- Tools for Planning Long Trips: Where to Begin
- Tools to Create Maps & Itineraries
- An Easier Way to Create Maps & Itineraries
- An Even Easier Way to Create Maps & Itineraries
- Tools and Tips on Bookings
- Tools and Tips for Air Travel
- What travel programs should you join?
- Tools to record your trip steps
- Tools to Reflect on Your Trips
- What to do with Fido
- AN EVEN EASIER WAY TO CREATE MAPS & ITINERARIES – TAKE 2
When we went to Australia, we went for six weeks. At the time we had a 14-year-old Lhasa Apso that had been diagnosed with diabetes. That required two insulin shots a day and constant monitoring. We entrusted his care to my mother-in-law. She’s a dog lover and stays close to home and was willing to help. But she lives in Oregon. So, we drove eight hours to take him up there and another eight hours to pick him up. It was exceptionally nice of her to take care of him, but we knew we couldn’t burden her again for our next trip. We had to figure out what to do with Fido!
Rick and I spent a week in San Francisco after that and I found a pet sitter nearby, but holy cow! It was expensive. I had a friend of a friend sit with him when we went to Yosemite another time, and she was great, but she was in college and couldn’t be with him enough of the time for a lengthy trip like we were anticipating.
When we planned to go to Scotland for six weeks next, I had to find an alternative. I searched Nextdoor.com, care.com and other sites. They were so unbelievably expensive, I had to find something else. Even the vet kennels were ridiculously expensive.
While searching on Nextdoor.com, I ran into a comment by someone that recommended TrustedHousesitters.com. Weirdly, I only saw it once and when I went back and tried to find that comment again, I couldn’t find it.
Looking at the TrustedHousesitters site, I found out how it works. People sign up and pay an annual membership fee to be either a sitter or a pet parent that needs a sitter. These are the options as of today (February 25, 2023) for pet parents.
They’ve added some features since I joined but those features add costs. If you want to join as a sitter, those memberships are as follows.
Another option is to join as both a pet owner and a pet sitter. This is referred to as a combined membership. Those memberships are as follows.
Trustedhousesitter has a how it works page, so you can take a look at that – there’s a video. But, in my words, this is how it works: pet owners take photos of their home and write descriptions about their home and their pets’ needs and then they post their travel dates on the site. Pet sitters then apply to sit for the pet owners. Pet owners get notifications about the applications and can choose who to contact. Once the pet owner has chosen someone, he/she marks the post as fulfilled. There is no cost for hiring a pet sitter through TrustedHousesitters.
When we were planning to go to Scotland, I signed up for TrustedHousesitters and had multiple applications the first day. The second applicant was from Scotland. I figured that was destiny. After a wonderful FaceTime call with the second applicant and her husband, we went with Ann Marie who’s British but lives in Scotland with her husband, John, who doesn’t like to travel. He’s Scottish and has a thick Scottish brogue. Toward the end of our vacation, we stayed with him and their adorable dogs for a few days. But that’s a whole other story! We’re still in touch with them. Here are a couple of pics of them while we were on vacation in Scotland. Ann Marie is with our pup in the first pic and Rick is discussing a roof expedition with John in the second pic.
In another TrustedHousesitter experience my sister “hired” a couple who I’d interviewed but we had to cancel our plans and didn’t need them to stay after all. My sister did hire them, and everything went great. They watched her Australian Shepherd while she went to Montana. This was a local couple that had sold their home and basically stayed with their friends or house/pet sat instead of owning a place.
Update 1/2/24: we went to Cozumel and hired sitter, Lesley, to stay with our foster-fail doggy Benji. She and her mom, Rebecca, stayed and took Benji on lots of hikes. It worked wonderfully. But because of that experience, TrustedHousesitter sent me a discount link. When you use it, you can get 25% off their membership fees.
TrustedHousesitters, in my opinion, is the best option when you need to know what to do with Fido while you’re on vacation! Now that we’re retired, I’m thinking about changing our plan to a combined membership so we can travel somewhere and stay for free on vacation while caring for new pets.