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How Animal Lovers Can Get Free Vacation Accommodations (and a Car)

Travelers looking to pet sit find sites, apps to save on trips

spinner image a woman sitting in a chair outside a home, hugging a dog
For a traveler, staying at a destination for free in exchange for pet sitting can mean more travel and a different experience.
Getty Images/Westend61

For the past six ski seasons, I’ve dog sat for a retired couple I met during an 11-minute gondola ride at Keystone Resort in Colorado. I had stopped for a few runs while on my way to catch a flight home after my first official dog sit near Beaver Creek Resort using the travel app TrustedHousesitters.com (THS). Always one to chat on a ski lift, I told the couple about my dog sitting ways. Turns out, the Rubins’ son was getting married in Mexico and they were looking for a dog sitter for their rescue pup, Nora, a shepherd mix.

Since that short but fateful conversation, every winter the Rubins give me a free house, free car and, as I like to say, a free dog when they are away. It’s a direct barter with them, as well as other pet owners I’ve met through THS. I’ve discovered that, at 58, I’m an in-demand dog sitter; after all, between dog walks, skiing and work, I let the dog owners know I’ll have little energy to throw a rager; plus, I always vacuum before I leave.

As it turns out, 13.2 percent of THS sitters are 45-54; 15.4 percent are 55-64; and 10.5 percent are 65-plus. The average age of members at Trust My Pet Sitter, another pet sitting site, is 53, says Angela Fagan who launched the company. She chalks it up to owners wanting sitters with life experience who can deal calmly with issues that may arise.

Honing my hack, I’ve clocked 63 days on the Colorado slopes this year. If not for my pet sitting system, my three months in the Rockies would have cost me $17,000 to $36,000 for accommodations and a rental car.

Pet sitting is an approach to travel that helps to solve a problem facing nearly half the U.S. population. According to a recent Bankrate report, 47 percent of those surveyed say they are forgoing travel this summer, 65 percent citing affordability. More than 1 in 3 surveyed say they plan to go into debt to travel.

A $2.64 billion industry, pet sitting is projected to grow 11.6 percent globally by 2030, according to Grand View Research, a market research and consulting company. Pet care, especially at home, can eat away at a vacationer’s budget. For the traveler, staying at a destination for free in exchange for pet sitting can mean more travel and a very different experience: Horse lovers who want to visit New Zealand can ride every day for free, and dog-obsessed hikers can care for a Great Pyrenees in Utah’s Wasatch Mountains. According to Grand View Research, North America holds the largest pet sitting revenue share with more than 35 percent of the global market.

With membership plans ranging from $50 to $400, there are more than two dozen companies globally that offer pet sitting bartering services to connect owner and sitter, including THS, Trust My Pet Sitter, Nomador, MindMyHouse, HouseCarers and country-specific ones, such as Kiwi House Sitters in New Zealand. Some services are very hands off, providing the platform to the owners and sitters and leaving the connecting to the members. Others get very involved, matching owner and sitter like a recruitment agency and requiring vetting of both pet sitter and pet parent.

Before signing up for any service, check visa and immigration policies for your destination. Pet and house sitting could be seen as work and not allowed on a tourist visa.

How people use the apps, sites

After using a sitter through THS for their pets, Melanie Folstad, 55, and her husband, Rick McUmber, 63, of Chevy Chase, Maryland, had an aha moment when they decided to use the app to cut down on their accommodation costs when visiting their grown children. Together, they’ve sat for two cats in Seattle where their daughter lives, and Folstad recently returned from a solo Seattle sit for two cats and two guinea pigs.

“It’s different than an Airbnb,” McUmber says. “You’re just popping into somebody else’s life, and you see what kind of milk they drink … and we were sleeping, actually, in their bed.” He says the pet owners left them a “thank you” goody bag. If you approach sitting as “assum[ing] a different lifestyle for a little bit,” then it’s “kind of a neat experience,” Folstad says. They say those two pet sits over the past two years saved them $4,000 in hotel fees.

Jackie Van Anda, 70, is a novice pet sit-traveler, too. After a stint with the Peace Corps in her 20s and monthslong volunteer trips to Nicaragua and Malawi in her early 60s, she felt the itch to travel and be “involved in the local community … rather than going and staying in hotels and going to just museums,” says Van Anda, who lives in the Pacific Northwest. Using HouseCarers, she’s done a sit in southern Oregon and in British Columbia, both of which she drove to.

