How to Find Pet-Sitting and House-Sitting Gigs

Pet-sitting and house-sitting has been an important ingredient in our nomadic travel life. There are many benefits, including saving money on rent and allowing us to test out different living situations.

If you’re curious about pet sitting or house sitting domestically or internationally, this post shares why it’s great for budget travel and how to find house sit opportunities.

Last updated: Summer 2020. Originally published: Summer 2018.

What is international pet and house sitting like?

This video about international pet-sitting was made by fellow intentional travelers, Dorene and Troy from Travel life Experiences.

This is one of their video updates about their first international pet sitting job in Costa Rica. Enjoy!

How we spend our time while pet sitting

“The most crucial part of our job is spending our time looking after the animals and ensuring that they are fed, walked and cared for. We also play with them and get them to do some activities, such as taking the dogs to the beach.

The other part is living. We work out each morning and spend part of the day relaxing and reading, while the other part is spent on working. We work online on our website and with our clients through email, Skype phone, and video calls during the day.

When we are committed to one location with decent internet, we catch up on video calls with our friends and family. For errands, we head into the nearby towns of Brasilita and Tamarindo, and trips for chores like groceries, gas and a visit to the vet (to get a cure for tick problems).”
~ Dorene

What have we learned the most while pet sitting?

“For me, I forgot how much I loved looking after dogs and cats. During the time we worked full time, I traveled extensively, and it made it difficult to have pets. Perhaps it was an excuse! So this is a perfect win-win scenario to enjoy the company of pets, as well as get the chance to continue with our travels.

Troy is grateful for trying out pet sitting as an opportunity to see more of the world. Only about a year ago, we had no idea that pet and house sitting was an option for us. When we read about the experiences of others who have done pet sitting, it convinced us.

It’s a perfect relationship to enjoy pets in exchange for accommodations; while pet owners are assured that their pets are taken cared of rather than being put in a kennel. At the same time, they are put at ease knowing that their house is kept safe.”
~ Dorene

Maybe pet sitting is an opportunity for you to try on your next vacation. It could also be that you need to find a sitter as a perfect solution during your next holiday so you can travel worry free.

Next, let’s take a look at how to find pet-sitting and house-sitting gigs.

How to use house-sitting to travel

House-sitting and pet-sitting have been key ingredients in our unconventional, digital nomad life so far. (Actually, we’re pet-sitting right now, as I write this!)

It has allowed us to live rent-free, thus eliminating the pressure to make a ton of money as we grow our online businesses from scratch.

We have primarily done house-sitting domestically, using our personal networks to fill our stays in Oregon with free and/or paid living arrangements.

House-sitting is also one of the most affordable ways to experience local life abroad, eliminating your accommodation costs as you travel.

House-sitting networks

To find house-sits outside of our personal network, we have used House Carers (Mind My House and Trusted House Sitters are the other big online networks).

With any of these, you can browse the house-sit opportunities around the world without being a member, but you’ll need to pay a membership fee in order to actually contact a home owner.

House Carers will automatically send me notifications when a new opportunity posts in the regions and date range that I’m interested in.

This is especially helpful because the most popular postings get a lot of responses, so it pays to be early to the game.

Tips for House-sitting sites:

• You can search opportunities by region and start date.
• You’ll want to check the new listings frequently so you can contact the home owner before they select a sitter. Some of the house-sit opportunities can be competitive, so you can’t be lazy if you want to spend a free week living on the beach of Mexico in November!
• Always fill out your online profile completely and have contact info for a couple good references to share whenever you contact a home owner.
• Don’t expect to get paid for gigs on these sites. In some cases, homeowners may even ask you to cover utilities costs if it’s a long-term stay or in a desirable rental area.

How to Use Your Personal Network to Find House-sits

We’ve had the most success finding house-sits through our own personal networks. We built a house-sit page on our personal blog, which includes our dates of availability and rates.

Pet-Sit Rates: We set rates based on a sliding scale of how much work is involved.

One easy cat may be no charge (especially if it’s in a convenient location for us); while a dog who needs walks at specific times and takes prescription meds might be $45 per night. An active dog or two and a couple cats can be up to $80 per night.

We aim to be more cost-effective than the cost of “kenneling” each pet, meanwhile we provide additional benefits to the home-owner like:

• having someone reliable in the house in case something happens
• being able to leave pets in a familiar environment
• not having to cancel mail or newspaper delivery
• bringing in packages that get delivered
• watering plants or doing other yard work

Our best tip for getting gigs is to shout it from the roof tops! In other words: we e-mail everyone we know several times throughout the year, and we remind people on facebook that we’re looking for house or pet-sitting opportunities.

We get a lot of inquiries from friends of friends who heard about us through the grapevine.

Not every opportunity works out – it has to be a mutually beneficial exchange. But we’ve been able to fill many of the gaps between our big trips. And we have a couple back-up options where we can stay with family members when we’re not house-sitting.

House Swap

If you have a home of your own, you’re also eligible for a house swap. The most well-known online network is Home Exchange which has an annual fee for membership.

It essentially allows you to list your home, view homes in other destinations around the world, message home-owners, and arrange an “exchange agreement” to stay in each other’s homes.

We have several friends who have used Home Exchange around the world.

(Note: You can sometimes find offers for home exchange on Craigslist, too, but if you go that route, you no longer have the safety measures like member verification, reviews, and the secure messaging system that Home Exchange provides.)

If you have any questions about house-sitting or pet-sitting, please let us know in the comments below or through our contact page!

We go into even more detail about house-sitting, house-swapping, and plenty of other outside-the-box accommodation ideas for your travels in our book. It even includes checklists for setting up a successful pet-sitter profile and tips to impress homeowners so you’ll get raving reviews.

>> Get the book: Unconventional Budget Accommodations – Creative Ways to Save Money on Transformational Travel <<

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