Combining long-term traveling with house sitting is a perfect concept for us. As described in the previous introduction post about us, we have been living nomadic life for over three years already, which means that we have no home base and we are slowly traveling the world while working online through our company. Traveling full time is not all about exploring new destinations, even though it seems to be a common misbelief that digital nomads are on a never-ending vacation. In reality, we often work long days in front of our laptops, and can stay for several weeks in same location.
There are several reasons why we don’t want to stay in hotels or hostels, but prefer house sitting or renting Airbnb apartments instead. First of all, it would be ridiculously expensive to stay in hotels all the time. But as importantly, hotel life is not meaningful for longer stays. This is our everyday life, so instead of eating out in restaurants we cook ourselves, and instead of being out on the beach or exploring sights most of the day, we stay a lot indoors, working. That is why we want to live in an apartment with a kitchen and proper conditions for working. As we also love pets, what would be a better accommodation option than to live in a real house and to take care of the home owners pets while they are away!
House sitting is a wonderful win-win concept that often doesn’t involve money. This means that whereas we don’t need to pay for the accommodation while house sitting, also the home owners don’t need to spend money on pet care facilities or for hiring someone to come and take care of the garden. Money aside, house sitters bring safety – home owners can go on holiday without leaving their house empty and vulnerable – and the house sitters will keep good company for the pets while the owners are away.
For us house sitting has already now been a wonderful choice. We have made friends with home owners and have gotten a lot of adorable furry friends too! We have been able to go back to do new house sits in the same places, which is great for everyone, including the pets of course. Applying for new house sits has brought us to destinations we wouldn’t have visited otherwise, and we have enjoyed being part of the life of small rural villages as well as being able to live in huge metropolises like locals for a short time. We have a car in use when we are in Europe, which is a great advantage for a house sitter – it’s easy to reach even remote corners, and with own wheels we have more freedom to explore the surroundings.
Year 2020 has been horrible in so many ways and for so many people and economy, from personal to global level. For us as nomads it has meant a lot less traveling of course, and not much house sitting. When writing this in late August 2020, we are in eastern France taking care of a house of our friends, and for autumn we are planning a road trip in Central Europe, possibly doing some short house sits, if the coronavirus situation allows. If you happen to have a need for a house sitter in Central Europe during the coming months, contact us and let’s see if we could arrange that!
