#027: The Art of Free Travel: House-Sitting Your Way Around the World

In this episode, we talk with Brittnay Sharman about house sitting.

On the Show Today You’ll Learn:

• What are the benefits of house sitting, and how can it be used to earn money?
• Why are people searching for a house sitter?
• Other than caring for the pets, what other duties are assigned as a house sitter?
• How do you settle in in someone else's house?
• Are there countries where house sitting is more prevalent than others?

Links & Resources

Website: https://www.thetravellinghousesitters.com/

Visit our website at https://whywetravel.net/

Transcript

Claus Lauter: Hello, welcome to another episode of the Ywe Travel Podcast. Today we wanna talk about different ways on how you can accommodate yourself in your travel destination. So one [00:01:00] big thing obviously is Airbnb, then booking.com hotels and all of that. But there is another way, and we wanna talk about that. We wanna talk about house sitting.

For that I have Brittany Shaman with me today. She runs the Traveling House, sits website, and then you can find resources you need to start house sitting. She has spent the past five years pre Covid carrying about 40 homes. She has cared for homes in over 12 countries, including New Zealand, Australia, Italy, France, Greece, Montero, Malaysia, Thailand, Ireland, uk, and in the Caribbean looking after a cat on a catamaran.

So that should be an interesting conversation there. So let's, Hey, hello to Brittany. Hi Brittany. How are you?

Brittnay Sharman: Good. How are you doing?

Claus Lauter: , very well, thank you. Brittany House sitting is something that not everyone does or has heard of. , give me a bit of an idea how you got into this and a bit of the story on how it works.

Brittnay Sharman: Yep. I think just like everyone else, I had no idea about how sitting until I met a friend who was doing it. And we were living over in London at the time, , doing the old Aussies in London for two years. And we met our friend down the park and she showed up with a dog one day and I said, what are [00:02:00] you doing?

And she goes, I'm house sitting at the moment. And she told us where she was. And it was this beautiful part of London. We are all living in share houses at the time. So when I heard where she was, I was like, wow, like maybe we could try this. , I knew our visas were ending soon, so we thought maybe we could kind of extend our travels around Europe.

So we started doing a few house sits in London, and then, , then we did it for the next five years and then kind of covid happened. So I'm kind of easing back into it now, but that's kind of how I got started in.

Claus Lauter: Okay, now you're taking over someone else's household who's like everything. What's the typical scenario? Why do people, are for a house sitter?

Brittnay Sharman: Maybe nine times outta 10. It's mainly for the animals. , a lot of people just wanna keep 'em in that comfortable environment. and they wanna head away knowing that they're not the cattery or a kennel. And then sometimes it could also be like, there's a lot of places we've found, like Spain, , Mexico, France, a lot of people have second homes and they just like to have someone in the home.

It might be just for security or they might have pools that need looked after or a garden. So it can be, there's all different types. And then [00:03:00] like you mentioned, we also did the one in the Caribbean looking after a yacht. So that was our first boat. They can't be left by themselves.

So every single house, it's different.

Claus Lauter: Okay how long can your house it? I can imagine that people not leave for months on the end. How does that work?

Brittnay Sharman: it can really vary again, like it could be maybe just for a weekend. I've seen ones upwards of a year. , it might be some, they're an expat family I've seen and they're going somewhere for a year and that can't bring animals. , I usually try and find ones or at least four weeks.

otherwise you're constantly packing up and moving on. So I think anything past a four week mark is quite good.

Claus Lauter: now is said that you need to have some certain tasks to look after the pets. , what else do you need to 

Brittnay Sharman: So many variety of things. It could be just looking after the pets, , I've noticed a lot of house plants at your place, , looking after plants. , pool care, garden care, but it's mainly just about the animals. I find.

Claus Lauter: What kind of criteria are people looking for when they look for a house? I can imagine that's not always a good fitting. Do we have any stories on that?

Brittnay Sharman: [00:04:00] People always ask this about trying to land a house set and I think one of the best things I've found is, , really reading what the person's after and then, Putting that into your application. So if they mention in the, , application they have two German shepherds and a large garden, then I would mention in my application, cuz I do have experience like larger dogs and I'm comfortable walking them, and I'd also mention that I'm comfortable looking after gardens and I enjoyed that side of things.

So I think that really relating , the things you were looking for to your skills is one of the best.

Claus Lauter: Okay. When it comes to taking over the household, do you expect or do you have your own room, your own bed, or are you taking over the bedroom of the person who was staying there? How does it work? You just wanna get a feeling on how do you settle in in someone else's house.

Brittnay Sharman: At first it does feel a bit weird, like when we first started doing it, but then it just got very normal. Some people will either give their spare bedroom or they'll give you their bedroom. I did it a lot, [00:05:00] like when we were doing it full-time, I didn't really mind, I was happy to sleep anywhere.

It was nice to just be traveling and exploring new places and when you're happy to stay in hostiles and hotels and that, you are used to staying in all different locations. So to have an actual house is just so much nice. You've got a kitchen, you can do your laundry. If you are working like we were, you might have a proper desk or something to work at.

, that was one of the big benefits to. And just the kind of the slow travel as well. It's not like you're jumping from place to place constantly.

Claus Lauter: Most travelers have an idea about an area where they want to stay at if they go to a city or country or whatever. How does that work with house sitting? Are you more in suburban area? Years or how can you pick the area that you want to go?

Brittnay Sharman: Some people are charged for their house sitting and they'll charge and they'll specifically go to that location. I like to decide where I want to go and then look for house sits that area and I'm happy to do in the city or out in the country. It all kind of depends on what the transport's like.

