Three Years of Housesitting and These Are My Top 6!

I will forever be grateful for the random youtube advert I saw years ago about Trusted Housesitters! Housesitting is hands down my favourite budget travel hack and one of the best ways to visit a new place.

Not only do you get “free” accommodation and get to play with super cute pets but you get a true local experience of a place. An all round win!

I have been housesitting since September 2022 and since then I’ve done 25+ sits in 5 different countries. Truly putting my £149 membership fee to good use.

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What is housesitting?

Housesitting is essentially where you move into someone’s house to look after the house and any pets whilst they are away. You are typically responsible for any household maintenance (light cleaning, accepting mail etc) and caring for any pets. Your exact responsibilities will range from gig to gig and should be made clear to you before you accept.

What to learn more? Check out this post next.

How do you find housesitting opportunities?

There are a bunch of different sites and apps to find housesitting opportunities but my go to place to find them is a site called Trusted Housesitters. Now, this is a membership site so you do have to pay to be a member but no money exchanges hands between the homeowners or sitters. Plus, paying the fee is additional security that the sit opportunity is legit and you can tap into the customer support team should anything go wrong.

Fancy giving Trusted Housesitters a go? Sign up with my link to get 25% off!

Posts you may like relating to housesitting…

• Complete Guide to Housesitting
• How Does Trusted Housesitters Work?
• Top Tips for Landing Housesits on Trusted Housesitters
• How I’m Going to Spend Only £5k on My Gap Year
• 8 Ways to Stretch Your Travel Budget

But what are the best sits I’ve ever done? After much consideration I’ve managed to narrow it down to my top 6 housesits over the past few years!

6) 1 Month in Seattle

Yes, I managed to land a whole month in the rainy city of Seattle. I love love loved Seattle and ended up spending Christmas and New Years there with three cute doggies.

A month is the perfect amount of time to get truly settled into their routine and get to explore a tonne too. I made a point to get out the house every day and try out as many of the local cafes as I could.

5) 1 Week in London

London is one of my all-time favourite cities – even made it onto my 30 before 30 as a place I have to live. When I first joined Trusted Housesitters, I made good use of the saved searches and set an alert for central London sits.

I’m not sure I ever got to the alerts quick enough but I did find and land 1 week in the city with a cute dog. The location ended up being round the corner from a friend of mine so was perfect!

I got to explore and do the normal tourist stuff whilst also having a full home base and the normal day to day responsibilities. I also made time to see a West End show!

4) 10 Days in Geneva

Switzerland was never super high on my must see list but after 10 days in beautiful Geneva, I can’t wait to go back and see more!

The location of this housesit was perfect with the most incredible views on my daily dog walks.

3) 3 Weeks in Belgium

Like Switzerland, I was actively looking for housesits in Belgium but when the chance came up to spend 3 weeks in a small town I jumped on it.

I spent the three weeks working my way in the heart of the four rescue cats (it was a lot less work than you’re imagining) I was caring for, bouncing around the major cities on the train and riding a bike around the cute little town.

This was also one of the few housesits that welcomed guests so two of my best friends came out to spend the weekend.

2) 10 Days in Salem

When I saw this listing I couldn’t believe my eyes! It wasn’t long after I’d submitted my 10,000 word undergraduate dissertation on the Salem Witch trials so it felt like fate.

Full transparency, I applied for it because I couldn’t pass on this opportunity and ended up with 5 pets to look after. Thankfully, they were all amazing and actually very low effect considering.

I was able to explore the town and fully embrace all the places I’d been reading about for a whole year. Very surreal.

1) 10 Days in NYC

The top spot is currently taken by a housesit that I never thought would actually happen and one I have been dreaming about since I first heard about housesitting.

Living in New York has been on my bucket list since I can remember and getting a glimpse into the life by spending 10 days living there was INCREDIBLE!! It’s only pushed this dream higher up my list and one day I will make New York home.

I can’t see a housesit topping this one but I’m open!

Related – Travel Spending Dairy: 10 Days Housesitting in NYC

There you go, my top 6 housesits! Have you housesat before? Would you ever consider it?

I find all my housesits on Trusted Housesitters! And for around £100 you can do unlimited housesits for an entire year! That’s like a year of potential accommodation for the cost of 1 night in a hotel – insane! Plus if you use this link you can get 25% off!