House Sitting in Greece 2026: Islands, Ferries and What to Expect

Home > Blog > House Sitting in Greece: Islands, Ferries and What to Expect

Quick Facts: House Sitting in Greece

Greece is the smallest house sitting market we have covered, smaller than Italy, with as few as three listings across the main platforms at any one time. That sounds like a reason to skip it, and it is exactly the wrong reading: the listings that do appear face almost no competition, the homeowners who list are committed, and the country itself, mountains rising out of neon blue water, islands that keep surprising you around every corner, is one of the most beautiful places we have ever sat. After two Greek sits, a Kefalonia island adventure and an Athens city sit, plus thousands of kilometres of coastline driving, our verdict is simple: Greece rewards the effort more than almost anywhere else in Europe, and the winter is the secret.

This guide covers the platforms that work, the islands and regions worth targeting, the ferry reality, the stray cat culture every sitter needs to understand, and the honest version of our two Greek sits, including the one with nine undisclosed cats. It is written from experience, and where the experience was hard, we say so.

We found both Greek sits on TrustedHouseSitters, the platform we have used for most of our 20 sits across 12 countries.

If you are not on THS yet, you can get 25% off your first year with our discount link before you start applying.

If you are also looking at Nomador, mainly for France or the Alps, it costs nothing to join and browse, and you only pay when you actually apply for a sit.

Is House Sitting in Greece Worth It?

Yes, and we would go further: Greece is one of the top destinations we would consider moving to. Fresh food, stunning beaches, friendly people and genuine sun, plus a laid-back rhythm that makes sitting feel less like work and more like living. The catch is the same one Italy has, only more extreme: the listings barely exist. Greek family networks cover most travelling homeowners, house sitting is still not a popular concept in Greece itself, and the numbers on the platforms show it.

What that scarcity means for a sitter is the opposite of what you would expect. When a Greek listing does appear, the applicant pool is tiny. Our Kefalonia sit was booked three days before it started, from a beach, through the THS app, with a video call confirmed within twenty minutes. Try doing that for a comparable sit in France or Germany. The financial case was strong too: two weeks on Kefalonia and a week in Athens cost us two platform memberships and a ferry, against accommodation that would have run into thousands. Our travel cost guide has the full breakdown of what getting to a Greek sit actually costs.

How Many House Sitting Listings Are There in Greece?

Fewer than anywhere else we cover. A fresh check while writing this article found 2 listings on MindMyHouse, 1 on Nomador and 0 on TrustedHouseSitters. That is a total of three, and it is not an unusual snapshot: our country ranking research has consistently shown Greece in single digits, often lower than Italy, which is itself one of Europe’s smallest markets. Our country ranking and Europe guide both cover the wider picture.

The explanation is the same as Italy: strong family networks mean Greek homeowners have a cousin or a parent for the pets, and house sitting as a concept is still young in Greece. But the market is moving in one specific way. More and more British expats are moving to Greece, and they bring house sitting with them. The Kefalonia homeowners were English expats, and as that community grows, the listings will grow with it. Our honest forecast: Greece will not rival France in our lifetime, but it will climb from three listings to a real market over the next few years, and the sitters who learn the country now will be the ones with the reviews when it does.

The practical strategy is patience and timing. Check the platforms regularly, set your filters to the regions you want, and be ready to move fast when something appears, because the good Greek sits go quickly, as our three-day Kefalonia booking proves. Our guide to finding sits covers the habits that make this work, and our notice guide explains why three days was the fastest booking we have ever made.

Best Platforms for Greece

We found both Greek sits on TrustedHouseSitters, but the fresh numbers tell the real story: Greece currently has more listings on MindMyHouse than anywhere else. Here is how the platforms compare.

The platform advice is the same as our Italy article: look at what genuinely matches your trip and go with that. For Greece specifically, a $29 MindMyHouse account covers almost everything that appears, and a free Nomador profile costs nothing to set up and browse. Just remember what you are actually buying: not a room, but a whole island, a whole way of living, and the pets are the best part of the deal.

Where to Sit: Islands and Mainland

We drove most of the Greek coastline and went inland too, and the honest ranking starts with the islands. Kefalonia is one of the most beautiful islands I have ever seen, mountains coming straight out of neon blue water, and driving around it we were constantly surprised by things that took our breath away. If you want the Greek sit that stays with you, the Ionian islands are where to look.

Athens is the other side of the same country and genuinely excellent for city sits. Our sit was an apartment with terrace views, a French Bulldog and two outdoor cats, within walking distance of the city centre. The city is walkable, Uber is affordable, and the sit gave us the rare combination of a real home and real urban life. The French Bulldog snored louder than any dog we have met, and it never once kept us awake, a story we tell properly in our dog snoring article. Our video call guide covers how to judge a city apartment before you commit, and the questions are the same in Athens as anywhere.

The Athens sit also gave us one of the great house sitting friendships. The homeowner was Greek, a genuinely warm woman whose family farm in Crete supplied the olive oil she told us to use freely, and at the end of the sit she asked us to stay an extra night so we could all have dinner together. We stopped in Athens again on a later drive and had dinner with her a second time, and we still message. Our homeowner friendship article and repeat sit guide cover why these relationships are the quiet reward of this life.

The mainland deserves its place too. We followed the coast for thousands of kilometres, and inland we found Meteora and the hot river. I never knew Greece had so many hot springs, it is genuinely crazy how many there are. If we go back, and we plan to, we will spend months island hopping, because the islands are the highlight, but the mainland coast is where the driving sits happen, and the Peloponnese is where you will find them.

