Will people trust me to cat sit for the first time?

We all have to start somewhere and every sitter at one point had no reviews and there was that first person who gave them the chance. The fact you are looking to sit in the UK will definitely make things easier. There are way more listings available than sitters to fill them. Provided you aren’t solely looking to land gigs in the most desirable areas of London, you should have plenty of sits to apply to. Good luck!

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Matty, you say your family wouldn’t be comfortable with you going to a big city, but London is a very big city, with huge security measures, and can be overwhelming if you’ve never been before. Why don’t you look for a small town, or somewhere rural in France, just to start with. Look for short, local sits, but don’t be disappointed if you don’t get them. It took me 12 goes to get my first sit. You will get one eventually.

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There’s quite a few come up in France in more slightly remote areas too, where maybe you could catch a train to the local station and then taxi to the specific location. You could possibly check out which smaller towns in France have train stations (which are less of a security issue) if that’s how you’d prefer to travel, or even bus routes.

This is exactly my point of view, we all start somewhere, and we should let people have trust in us and trust them ! That’s the philosophy in life :slight_smile:

I saw there is a huge demand for the UK which as interested me to apply for a couple as suggested by the person who helped me, I do not know what land gigs means , but I am confident and less worried about the future now !

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I think it’s a bit of mistranslation from me, my family don’t mind me going to big cities, they mind me going to the big cities in our home country, for personal and danger reasons right now, I hope this is more clear, I am Autistic and explanation need to be 100 %, as I said in this post , there is nothing that I have access with public transport in the region around me, I am not autonomous and must rely on the medium size trains to explore the country and it’s very expensive. I am going to break down the cost ; Going to Paris is taking at least 2 trains, free or 15 € if lucky, going to Paris to the other station for london is less than 2 €, Taking the Eurostar is between 45 € or free depending on the Railcard i will have. To go in another region with the trains here, it would cost more or less 400 €, because the card only works in ‘’ direct or medium ‘’ cities, if this is more understandable. My apologies for not mentioning this as this is my reality, I cannot drive and won’t drive ever, I rely on my parents

That would unfortunately break my budget to do that and I wouldn’t really feel safe being remote just in case something happen or else related to my medical treatment. Yesterday night I did a lot of research to see and was sad to see most of them are ‘’ unable to use public transport ‘’ + did a simulation of the trains cost, like I said above more than 400 € in total is very out of budget for me. It would have been not a problem at all if my family lived in a town with a medium size station of train or bus but this is not the case. For the buses, do you know any other companies than Flixbus ?

I’m not very familiar with the transport side of things in France, more the UK and Spain. Do you drive? Some owners offer the use of their car too, so you could focus on those sits.

Also, why not focus on ones that are closer to where you live to build up some reviews, that way the transport cost will be cheaper but also you can build up reviews for when you have figured out a way to go further afield. Sometimes the answers to all of our problems don’t come to us until we’ve taken the first steps. So maybe just focus on one step at a time, and the solution to the costly transport side of things will come to you down the line. I know car hire when we go to Spain is a fortune for us, so we’re trying to stick to the train route, which is soooo much cheaper there, but in France it’s different. Also, you could ask another question in the forum ‘Ideas for cheap France transport?’ sort of thing.

Most sitters probably had their first house sitting experience for friends or family . It shows that you are responsible and able to take care of things on your own. It would also be good to offer to take care of a friend or families pet and home so you can gain experience of being in someone else home and see how you get on .

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I don’t drive and can’t, these are my only options …

My family and I are isolated and we don’t have any friends or social contacts beside family member who are still alive but are not close to us, they don’t need a pet sitter since their daughter is a pet sitter herself, so my options are very small as I said, it’s a very tricky situation

I’ve just read a few of your posts and noticed that you spoke about the cost of travel in France……if that’s a concern please don’t expect the UK to be less expensive. Rail travel is extraordinary expensive! As for the strikes….you never know if the train you’ve booked is going to run. If you’re based in London you’d get the underground which is set at around £9 per day depending on how many journeys you make. And as London’s a large city you could spend quite a long time there going from sit to sit maybe? But NO ONE will speak in your native language. Us Brits are pretty lazy when it comes to languages. Sorry. But you’ll have great experience.

Hi thank you for your reply and the good intentions, I have made my exact calculus to the cents those past few days for my travel and it would cost me wayyyy less to travel from AND in the country than what would be the cost only in my country especially going in the south. As I said, I am autistic and hyperfixation and planning is part of my routine, I found the great card for my travel in the UK the first time and it would cost me very cheap me and my travel partner, I asked locals in a private Facebook group and they helped, bless their heart!
I also saw that the London Underground is capped at 7 pounds or something, this is fine by me even incredibly cheap. Before looking up the prices I would have though it would cost me around 200 / 300 € like it did before when I never did the metro…
I don’t really care if people don’t speak French as I can totally understand and speak English, especially British english so this won’t be a potential problem, I am in my own bubble and do not speak with people. I really do pray for a nice and smooth experience after my first travel there, I will have a ‘’ first hand ‘’ experience in regards to costs etc. Which I’m also not very worried about as I have a ‘’ special ‘’ lifestyle that many don’t understand but doesn’t cost me much at all when I travel. Thank you ! :smiley:

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