for a sit how it will go. And it is only a half hour from skiing and 45 minutes from Lake Tahoe!
We have learned to be even more flexible than we already were, and that’s saying a lot! We are relieved, as we just landed a month sit starting in October! We weren’t sure we were going to get anything for next month with there not being as many sits to choose from, and the duration of the sits advertised, just haven’t been very long, maybe a week at best. So, when we got chosen for this sit down in Florida, we were so relieved, as we weren’t sure what we were going to do, since we are full-time sitters without a home base. We thought about renting an airbnb or even a camper to make it work, but now we are booked until December! You just never know from day-to-day, it’s all ever-changing, and we are just going with the flow of it all! We normally go to Europe every winter, particularly Spain, but we don’t foresee leaving the States anytime soon. Weird times, but we are finding the good in it all, and getting all the pet snuggles we can!
With Australians restricted to where we can travel - must apply for overseas travel qualifying within 5 fairly restrictive criteria and hard border closures within Australia - Deb and I are taking opportunity to see our own state of Western Australia through the eyes of a local, just as we were doing internationally for the past 10 years. Although not a lot of house sit listings in our state, the ones that do appear give us that level of excitement that we always get with thoughts about ‘how good that would be’. Of course other wonderful sitters have the same thoughts, so the challenge still exists to secure one now and then.
A few months ago we were thinking that lots of sitters come to Western Australia to see the sites and experience something new, so we shall too.
Opportunities for be able to explore you own backyard don’t come often. Get on board!
Covid-19 has completely ruined all our plans for foreign trips
We should have been on a cruise round the med in September but luckily we didn’t lose too much money having to cancel
Our next booked trip is not until April next year but who knows if that will happen - we’re making sure we book refundable trips these days
Strange times
Originally five California sits all cancelled one-by-one. I then got lucky with a 6-month sit until December then the aim is to swing over to Cape Town directly from here for a 3-month repeat sit in a beachfront home with the BEST dogs in South Africa (possibly the world). The borders open this week, feel a little apprehensive about them closing again in that time, but my decision is to not live in fear, go for it, and trust it will all work out. The homeowner where I am now wants me to stay next year, too… but really I have the itchiest feet so I’m outta here in December!
We had to cancel all our plans from March through August.
We recently took a week to do a road-trip from Florida to Oklahoma to visit our family there.
We have a long weekend coming up and are taking my 10yo niece to Orlando. We have another road trip at the end of October to the North Georgia mountains.
We have booked flights for 4 days to Oklahoma just before Christmas and are hoping we feel safe about flying by then.
We have already booked THS for all of our upcoming trips. We may travel over thanksgiving as well but are still trying to figure that one out.
Being in the U.S. and banned from most countries, no international travel plans being entertained, probably won’t be a possibility until well into 2021. We used to be full timers that had to hunker down with renting a place (Buffalo, NY) once all our sits were cancelled. We decided to just focus on local travel in New York State for now. We just booked a repeat sit for NYC for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Very excited as my family is all in NYC so we try to return there 2x a year if possible. I also used to live here in Buffalo and I have friends and family here, it’s a cool city and beautiful region, so we are happily finding all the silver linings
I’ve decided to just go to sits from home (England). I personally don’t think it’s right at the moment to travel abroad given that the UK has had so many deaths from Covid-19. There are so many places to explore in the UK. I shall look forward to renting out my house again though and travelling abroad when the time is right, and I think that will be when there’s a vaccine that works…could be at least a year!
And it is only a half hour from skiing and 45 minutes from Lake Tahoe!
You just never know from day-to-day, it’s all ever-changing, and we are just going with the flow of it all! We normally go to Europe every winter, particularly Spain, but we don’t foresee leaving the States anytime soon. Weird times, but we are finding the good in it all, and getting all the pet snuggles we can! 
