Housesitting while you travel

Our first housesitting experience with an actual housesitting agency. What did we think and would we recommend it.

We are fulltime on the road and had not considered housesitting with a formal housesitting group before now.  Basically, as we travel too fast normally and have such a large rig, we felt it would be too difficult.

One of the most attractive things about housesitting while you travel, is free accommodation. No doubt it can save you a lot when travelling fulltime.  There are many ways to save money fulltime travelling and we have written and shared tips on this before. We normally free camp so this isn’t a big deal for us.

Never say Never

When you are fulltime travelling you have to be very flexible and your ability to change direction or plans, will greatly impact the enjoyment of your travels.

In April of this year, Brett had a work accident (he had been offered three months work before we flew out to Europe) and gratefully took it.  Any boost of cash on the road is good, right?!  Most of the time.  Anywho, he lost three front teeth clean out of his head and so began an upheaval and readjustment of Cake and Eat it 3’s 2019 plans. We pride ourselves on being able to readjust when things go wrong or off course, but there may or may not have been some gritted teeth, a few extra red wines and pouty faces, with this news.  (Not to mention knowing I had to deal with our travel insurer, but that's another post)

Situated in outback Western Australia the nearest specialists he required, were in Perth.  So, we relocated to Perth and knowing he would need surgery and multiple followup visits we decided to  look into housesitting opportunities.

Aussie House Sitters

We were recommended to Aussie house Sitters by a fellow travelling family and happily took their discount code to save on the membership cost!  We can also offer you a discount code for anyone looking into giving housesitting while you travel a go – drop me a private message or email and I will shoot the discount code straight back saving you $10 off your membership fee!

The website was easy to use, selecting areas, details of the requirements of the home owner and online platform to communicate with them and arrange a meet and greet.  You can ask any questions, in our case, will our rig fit!

You can also search by date range which is helpful if you need to be in a particular area, at a certain time.

Once you agree on all the details, you confirm in your membership portal and arrive on the date nominated.

We were very lucky to have been left concise instructions on the animals (3 horses and 3 dogs) we would be looking after. This includes, feeding, health, who to contact if you get a runaway! (which we needed!!  One of our charges fancied himself a harry Houdini fan) Along with emergency contact numbers, location of gas/meter box, wifi details, contact details while they were away and of course Netflix password – something new for us.

What did we love about housesitting while you travel

One thing on the road you miss is having pets! Bonus here!! You get to love them, remember what it is like feeding, cleaning up after them and being home at a reasonable time so your not feeding them in the dark and hand them back, all loved up!

Bath

Ok this is an obvious one, definitely took advantage of having a bath, something you definitely don’t get on the road!

Aren’t you glad there were not pictures of this one!

Cooking / Baking

My first LOVE cooking and baking.  Now, I am very fortunate to have an oven in our motorhome and my beloved weber BBQ. It is not so much I can’t cook or bake if I wanted to, but you must give consideration to how much gas is being used and the size of the dish you are trying to cook (ie. Sweet potato with paprika chips).  Also, equipment needed to make some recipes, space required, access to produce and the mess it can make.  You get the idea!

I also love trying new recipes and after being gifted lots of home grown limes, ended up making three lots of Key Lime Pies (some as gifts).  Thai lettuce cups featured more than once too, in celebration of such wonderful fresh produce. Yum!!

Other family favourites cooked beef ragu, Thai Lettuce Cups, Chocolate Self Saucing Pudding, Potato Skin Nachos, Apple & Rhubarb (fresh from garden) pie and banana muffins to name a few.