So?
We went to Normandy to catch a breath after busy season in Scotland. W found a house sit and for couple of weeks we looked after two lovely dogs and a cat who decided on the first night to sleep with us for the rest of our stay. We’ve been walking on the forest tracks, we’ve been climbing, we explored local towns and discovered normandy flavors straight from the local markets. Alternative way of spending holidays or a bit of a rest time during long travelling? Sure thing!
 
First question – how much does it cost?
   
The best part of house sitting it’s completeley free! In exchange of looking after house and animals for a few days, weeks or months, you can live in every part of this world without paying rent, utilities and often having a car to use, like us in France, even though we didn’t need it, as we arrived by our own car… using blablacar on the way, another alternative way of travel, which we will cover maybe in another post.

 

So, where to start?

On most of the webs you have to pay an annual fee to register.
There is mindmyhouse.com with registration for 20$, there is nomador.com, where your first 3 housesitting applications are for free, which is a great option to try how it actually works and after that you have to pay 65€. Or housecarers.com for 50$. We could make a list forever…
We have choosed trustedhousesitters.com, where annual fee is comparably high as it’s 119$, but note that it’s coming back probably already on your first sit. If you would decide to use this website, use this link to register – you will get 20% off, and we will receive 2 months extra of our membership ;). We also hoped that high annual fee will make hosts easier to trust us on our first sit.

So, did it really helped?

One morning I woke up feeling really bad with heavy headache, so instead of going to work I’ve stayed in bed with laptop. After a several months in Scotland we really needed a brake and I was digging the internet looking for an option to spend some time at late autumn near the cozy fireplace… without ruining our budget. And this is how I found trustedhousesitters. In the same morning I’ve registered us on the web, found a house like from fairytail in France and I’ve sent an application. Next morning we’ve received an e-mail that we are welcome to come. That easy. Is it? Or we were just lucky?

 

How to higher your chances for the first house sit?

On trustedhousesitters is an option to add external references – from your friends, employer or whoever comes to your mind. We asked for them our housemate in Scotland, as we actually looked after her dogs and a cat when she was away for the weekends :) and also our friend who we simply been regularly visiting often staying overnight, so she could write that we don’t use to destroy the house but she has also written that we always clean the dishes ;).
On the web you can also verify your account based on a few levels. You can verify your e-mail address, phone number, identify document or even check your criminal records. We did all of them, apart from last one.
And the most important thing – your profile! Add pictures of you, write who you are, what your passions are, how your experience with animals looks like? We’ve found our first sit in France simply because our host lady felt some connection with us and she have trusted us after reading our profile, before we’ve done any verification and before we even thought about getting any references. And after a sit we liked each other so much, that we stay in touch until now and we've got an invitation for the future, not necessarily for house sitting.
When you apply for a sit write why did you choose exactly this one, exactly there and why you are the one/ones (you can create your profile as a couple) who your host is looking for.

Why housesitting?

So first thing coming into mind is – free accommodation. But is it really about that? Maybe at some point, but probably there plenty of more imporatant aspects of this. If not house sitting, we probably wouldn’t find ourselves on normandy village, a few kilometers away from the main road, we wouldn’t met artists friends of our host and we wouldn’t feel lice local people living their reality. And if you love animals as we do, looking after them is just another great thing about that. And exchange with no money involved, makes it another alternative to the consumptional world.

Where?

You can find house sitting all over the world. On trustedhousesitters most lisitings is coming from UK, USA, Australia and western Europe. But also there are listings coming everyday from Asia, South America or Africa, but they are in the minority.

And if you are still not feeling fully convinced have a look below where we’ve packed a day of our house sitting in normandy in a few minutes video and… have a happy sitting!