House Sitting

  • Post author:
  • Post last modified:October 19, 2022
  • Reading time:13 mins read
House Sitting Who can resist these eyes?!

As pet lovers, James and I have been toying with the idea of House Sitting for a long time.

Traveling the world, while still being able to cuddle, play, and pamper pets sounded like winning the lottery.

So, we researched further into housesitting and quickly decided that this was something that was perfect for us!

If you also love animals but travel often or aren’t able to have pets of your own for other reasons, housesitting would certainly be of interest to you.

Toby
House Sitting in Australia
Toby
House Sitting in Australia

In Germany, I had some experience housesitting cats. And so when we arrived in Australia, we wanted to try out House Sitting together.

We were keen on spending time with pets while exploring new neighborhoods, which we might not visit as tourists. Another great aspect was meeting cool, interesting, and lovely locals.

Before we signed up, we researched the different platforms to find the best options for us.

Our first House Sitting opportunity was with amazing Griff
Our first House Sitting opportunity was with the amazing Griff

The Best House Sitting Websites

House Sitting our Sweetheart Tess
House Sitting our Sweetheart Tess

Trusted Housesitters

The first website which came up on our house-sitting search was Trusted Housesitters. Trusted Housesitters is probably the biggest international house-sitting platform there is.

The biggest advantage of Trusted Housesitters definitively is that it is truly international and known worldwide. The website is very easy to use. Filters can be set by dates, by duration, by your favorite pets, by country, and/or by multiple combinations. Other filters such as high-speed wifi, the use of the homeowner’s vehicle, etc are also available.

The disadvantage is that the house-sitting community is very large. That means if you want to snatch that perfect housesit, you need to be quick.

The membership fee is 99 EUR per year, which is on the high side because there are comparable sites for less.  Nevertheless, we registered for Trusted Housesitters and are looking forward to our upcoming house-sitting experiences

worldwide! AND: if you would like to become a member of Trusted Housesitters, here is a discount code that will save you 25% off on your membership fee!

Discount Code: RAF294666

Barkly, the cutest little French Bulldog
Barkly, the cutest little French Bulldog

Aussie Housesitters

We didn’t sign up on Aussie Housesitters until we were already traveling for over a month in Australia.

Aussie Housesitters is a house-sitting website focused solely on Australia, but it offers some incredible house-sitting opportunities. Because of the high number of house-sits, you have a good chance of finding one in the location you’re searching.

The homepage is well arranged and is very simple to use. When you create your profile, you can upload several pictures and even an optional video.

Filters can be used to help refine your search and alerts can be created so you’re notified by e-mail if an opportunity arises that matches your criteria.  A great feature of the website is that multiple alerts can be created and used simultaneously.

On the search for your perfect house-sit, you can mark opportunities in your favorites and compare them later in your own favorites page overview.

Another positive aspect is that you can review the homeowners after your housesit.

After a short time as members, we even started receiving requests from homeowners directly before they published their ad, asking us if we would be available to housesit for them. Not only were we very honored by these gestures, as a bonus, it brought us some wonderful unplanned housesits. It also confirmed to us that we were doing a damn good job house-sitting! ?

We met some amazing people and cuddly pets on Aussie Housesitters and were fortunate to be able to have some memorable stays in fantastic places.

Aussie Housesitters Membership

An Aussie Housesitters membership * costs AUD 84 per year, which pays for itself fast. Many of the houses have pools, beautiful big gardens, and/or incredible terraces with breathtaking views. If you would book something like that over Airbnb, you would end up paying much more than the yearly membership.

Ivy and Puss
Ivy and Puss

If you would like to become a member of Aussie Housesitters, you will get a 10% discount * if you sign in over our link:

Aussie Housesitters *

Let us know how you like their website. You can browse and have look at it without becoming a member to get an idea of what they offer.

Taking a walk with our sweetheart Tess
Taking a walk with our sweetheart Tess

Happy Housesitters

Happy Housesitters was the first house-sitting website that we joined while in Australia.

The website is very easy to handle. You can use multiple filters and save favorites on your own favorites page.  But unfortunately, many of the homeowners don’t post any pictures. We also found that some of the homeowners don’t reply very quickly, or don’t even answer at all.

Still, we recommend this site. It brought us luck and a few really wonderful housesitting jobs which we will remember forever.

Making new friends
Making new friends

Happy Housesitters Membership

Happy Housesitters offers memberships for 4 months (AUD 60), 12 months (AUD 65), or 18 months (AUD 85).

As with other house-sitting websites, you can browse for free before being a member.

Happy Housesitters gets a clear “YES“ from us!

More House Sitting websites

After our trip through Australia, we want to continue the opportunity to be with pets. We have already looked into websites like Nomador, Petsnflats, Luxury House Sitting, Mind My House, etc, and will keep you posted as soon as we have tried some of them out.

Stay tuned for our further travels and house-sitting recommendations!

Please also visit our new house sitting pages on Facebook and Instagram and feel free to follow.

Unforgettable Griff
Unforgettable Griff

* This post contains affiliate links, at no extra cost to you. Thank you for supporting Puttering around the World!

Leave a Reply