My wife and I have had so many wonderful pet/house sitting experiences. Years ago I envisioned that TH might provide a wonderful opportunity to be in warmer location during the winter. Of course, living in Minnesota, almost everyplace on the planet would qualify as “warmer”. We hope for significantly warmer. The challenge seems to be connecting with warm-climate homeowners. I would welcome any suggestions from others who might be TH snowbirds. Thanks in advance!
Why don’t you look at SE Asia or Sri Lanka for winter sits? Definitely warmer although pretty competitive as there aren’t loads of sits on THS in that region. (Local FB pages also an option). Otherwise the Canary Islands, Cyprus, Southern Turkey or Morocco will all be pleasant temperatures too at that time of year. Lots of choice @Cubme953 #winterescapecoming
@Cubme953 How about Australia?! We’ve done lots of sits there in (European/US) winters. Our very first sit was a 4 week Christmas sit in Perth with 2 cats. Daily beach walks, BBQs, swimming in the sea- glorious! Australia has quite a big presence on THS but there are other sites you could try like Aussiehousesitters.
We’ve also done sits in KL, Singapore & Bali. They are very hard to get- especially since the 5 app limit but- but there are local FB groups too.
In Europe Souther Spain is wonderful in winter. Lovely mild winter temps, cool nights, mostly warm sunny days.
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Closer to home, it seems that as a large city, Phoenix, AZ always has plenty of sits, as well as Tucson. I love southern AZ in winter, temps are perfect for me with cool nights and toasty days, low humidity. Florida does seem competitive in winter, but the whole Carolina and Georgia coast would be significantly warmer than MN, although not exactly balmy. I have noticed that the Florida panhandle sits don’t seem as competitive as the rest of Florida.
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There are many places in California which are much warmer than Minnesota in the winter! People usually think of southern CA (San Diego, Orange County, LA, Santa Barbara, and Palm Springs area), but the San Francisco area is also wonderful, and even Sonoma County.
You can study weather averages to see what I am talking about. We live in Portland, Oregon, which is really cold November through March. I grew up in a suburb of San Francisco, and we have been spending a lot of time there recently, and I was pleasantly reminded how nice the weather is all year round!
We agree with @Hikergal. We have been sitting 2 years full time with 90% of our sits in Arizona. The winters here are amazing! Plants generally take care of themselves and more often than not, HOs have more cacti/rock landscaping…so less work on that front. As for pet sitting, walking dogs in AZ winters is just awesome. It does get cold for a few weeks but no where near snowy/icy conditions. We escape the summer heat by going up to Prescott/Flagstaff or San Diego. Definitely recommend Arizona winters!
I appreciate all the helpful comments. We’re well on our way!
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