“It’s fantastic, and it’s my way to travel,” she says, though she knows pet sitting is not for everyone. “ ‘Good for you, but I wouldn’t do that!’ ” she says her friends have told her. She even brought her sewing machine. “It [was] like my own personal quilting retreat,” she says of her evenings sewing after spending her days picnicking in parks. Having secured a dog sit through Kiwi House Sitters for Christmas week, Van Anda is building a three-month-long pet sitting itinerary in New Zealand.

spinner image  Barbara Verba pet sits Rocky
During a four-month-long cross-country adventure, Barbara Verba pet sits Rocky, a goldendoodle in Austin, Texas, in 2022.
Courtesy Barbara Verba

That’s how Barbara and John Verba do it. They’ve been pet sitting since 2017. Devastated after their dog died, they moved to Europe for a year after landing a pet sit in Edinburgh, Scotland, funding the trip, in part, by renting out their home in Asheville, North Carolina. Barbara Verba, 63, calls pet sit-traveling a “win-win. We get to have the company and companionship of pets, and we get to do the traveling that we [want] to do.” Using HouseCarers and THS, “Barb was able to secure about 76 percent of the days available with pet sits. Another 24 percent, we just had to find hotels,” says John Verba, 65. During their year away, they cared for 21 animals during 13 pet sits, he says.

Each winter, the Verbas hit the road for stateside travel. Having never been to Southern California, they built this year’s itinerary around a three-week pet sit in Laguna Beach. They scheduled sits for the drive to and from California. In addition to dogs and cats, they’ve cared for a pig, chickens, fish and a mouse.

spinner image Kiona Gross used to pet sit for Pippa
Kiona Gross used a baby sling for Pippa, a cavoodle, in Sydney during a Trusted Housesitters pet sit.
Courtesy Kiona Gross

Kiona Gross, 53, says her pet sitting ways allow her to live “my second childhood.” With a part-time, remote job, she travels overseas about six months each year, using her parents’ house in San Diego as her home base.

Booking her sits through Trust My Pet Sitter and THS, Gross takes excursions during her pet sits, always getting permission from the owners to take the pets with her. During a three-week stay in Scotland, Gross took Harvey, a springer spaniel, with her for an overnight stay on the Isle of Skye. In Switzerland, Gross bought herself a rail pass and traveled the country by train with a cocker spaniel named Cooee. She calls the dogs her “built-in travel companion[s].” Though she usually pet sits as a direct barter, she recently did a monthlong stint in Northern California through Trust My Pet Sitter, caring for a cockapoo for $75 a night in a house on a cliff with views of San Francisco.

For Barbara Talisman, pet sitting is a full-time gig. “I don’t have a house anymore. … Everything I have, I have with me,” says Talisman, 64, of her two suitcases, car and a laptop on which she maps out her nomadic life on an Excel spreadsheet.

Since she began pet sitting, Talisman has honed her process. “I don’t do sits for less than three or four weeks unless I’m doing them in between a house,” she says, booking the long sits first, then shorter ones.

As long as she’s having fun and she has the funds, she says, she doesn’t have a finish line.

An additional hack she discovered — pet sitting gives her the ability to live like a local in cities where Airbnbs are restricted, such as London, New York and San Francisco.

Though pet sitting companies in the marketplace are slightly different, there’s one major similarity across the board, Barbara Verba says, and it’s the only downside of pet sitting.

“You always have to leave every one of these adorable, lovable pets.”

Pet sitting apps, websites

HouseCarers. Founded in 2000 in Australia, HouseCarers charges membership fees of $50 a year for sitters and $25 for owners.

Trusted Housesitters. Founded in England in 2010, THS has memberships ranging from $129 to $399 per year.

Trust My Pet Sitter. Founded in 2019 in Scotland, Trust My Pet Sitter has memberships that start at $129 per year. Top-tier memberships offer perks such as global airport lounge passes.

Nomador. Founded in 2014 in Australia, Nomador starts memberships at $99. ​

MindMyHouse. Launched in February 2005 in England, the company offers annual memberships for $29. ​

Kiwi House Sitters. Founded in New Zealand, the service is free for owners. The annual membership fee for sitters is about $51.50, depending on exchange rates. ​

Editor's note: This article was originally published on July 10, 2024. It has been updated to reflect new information. 

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