I’ve slept in a 400-year-old farmhouse in Provence, a beach bungalow in Portugal, and a flat overlooking a canal in Amsterdam. I paid nothing for any of them. I fed a cat, watered some tomatoes, and brought the bins in on Tuesdays.
That’s house sitting. It’s not a loophole and it’s not a scam — it’s a straightforward trade. Homeowners going away need someone trustworthy to look after their pets and their property. Travellers need somewhere free to stay. Everyone wins, provided you actually do the job properly.
This guide covers how house sitting really works, which platforms are worth paying for, what homeowners genuinely expect from you, and where in the world it’s easiest to land your first sit.
What House Sitting Actually Is
You stay in someone’s home, free, in exchange for looking after it — usually that means feeding and walking pets, watering plants, collecting post, and generally making the place look lived-in while the owner is away. Sits run anywhere from a long weekend to several months.
============================================================ –>Free Guide · Instant Download
50 Genuinely Free
Travel Experiences
Named, located, and verified — no catches, no upsells. Get the full guide plus one smart, specific travel idea in your inbox every month.
No spam, ever. Unsubscribe in one click.
It is not the same as Couchsurfing. You’re not sharing space with a host — the owner is gone, and the home is yours for the duration. It’s also not a paid pet-sitting job. Nobody’s paying you, and you’re not paying rent. The currency is trust.
How to Actually Get a Sit
Build a profile that says something. “Responsible and reliable” tells an owner nothing. Say what you’ve actually done — the dog you’ve walked twice a day for a decade, the fact you work from home so the pets are never alone, the plants you haven’t managed to kill.
Get references before you need them. Sit for friends or family first if you can, or take a couple of unpaid local sits through a site like Nomador to build reviews. Owners choosing between two sitters with zero reviews and one with three glowing ones aren’t going to gamble.
Video call before you agree to anything. A five-minute call tells you more than any listing — how the owner talks about their pets, whether the house rules feel reasonable, whether this is someone you’d trust with a key. If they won’t do a call, that’s your answer.
Apply specifically, not generically. Mention the dog by name. Reference something from the listing. Owners get dozens of copy-paste applications — a specific one stands out immediately.
The Platforms Worth Using
TrustedHousesitters is the biggest and most established platform, with sits in well over 100 countries. It runs on an annual membership rather than commission, which matters once you’re doing more than one or two sits a year — the maths works out cheaper than paying per sit. It also includes basic liability cover, which the free alternatives don’t.
Nomador is smaller and more Europe-heavy, with a lower membership fee than TrustedHousesitters — a solid starting point if you’re not ready to commit to the bigger platform yet.
House Sitters America, as the name suggests, specialises in US sits and is worth adding if North America is on your radar — it has listings the bigger global platforms often don’t.
MindMyHouse is the budget option — a flat low annual fee, a smaller pool of listings, but genuinely useful as a second platform once you’ve got a review or two elsewhere.
Facebook groups exist too — search “house sitters” plus a country name — but there’s no vetting, no reviews, and no recourse if it goes wrong. Fine for research, not where I’d book a first sit.
Workaway and Worldpackers: The Complete Guide to Working for Accommodation
What Owners Actually Expect From You
Read the listing properly. If it says the dog needs two walks and medication at 8am and 6pm, that’s not a suggestion. Owners are trusting you with something they clearly love — the fastest way to get a bad review, and to end that homeowner’s trust in house sitting generally, is to treat the sit casually.
Beyond the pets, most sits expect you to: keep the house reasonably tidy, not throw parties, water the garden, take in parcels, and leave the place as you found it. Some ask you to run appliances occasionally, or check on a pool or hot tub. It’s all in the listing — read it twice before you apply.
The Honest Trade-Offs
What’s genuinely great: it’s actually free — no cleaning fees, no service charges, nothing. You get a real home instead of a hotel room, often with a kitchen, garden, and neighbourhood you’d never otherwise experience. And if you like animals, you get the company of a pet without the long-term commitment.
What people don’t tell you: you can’t just leave. A five-day sit means five days in that location, on that schedule, with a dog that needs walking at 7am whether you’re hungover or not. You’re also responsible for someone else’s home and pet — if something goes wrong, it’s your problem to solve, often without the owner reachable in a different time zone. And building up the reviews to land sits in popular destinations — Italy, New Zealand, Costa Rica — takes time. Your first few sits are unlikely to be the dream location.
The Ultimate Guide to Free Travel Experiences: Save Money Without Sacrificing Adventure
Where House Sitting Is Easiest to Find
Some places have far more listings than others, generally because of expat homeowner density and pet ownership rates:
- France and Spain — huge numbers of listings, especially rural properties with multiple pets and gardens that need real upkeep.
- The UK — consistently high demand, particularly around school holidays when families travel.
- New Zealand and Australia — long sits are common (owners often travel for months at a time), but competition is fierce because every sitter wants to go.
- The United States — strong on House Sitters America specifically, especially around university towns and retiree communities in Florida and Arizona.
- Portugal — a fast-growing market as more owners retire or relocate there and need sitters for return trips home.
A Realistic First-Timer’s Plan
- Join one platform — TrustedHousesitters if you’re serious, Nomador if you want to test the water first.
- Build a specific, honest profile with real photos of you (not stock-style shots).
- Apply for a short, local sit first — a weekend an hour from home is a fine place to build your first review.
- Video call every owner before accepting.
- Do the job properly, communicate with photo updates, and ask for a review the day you leave.
- Repeat, and let the destinations get more ambitious as your review count grows.
House Sitting Safety Checklist
Before you accept any sit, confirm:
- You’ve had a video call with the owner, not just a message exchange
- The listing has at least one previous review, or the owner has given you a personal reference to check
- You have a clear emergency contact — a neighbour, family member, or vet — in case something happens with the pet or the property
- You understand exactly what’s expected, in writing, before you travel
- You know the cancellation policy on both sides
FAQ
Is house sitting really free? Yes — no rent, no booking fee to the homeowner. The only cost is the platform membership (roughly £15–£130/year depending on the site) and your own travel to get there.
Do you need experience with pets to start? No, but it helps enormously. If you’ve never owned a pet, start with sits for cats or low-maintenance animals before applying for anything involving medication, farm animals, or multiple dogs.
Can you house sit as a couple or family? Most platforms and owners are fine with couples — extra hands are often welcomed. Sitting as a family with children is rarer and depends entirely on the individual owner.
What happens if the pet gets sick while I’m sitting? This should be agreed before you arrive. Ask who covers vet costs, which vet to use, and how to reach the owner in an emergency — get all of it in writing.
Related reading: Couchsurfing in 2026: Is It Still Worth It? · Farm Stays as Budget Accommodation · The Complete Guide to Budget Accommodation
The Smart Explorer · Travel smart. Spend smarter.
