For me pet sitting is very much about spending time with cute animals and giving them love and affection. A perk to this is staying in some lovely locations and homes, I’ve made a bit of a bucket list of things I’d like to tick off. I’ve only been doing pet sitting for 4 months but hopefully it will be a long term passion of mine so here’s my list of bucket list sits:
Paris, I’d love to do a pet sit in Paris and live like a Parisian
Switzerland, it’s been on my bucketlist for travel for ages, with such good transport links it’s a perfect base for exploring new areas
Cornwall / Newquay - being from the UK I very rarely get to explore out beautiful coastlines down south so this would be great, especially if can luck out with the weather
weird and wonderful home, I’d love to stay in a home that’s been renovated/converted in a way to suit the owners, like a barn conversion or old farm house. I’d love to see the creativity and though that has gone into turning something into a unique home
a house with a pool! Just for the novelty of it, it would probably have to be outside of the UK but how amazing to have access to your own pool
@woowoo - great idea for a thread. I also have a fantasy list … places I will probably never get to sit but dream about ….
I would love to stay in a castle( or chateaux) ; beachfront property, converted lighthouse or water mill .
Who knows with THS it may be possible ?
In fact we have saved a water mill in U.K. in our favourites hoping the dates will align with our availability one day
We have just completed a THS House sit in U.K. with a heated outside pool . and the property is a 14th century farm house with Victorian extension !
I can honestly say I don’t think like that and would say that most of the homes I’ve stayed in have been ‘normal’. However, I can see the appeal although there would be a lot of competition for some of those. Good luck with your list!
yes I see your point Smiley, but even with ‘normal’ homes there are things that are an added bonus/luxury that can be classed as a wish list. For example I love it when I get to the kitchen and see a fancy coffee machine, or even seeing a dishwasher as I don’t have one in my own home.
I wouldn’t say it’s on my bucket list but I would love to stay in a unique, quirky, original, artsy place. I stayed in one a while back and have seen others and saved them even though they were not in destinations I was looking to go. I just recently removed one, as I really didn’t want to go to that location even though the home looked so cool.
Hi @woowoo
Good luck completing your bucket list.
I’ve actually sat at 3 homes with pools. One in Portugal in December that wasn’t heated and about 15c so I passed. One in February in Spain that wasn’t heated and closed. And lastly just finished a sit near London in a large house with a heated outdoor pool. Which I did use. Very nice it was.
I’ve found that it tends to be larger homes in the UK that have pools. They don’t always list the pool and some owners don’t publicly list these homes due to them usually being luxury million pound homes. Just keep racking up good reviews to get a chance.
Come to think of it the home we sat with a pool
didn’t show it in the photos or list of amenities.
So we did not chose it on that basis. It was only after the sit had been confirmed that we read about the pool in the Welcome Guide . It was an added bonus that we had not expected.
We anticipated that it would be a typical English summer with rain during our stay and that we might get to use the pool a couple of times max .
As it turned out there was not one drop of rain and it was scorching hot during our 3 week stay so we ended up using the pool every day .
@woowoo this is an absolutely incredible topic and I look forward to seeing all the responses. For me, I think the following:
*A one month sit in the mountains of Mexico, preferably in the summer when it is so hot on the coast.
*Anywhere in Italy, at any time of the year, with a sweet pup who loves attention and loves to travel in a car. @Hawaii for at least two weeks, near the coast.
*A big, beautiful farm with pups, cows, chickens, and goats!
I love this topic! We don’t actively search for particular features or types of property, but the boys and I have talked about a “wish list” for types of property, places or animals we’d like to care for.
We’ve been lucky enough to stay in several properties that have been converted, including a former pub, mill workers houses, post office and farm buildings. We’d love to stay in a watermill (after seeing a couple on THS), a castle or a thatched property.
We’d all love a sit on a houseboat.
We have stayed in a house with an outdoor pool that was closed at that time of year. We are due to return when it will be open. This is more a benefit for the boys, as I work in a swimming pool! It being outdoors will be a bit different though. I’d like to stay at a property with a swimming lake as older son and I like to wild swim.
Younger son would like to care for a pig. I’d like to care for sheep.
Older son would like to housesit anywhere abroad. Younger son would like to housesit in the US.
I am putting my order in now. If anyone reading this has a seriously amazing English flower garden and wants someone to care for their pets and work in their garden next May, keep me in mind. I will not have a car but as long as I can get there, get food, and get back to a train or bus when it is time to leave, I’ll be happy staying on site, enjoying the pets and getting dirt under my fingernails.
Love this thread. Hubby and I are counting down the days until we are full-on nomadic for the next two years. We are on the lookout for housesits in Costa Rica and Panama starting this fall, seems having people stay in your home while you are gone is not so much thing there but we’ll keep looking!
Chelsworth is a small village of about 70 houses sitting on the north bank of the river Brett in one of the most beautiful, and almost entirely untouched, parts of Suffolk. The village is very old. Documents in the British Museum record King Edgar giving the village to Queen Aethelflaed in 962, and perhaps its greatest blessing is that, architecturally at least, time seems to have passed it by. Indeed photographs from the 1860s show the many thatched and wattle and daub houses, its lovely bridge, and its well-known pub looking almost exactly as they do today. Source: Chelsworth.com
I have sat there three times … the gardens of the homes we sat were absolutely stunning
-Hawaii
-Earthship home
-Houseboat
-Home with horses
-Thailand
-Korea
-Japan
-Home with a food forest (I’m on a sit now that has a bunch of raspberries-can’t eat them fast enough)
-off grid home
-Europe
-Tiny house
I would like to do a sit with goats. And sheep. And alpacas. I would like to spend time with and learn about new animals. Love that so much, I pay to do it at sanctuaries when I’m home.
Would love to be near a beach for a sit. Dogs love walking, running along the sand and soo enjoy the water. It is a joy to see them have so much fun!
We have lived in the USour whole lives and have only visited Canada,Mexico, and the Bahamas, so we would love to sit in other countries where we could see this and help facilitate it! Perhaps Portugal, Australia, places I. The Caribbean?
