They say one of the best ways to see the world is to travel like a local. If you are someone who loves to stay in a homely environment plus, enjoys the companionship of furry animals, you are going to like what I’ll be sharing. In today’s article, I’ll show you how to do house sit and supplement your trip in some beautiful places using Trusted HouseSitters.
What Is Trusted HouseSitters
Launched in 2010, this community driven organization is established to help homeowners find reliable individuals to care for their property and pet(s) while they are away for a certain period of time. As a house sitter, you’ll have the responsibility to provide such services in exchange for a free accommodation.
How to Sign Up
To get involved in the house sitting program, you need to submit a profile outlining your personality/skills, supported with reference and maybe some photos/videos that may add to your credibility.
An elaborated profile will increase your chances of securing a seat in a desired location. When an ideal match is met, both parties will initiate direct communication with one another via email/phone to know each other better and to make the necessary arrangement.
Upon completing a sitting task, it’s a common practice to leave a feedback on the owner’s listing, describing your experience during the stay and likewise, vice versa.
The house sitter membership cost $119/year in which you get to access to owner’s listing worldwide (US, UK, Australia, New Zealand, France, Canada, Spain and Italy), technical support from the organization and communication tools throughout the year.
House Sitting Key Feature
Staying like a local gives one a unique experience to learn about a certain place, culture and meet like-minded people. Through house sitting services, you can accomplish that with a low budget and get to hang around with lovable pets too.
Saving on accommodation also means that you’ll have more money for other travel expenditure. The best part is, individuals as well as families can apply to be part of the program and enjoy the benefit it has to offer.
How to Earn During House Sitting
Technically, you won’t be paid for house sitting, but there’s a way around it if you wish to supplement your travel budget for the long term. This method is completely legal and may even earn you some extra cash from Trusted HouseSitters themselves.
Have you ever heard of a travel/lifestyle blog? It gives the opportunity to write about your experience and earn through affiliate programs.
Affiliate marketing is a way to make money online through sales commissions by referring customers to online retailers. To get involved, you need to sign up for specific affiliate programs with brands/services that you personally use and promote them through your blog.
Most of the time, it doesn’t cost you anything to join (except for web hosting) and there’s also no limit to how many programs that you can be part of. However, it’s always recommended to find something that’s relevant to your blog’s theme.
Here are some examples to consider;
Physical Products
- Luggage Pro – 8% commission rate (via Commission Junction)
- Amazon Marketplace – 7% commission rate
Digital Products
- Trusted Housesitters membership – 20% (one of the highest payout I’ve seen)
- Send My Bag (delivery services) – 5 to 10%
To create a travel blog, you’ll need to first come up with a domain name and this should ideally reflect your niche such as “housesitandtravel” or “budgettravelUK“. These are called custom domains and you can own one for less than $15/year.
Following that, you’ll need a publishing platform and for this, I recommend using WordPress because their blogging feature is more outstanding compared to others. In addition, they also have many themes that will suit the design of a travel blog. The last I check, there are more than 170 design layouts to chose from.
With a WordPress blog, there’s no limit to the number of posts that one can publish. This means, you can share as many stories as you like about your house sitting experience using text and media content (videos etc.) If people like what they read, they may decide to buy the things that you recommend. To find what topics to write about, is where keyword research comes into play.
By utilizing the search engines and a great keyword tool, I am able to come up with these specific terms that are highly relevant to a niche like yours.
- House Sitting Jobs for Couples
- Why Pet Sitting Is Better than Boarding
- How to Become a Professional House Sitter
- What Does a House Sitter Do
- House Sitting Opportunities in Hawaii
Within each of these topics is where you would use your unique affiliate links to guide readers to the online merchants so that they can make their purchases. When a sale is made, you earn a commission.
That’s essentially how you make money with affiliate marketing.
Is Trusted House Sitters Worthy of Joining?
I think the annual membership is worth the price if you take into consideration how much you would save on accommodation while holidaying in a beautiful location, for example, Italy. Most owners are also nice people that are simply looking for someone who’s caring/responsible to look after their pets, so if you fit the criteria, go for it.
As more people seek for cheaper ways to travel, the trend for house sitting will only become more popular as shown below.
So go ahead and create your first WordPress blog. Use it as a travel journal or better yet, as a launch pad to start an online business that will reward you more freedom to see the world.
Hopefully you’ve learned a thing or two about how to do house sit after reading this article. Do get in touch with me through this awesome community for more tips/training in creating a successful blog.
Have any thoughts or questions about this topic? Please leave your comment below and I’ll get back to you.
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Wow,
What an awesome idea for animal lovers and pet owners and to do all that travelling. I would like to go to New Zealand sometime and do some house sitting over there. I noticed that the period could range from a few days to weeks and months.
That’s plenty of flexibility and opportunity for people to travel without having to worry about accommodation and the $119 subscription fee is fairly affordable too. I don’t see why this can’t be turned into an online business while promoting something that is enjoyable like Trusted House Sitters.
Very nice content Cathy here. I am allergic to big content, but this blog just took me a few minutes to get through with all these interesting information. I never even thought such service would exist because I am used to having a baby sitter who is available all along. The world is moving along really fast.
I found a little challenge in this. though. Can I become a house sitter when am a foreigner in a host country?
That’s a very interesting question Aslam and I think it would be possible as long as you fulfill the program’s (legal) requirements. But don’t take my word for it. Please get in touch with the Trusted House Sitters support team to verify this issue.
I think this service is a steal. I’m surprised the price is so low. I am going to tell my friend about this service. She frequently has to turn down trips when her usual house sitter isn’t available because she has a dog and the dog has to get fed. Thanks for the informative article.
Hi Cathy, I never heard of house sitting program before. Are you saying that while making travel plans both parties can decide to share interests and save on cash? For an example, I stayed in your house and takes care of your property and your pets without any payment passed hands on either side? It sounds good.
Yup, that is what it means. A service exchanged for an accommodation. Pretty neat for saving travel costs if you are considering a long term stay abroad.
We love to travel and are working on getting more exposure for our travel blog. Some of our most memorable stays have been at airbnbs. So I’d imagine we’d like the house sitting program as well. One hangup though is we’re not huge animal fans. Not that we don’t like animals, I’m just not a huge fan of being responsible for them. Are there any members on this site that just want their house sat without pets?
Hi Dustin, from what I could see, most house sitting programs would come with pet caring responsibilities. There are a small number of listings that require to only care for the properties though so see if you could narrow down when searching on these sites. Mind My House, House Carers and Nomador – these are other house sitting programs that you may want to consider.
Hope this helps.