268 nights! That’s amazing!
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@Danandnan - We have decided to start 2024 off with a ‘proper’ holiday so after our current sit ends, we have booked ourselves a month in the Canaries 
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Nice! Enjoy your proper vacation!
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Firstly I’m very grateful for the opportunities this platform has afforded me, it’s pawfect for my semi-retired lifestyle.
2023 year in review:
Considering I’m a part-time sitter I was quite busy this year, and many were long sits, heres my year:
6 sits ( 2 of them repeats)
160 days
6 cats
2 dogs
4 birds ( 2 Cockatiels, 1 Canary, and 1 African Grey Parrott.
Destinations beginning end of December
- Reno Nevada ( 2 months 2 cats)
- Burlington Vermont (dog and then 2 cats)
- Monterey Bay California ( 2 cats) repeat
- Seattle Washington 1 cat
- Portland Oregon ( 2 dogs repeat)
I also had 3 private sits ( not THS)
It was a fun year with absolutely adorable pets.
I’m looking forward to my end of 2023 sit coming up this Thursday in Chicago then off to Toronto and my first overseas sits Scotland and England beginning in March.
Here’s a little photo collage I created. Except 2 all the cats were Gingers even the private sits.
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That sounds amazing 
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I absolutely adore Donkeys, just look at that smile.
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Wowie!!! That’s a lot of critters, not sure about the Scorpion though 
You’re coming to my home town of San Francisco, enjoy ! Lots of great food and wonderful sites. If you need suggestions send me a message, I’ll be abroad on sits in 2024.
This is really interesting @CoolCatAunt ! Where can we find your blog, if you don’t mind me asking?
My 2023 Petsitting Year in Review
- 23 sits, 1 repeat sit, a mix of private & THS sits
- All UK based
(Wales, Cornwall, Cambridgeshire, London) - 206 days
- 11 cats
- 26 dogs
- 2 flocks of poultry
- 2 rats (that needed nebulising!)
- 1 fish tank
- 1 koi pond
- Lots of fresh eggs
, tomatoes 
, chillies 
& eggplant! 
- 2 private saunas
I initially was petsitting so I could be closer to work, but have fallen in love with the lifestyle and look forward to continuing into 2024 
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I’ll be embarking on my first UK sits beginning in March. First Scotland so far then Yorkshire which I’m over the moon about. I’m also American. Your year sounded awesome!
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@CoolCatAunt , I love your visuals!
How did you do the pin map? and how did you have months with no expenditure at all- what about food?
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Omg! I also have a Scorpion story. I spent winter of 2010 in Guatemala. I was living in Laguna San Marcos on Laguna Aitilan. I had rented a room in a motel and one afternoon I was working on my laptop , and a huge scorpion fell on to the bed from the ceiling. I freaked 
i went to the front desk and got the desk clerk. I told him to move it outside but don’t kill it, anyway he ended up squishing it which I didnt want.
@Colin in the summer we photosynthesize 
But to actually answer your question we only track accommodation and big transport (planes, trains, ferries, long distance buses- not local transport) since these are the main differences between traveling and staying put. No matter where we are we’ll need to buy food.
Plus tracking that would be too tedious for us!
I made the pin map with Canva.
@laura358 our blog is jetsettingpetsitters.com, but it is not very kept up. We’re hoping to be more prolific in the coming weeks and months.
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Great thread.
My sits have covered -
Hampshire (UK)
Crete
Murcia (Spain)
Barcelona (Spain)
Berlin (Germany)
Guildford (UK)
Lisbon (Portugal)
Larnaca (Cyprus)
St Austell (UK)
Porto (Portugal)
Ibiza (Spain)
…and in a few days Faro (Portugal).
So 11 sits so far but 12 before 2023 ends.
I stayed in 4 mansions/villas/penthouses I could only dream of owning!
31 cats loved and fed!
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Pleased you are looking forward to spending time in ‘Gods Country’ (Yorkshire)@Catgoddess_99 as a born and bred Yorkshire man (now defected south to London).
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Love this topic!
2023 is my 6th full year as a TH sitter.
From late February to late November:
-
20 sits + 1 that originated from TH, but we arranged a private agreement for a return sit, + 1 sit for a friend
-
11 countries: UK, US, Germany, Norway, Denmark, Portugal, Spain, Iceland, Estonia, Switzerland, Sweden
-
249 days
-
23 cats, 3 dogs, 1 rabbit
-
shortest sit: 2 nights, longest sit: 45
-
southern most sit location: Marbella
, northernmost: Reykjavik 
Longest commute to a sit without flying from one sit to the next: Walmer, to Oslo, 
: train to London - overnight bus (via ferry over the channel) to Ghent 
- bus to Eindhoven 
- train to Lubeck 
, bus (partly on ferry) to Copenhagen 
, bus to Oslo . Had one emergency stop for a passenger on the bus who had been unconscious for several hours, a thorough passport check in Denmark coming from Germany, then a very comprehensive one, where our bus was taken into a warehouse in Norway, coming from Denmark. And this is just one of several long commutes I’ve done to save CO2.
Connections missed: 0! Almost missed the ferry from Sweden to Lithuania, but saved by good karma/kindness of a stranger.
I make an annual thank you card:
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Wow, very cool to read about everyone’s adventures!
I plan to do fewer sits in 2024. (Did 10 in my first 10 months of THS sitting.) That way, I can do more non-sit travel and still get a good amount of time at home. The combination of sitting/traveling and being at home makes all the experiences richer for me, I’ve found. I appreciate being able to use THS differently as my preferences evolve.
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This was a really enjoyable year for me. We had two sits planned pretty far in advance in England, one in Manchester and one in Brighton. The surprising element this year was that I was contacted by homeowners and invited to sits. We did 3 weeks in northern California and shortly after returning from England we flew back to do an invited sit for 3.5 weeks outside of London. Since we’re retired, we’re free to take advantage of the opportunities that come up. I hope we’ll do even more in the future.
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This was my first full year pet sitting and my first year with THS.
22 pet sits (2 with THS)
101 nights
17 dogs
5 cats
2 miniature horses
1 parrot
Biggest dog: 150 lb Irish Wolfhound
Smallest dog: 4 lb Yorkie
I hope to do a few more sits with THS next year. Though I never post or comment, I read the forum daily and have learned so much from the conversations here!
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