Two of our favourite things are traveling and animals but being on the road and moving around regularly makes it impossible for us to have a pet of our own and we miss that.
Not long before Covid hit in 2020 we did a little bit of house/pet sitting for two of our friends in Langkawi. It got us wondering if there were any more opportunities for this kind of thing while traveling so we started searching online. We came across a website called Trustedhousesitters which seemed like the kind of thing we were looking for.
Similar to Airbnb in a way, it connects people who have a property and animals with people who need somewhere to stay and love animals. The pet owners and pet sitters can each leave a review of their experience just like Airbnb and over time this improves the quality for both parties. For an annual membership of £40 we thought we’d give it a go and signed up. Covid hit not long after and that was it, it became redundant and we forgot all about it.
4 years went by with us not giving it a second thought until we got a random message from the same friends in Langkawi while we were in Turkey, asking what our next plans were. At the time we were mulling over where to go. Maybe India for somewhere new, Vietnam a bit longer term as we had enjoyed our Visa runs there whilst in Thailand but nothing was definite or planned.
Our friends were headed back to the UK for 7 weeks around the time our Turkish Visa was due to run out and they asked if we want to come and look after their wee Pomeranian named Zeus. So with no set plans we found some relatively cheap flights to Langkawi and off we went to look after a small pooch and a house.
Before our friends left for the UK they put us in touch with another British couple who also lived on the island who had 2 dogs and a cat. They also sometimes need someone to pet sit for them. Things just naturally snowballed from there. We went to meet them and their pets and we agreed to do a short sit for them of just 4 days after we finished at the first place. They also introduced to yet another British couple. Again after meeting up we were offered a further 4 weeks accommodation looking after their dog and cat while they headed back to the UK for a while.
Things had moved quickly just by word of mouth. Before we knew it we had 4 months of free digs arranged all with the wonderful company of cats and dogs. It got us back to thinking about the Trustedhousesitters website again and we decided to take the plunge and sign up for a years membership.
There is some high competition when it comes to applying. Without getting any sits from the first time we signed up we didn’t have any reviews on the site but we did have a couple of testimonials from sits we have done in the past outside of their platform.
Two weeks into our new membership we applied for one in Taiwan looking after 2 cats. Taiwan is a place we have always wanted to visit. It’s a bit more expensive than the South Eastern Asian countries but we figured if we could get free digs it would make it more affordable.
Within a couple of days of our application we got a message from the homeowner asking if we could have a chat over a video call. It felt a bit like a job interview and we weren’t sure what to expect. He showed us round his house and talked about the area and what the City of Kaohsiung is like. We got to see his cats as well and we were wondering when he would start asking us some questions when all of a sudden he just said “So what do you think, do you want to do it?” erm yeah go on then fella, we’ll come in June and pet/house sit for you. And that was that. Within 2 weeks of signing back up we have a 5 week gig in the Southern City of Kaohsiung, Taiwan. We are incredibly excited to go and sample a new country that has been on our list for a while. It all seemed a bit too easy.
Since we came back to Asia in February we have only paid for 5 nights stay when we did a visa run to Koh Lipe in Thailand, that’s pretty decent and is allowing us to save some money to do other things such as take a week off to explore the rest of Taiwan. We have alerts now set up on the Trustedhousesitters app to notify us when new sits within our search criteria become available. We are really trying to get one in Japan if we can or some more time in Taiwan, let’s see what happens.
You do get a few become available in Asia but nothing compared to the sits available in Europe, Australia/New Zealand and North America/Canada. The UK in particular has literally thousands of pet owners currently seeking people to look after their animals and give them some love.
I think the membership is worth it even if you just fancy a weekend away in say the West coast of Scotland or a week or two’s break somewhere in Ireland. Checking right now there are over 1,600 people currently looking for pet sitters in the UK and some of the places to stay look like they were on Grand Designs!
There are so many opportunities out there. Fancy a few days in Rome looking after a cat? How about a long weekend in Poland and maybe feed some fish. We even saw one recently that had no pets involved but you had to water some plants every day. There are many different situations where people need you to look after their home.
If your interested use our link to sign up. You’ll get a 25% discount off the normal price and we’ll get a couple of months free when we come to renew next year. You can find the link to sign up below.
If you love animals and love travel what are you waiting for?
2 thoughts on “Sitting around the world”
There are also quite some complaints abt that site. And unfortunately, as you say, most requests are in the West, very few in Asia. I was a member for 1 year, years ago in the Caribbean but nada, so I didn’t renew. We’ve always found it difficult to find something in SE Asia, words of mouth probably works well. And of course, in general, locals travel less, don’t have pets or are unfamiliar with pet sitting platforms. From one, you rolled into another petsit, also due to introductions via people you know, but on the whole you are talking about foreign expats. Do they advertise on THS? Enjoy your next sit. We’re leaving Cambodia in September, also looking for petits wherever in the region. All the best to both of you.
Correction: pet-sits