Some [00:06:00] homeowners will offer you a car if they know that it's kind of hard to get around. , but I'm happy to do either and I find that it's nice to kind of rather than, cuz when you are traveling, a lot of the times you are in those hostile or city or hotel kind of zones and you don't really get a good feel for the place.

It's nice to be in a neighborhood with people and you get to kind of see all the local shops and everyone going about their day, which is what I really enjoy.

Claus Lauter: Okay. You just mentioned briefly, , payment. How does it work? Do you pay , the owner of the house, or do they pay you or it's a bar agreement? What kind of scenarios do you have there?

Brittnay Sharman: , they say no payment. So both the homeowner and the house sit a sign up for the website and then the website kind of facilitate everything. And it's a kind of a win-win situation for both. They get their animals cared for, and then the house city gets to stay there for free.

So no money's changed hands. al I never wanted to charge because I kind of felt. We were getting a good deal already and that I find that it could then also have tax implications and visa implications. So [00:07:00] I found it just easier to just not charge for it at all. Some people do actually though.

Claus Lauter: What kind of person, , is the one the home owner renting out? I think it takes a special mindset to sort of give your home to a stranger.

Brittnay Sharman: I find that people are quite open-minded and same with, even with my parents. When I mentioned, when they said they needed, they asked me to look after their dog and I mentioned, would you get a house center? They thought, oh no, like, you know, that's a bit weird having someone in your house.

And I'm like, well, wouldn't you prefer that? Then sending the dog to a kennel. I think once people start to understand the idea and realize that people aren't in it to come to your house rummage through all your things and everything, , I find that people are quite open to it.

The idea, once they understand it,

Claus Lauter: Okay, so you're running a website, as you mentioned, traveling house sitters. Gimme a bit of an idea of what can I expect there, what kind of resources you offer, and where I need to start. If I have never done house sitting.

Brittnay Sharman: The reason we started the website was we wanted a place to put all of our references to show other homeowners what we'd done, and as well as that we had a lot of friends and [00:08:00] family who were constantly asking us how do we start house thinning?

And so we started to put together some steps and resources for them. So on the website we have a how to get started. It's pretty much takes you through everything from where you find the house sits to how to start building your references. Cause I think one of the main things , is your applications and your references.

Same with a job. , people wanna see references and if you don't have any when you're starting out, it could be quite tough. So on there, we have some good tips for people. , one of them is , we used our Airbnb reviews, so we just took a screenshot of all our Airbnb reviews and that was quite helpful when we were starting out.

But another thing we found really helpful was we didn't realize, but we were kind of starting out house sitting, we were applying in around October and we were sending all these applications out and not really hearing anything, and then all of a sudden November came around and 

everyone was accepting our applications and we realized it was the holidays. Everyone was kind of trying to get organized for Christmas and they [00:09:00] were the supply starts to outstrip the demand. So people will just take you on. So we found that's a great time to also build your references and we also suggest doing a few house sits around your area with maybe friends or family.

Ask if they need a house there at some point. That's another great way to get some references and I think that would give you an idea if you enjoy doing it because sometimes we might not like living in someone else's home or moving around, , and exploring new places. So I think that doing it locally is a great kind.

Stepping stone into it. And then on the website we kind of have all that laid out for you. We have all the steps you need to go through to get started. House sitting.

Claus Lauter: Okay. Are there any specific countries where house sitting is more common than others?

Brittnay Sharman: It's really big in Australia, huge in Australia, huge in Europe. Big in America, Mexico, it seems that South America and Asia, it's not quite as big, but I find that. Where there is good opportunities we're found in Asia and South America is in expat [00:10:00] communities, so places like Singapore, Bangkok, places where there's lots of expats, they have animals, they head home for a month at a time, and they want house siters.

That's an emerging market there. But really Australia, Europe, America, they're great places to start. And there's thousands and thousands of house thats.

Claus Lauter: did you have any kind of negative experience during your house? Sits.

Brittnay Sharman: , I think I was quite lucky. I've heard of people who have had animals who are sick and pass away, probably one we showed up and the woman actually had two extra dogs and she told us, and they were quite a handful. So that wasn't a negative experience.

We were just kind of saying we were wary of going forward. Just really , making sure that we know exactly what we're looking after. , another one was, which is not a big deal, but we had about two in a row where we didn't ask if they had internet. And you show up and there's no internet. You've gotta kind of sort that out yourself, cuz you kind of think everyone has internet these days, but now it's a question I ask.

, so other than that, I haven't had any negative experiences.

Claus Lauter: Okay. No, that sounds amazing. Where can people find [00:11:00] out more about your website and the resources?

Brittnay Sharman: Yeah, so it's the traveling house sitters.com and it's traveling with two wells, so the Australian spelling, which a lot of people kind of get caught up on sometimes. And then we also have a Facebook group. , you can find that on our website. And that just has about 20,000 people now and it's house sitters, , starting out and experience.

We have homeowners in there, so there's people asking all sorts of questions. So it's another great place to come and learn a bit more and see if it's for you.

Claus Lauter: Okay, cool. Put the links in the show notes, then you're just one click away. I personally have done a few stints on house sitting, , more or less here in South Africa, but I can really recommend that. , as you said, it makes a huge difference. , if you have the right place and you have a kitchen, , it's a thousands times better than any Airbnb out there

Excellent. Thanks Brittany for giving us an overview for House Sitting, and I hope more people will pick you up on that and, , check out your website.

Brittnay Sharman: Awesome. Thank you very much for having me.

Claus Lauter: You're welcome.