When to Go: Winter Beats Summer for Sits

Winter is the Greek house sitting secret, and we say that from experience. That winter in Greece had storms and cyclones that would have been miserable in the van, and instead we watched them from inside a Kefalonia house, grateful for the walls. Athens in winter was a lovely temperature, a few days of light rain, nothing more. Our winter house sitting guide covers the broader picture, and southern Europe, Greece included, produces more winter listings than the north.

Summer is the complication. The islands are glorious but the heat is real, the ferries are packed, and the tourist season means homeowners are more likely to be renting their property than listing it for sits. Spring and autumn give the best balance of listings, weather and empty roads. Our best time of year guide has the season-by-season detail, and for Greece the short version is: aim for October to May and you will have the country closer to yourself.

Greek Ferries: The €160 Lesson and Why We Would Pay It Again

The Kefalonia return ferry cost us €160, our most expensive single journey to any sit, and it remains the best travel money we have spent in this life. If you have a car, ferry it. The price is small compared with what the islands give back, and driving around them is genuinely part of the experience, every corner reveals something new. Our campervan route guide covers how we plan the driving side of a sitting tour.

Practical notes from our crossings: book the ferry ahead in season, check the winter schedules because they shrink dramatically, and treat the ferry as part of the sit budget, not an emergency cost. Cash matters more in Greece than in northern Europe, and our currency guide covers where cards still fail.

What to Expect: Outdoor Cats, Strays and the Nine-Cat Lesson

Every sitter heading to Greece needs to understand the stray culture before they arrive, because it changes what a cat sit actually means. Across southern Europe, and Greece especially, looking after the neighbourhood strays is the norm: people leave food out for the cats, and the cats treat whole neighbourhoods as their territory. In Cyprus, where my father lives, the same pattern runs everywhere, and the cats genuinely do not go hungry. If a Greek listing says you are looking after a cat, and there are strays around, you will usually find the food provided for them too.

That culture is also where our hardest Greek lesson came from, and we tell it honestly because it changed how we screen sits forever. Our Kefalonia listing described one dog and one cat. We arrived to nine cats, eight of them neighbourhood strays that had been fed on the property daily for years, complete with fleas.. The house needed a full clean on arrival, the fuses later melted, and there was a camera on the balcony. We stayed, we documented everything, we reported it factually, and we still gave the sit five stars, because the dog was a dream and the honesty in our review was the real service to the next sitter. Our homeowner questions guide now starts with the question that sit taught us: how many animals in total, including any outdoor ones? Ask it on every Greek video call, and ask it twice.

The same sit also produced one of our favourite small memories. In Athens we built a ramp so the cats could cross between two buildings without climbing down, and we never once saw them use it, until one day a stray walked across it like it had always been there. That is Greek cat sitting in a nutshell: you do your best, the cats do what they want, and the strays are part of the deal. Our cat sitting guide and multiple cat guide cover the practical side.

The Kefalonia Positives: The Dog, the Views, the Storms

For balance, because the nine-cat story dominates every retelling: Kefalonia was one of the best sits of our lives. The dog, aside from the fleas that were not his fault, was absolutely adorable, so full of love, and in general very easy to look after. The view from the house looked straight out at the sea and the hills, the kind of view you step onto a balcony for every single morning. And when the cyclones came, we were inside a beautiful house instead of inside the van, which would have been genuinely miserable. Our dog sitting guide covers the care side, and the Kefalonia lesson, that a hard sit can still be a beautiful one, is covered properly in our safety article.

Conclusion

House sitting in Greece is not a volume game. There are three listings on the platforms today, maybe a handful more tomorrow, and you cannot sit there the way you can sit in France or Germany. What Greece offers instead is the rarest thing in house sitting: almost no competition for the sits that do appear, a country of genuine, breathtaking beauty, and a culture where the pets, including the strays, are part of everyday life. Our advice: set the filters, check the platforms weekly, book the ferry, aim for winter, and when a Greek listing appears, move fast, because the good ones go in days, and the country will do the rest.

Caro and I have completed 20 house sits across 12 countries, driven 19,000km across Europe in our 1998 VW T4, and saved over $26,500 in accommodation costs over three years of house sitting.

DM us @housesittersguide if you are planning a Greek trip, we answer everyone.

Frequently Asked Questions

• How many house sits are there in Greece?

  Very few. A fresh check found 2 on MindMyHouse, 1 on Nomador and 0 on TrustedHouseSitters, and the numbers have been in single digits for a long time. Greek family networks cover most travelling homeowners, so the listings that appear face almost no competition.

• Do I need to speak Greek to house sit in Greece?

  No. The listings on the platforms are written in English, and both of our Greek homeowners, one Greek, one English expat, communicated in English without difficulty. A few words for the market and the shops go a long way, as they do everywhere.

• Which platform is best for house sitting in Greece?

  Right now, MindMyHouse at $29 a year has the most Greek listings, with TrustedHouseSitters close behind in waves and Nomador thin but free to browse. Both of our Greek sits came from TrustedHouseSitters, so the practical answer is THS plus the $29 MindMyHouse account.

• When is the best time for house sitting in Greece?

  October to May. Winter in the south is genuinely pleasant and produces more listings than summer, and we rode out Greek storms indoors in Kefalonia. Summer is glorious but hot, crowded and quieter on the listing platforms.

• Are island sits reachable without a car?

  With planning, yes, but a car makes them far better. Ferries connect the islands, and the €160 return ferry to Kefalonia was our most expensive journey to a sit and worth every cent. If you have a car, ferry it, and check the winter schedules, which shrink dramatically.

• Is house sitting in Greece safe?

  We felt safe throughout, on the islands and in Athens. The honest caveats are the ones we learned the hard way: confirm the total animal count including outdoor cats, expect strays to be part of the culture, and check the weather in winter, because Greek storms are real.