Is House Sitting Worth It? Honest Answer After 20 Sits

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It was 6:30am in Cortona, Italy. Caro and I were on the third floor of an 18th-century farmhouse, tucked into a warm bed, when Teddy appeared beside the bed. Teddy was an 11-year-old Labrador who had climbed three flights of stairs specifically to sleep in the same room as us every night of the sit. He stood there, nose level with the mattress, and nudged us awake with the quiet certainty of someone who knows breakfast is non-negotiable. We got up. We walked him through the Tuscan countryside as the light came in over the hills. We came back to a kitchen stocked by homeowners who had left us a pot of vegetable soup that reminded me of my grandmother's cooking. That morning was free. It cost us nothing except the TrustedHouseSitters membership we had already paid for.

So: is house sitting worth it? After three years, 20 sits across 12 countries, and $26,500 in documented accommodation savings, here is the full and honest answer.

If you are not yet on TrustedHouseSitters, a 25% discount on membership is available here.

How It Started

House sitting was not a lifestyle decision for us. It was not a travel philosophy. It started because I wanted to see Caro and did not want to spend €2,000 on a hotel in Bochum.

I was looking for alternatives and found house sitting. There happened to be a sit five to ten minutes from where Caro was living. I applied, got it, and we did it together. Two cats, an apartment that was ours for the duration, and the particular feeling of two people getting to know each other in a space that felt, against all logic, like home. That was June 2023. Our first sit.

By the time it ended, Caro was already scrolling through TrustedHouseSitters listings looking for the next one. Each sit that followed got better. France came next, a chalet in the Alps with two outdoor cats for a month. For some people that is a dream holiday. For us it became a regular month. By the time the six-month Portugal sit appeared on the listings page, we were excited and terrified in equal measure. Six months in one place felt like it might be too much.

We are now over a month into that sit, looking after one cat and four chickens. We have not once thought about leaving early. It has given us something neither of us has experienced before: genuine, unstructured time. Time to work on things we care about, to exercise the way we want, to cook properly, to simply exist without the background noise of logistics. That is what house sitting became for us. Not a travel hack. A way of life.

The Moment It Clicked

I can point to the exact moment.

By the time we arrived in Manosque in the south of France, Caro and I had been on the road for months. We had driven close to 16,000 kilometres through Italy, the Balkans, and back through France. We had seen an enormous amount. We had also accumulated an enormous amount of stimulation that we had not fully processed.

We parked the van, met the homeowners, had a wonderful dinner with them, and when they left the next morning we sat down and did something we had not done in months. Nothing.

We were not there to explore the surrounding villages. We were not making plans. We were there to look after the animals, go to the local shops, cook properly, and just live. The house sit was not the backdrop to an adventure. It was the destination. And somewhere in that stillness, after months of constant movement, it became very clear that this was the best version of what we were doing. Not the driving, not the new countries, not the sightseeing. This. Stopping somewhere long enough to actually be there.

The Sydney Christmas

The first time I understood what house sitting could really be was years before Caro and I started traveling together.

My mum found the listing. She had already reached out to the homeowners before she even told me about it. She messaged me a photo of the house and said there was a family in Sydney who needed someone over Christmas. I set up an account on Aussie House Sitters, messaged the homeowners, and within days I was confirmed.

The house was enormous. A $3.4 million AUD property, the kind of place I had never been inside before, let alone lived in. The pet was a toy poodle with the kind of personality that makes you understand why people become genuinely attached to small dogs. Every day during our walks, the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge came into view. It felt absurd in the best way: completely on my own over Christmas, in one of the most expensive homes I could imagine, responsible for nothing except this dog and this house.

When the sit ended and I left, the homeowners messaged to tell me the dog had been lying in front of the door to the guest bedroom where I had slept. Waiting for me to come back.

That is the thing house sitting does that no hotel, no Airbnb, no amount of travel planning can replicate. The animals remember you.

The Financial Case

Accommodation is almost always the largest single cost in travel. House sitting removes it almost entirely.

Caro and I calculate our savings conservatively at $100 per night, which is below the market rate for most of what we have stayed in. The Swiss chalet. The Cortona farmhouse. The Sydney mansion. At $100 per night across 20 sits, the figure reaches $26,500. At actual market rates, it is significantly more.

The annual cost of a TrustedHouseSitters Premium sitter membership is $259 USD or £199 GBP. Our membership paid for itself in the first two nights of our very first sit. Every sit since has been compounding returns on that original investment.

House sitting is not completely free though. Here is what it actually costs us:

The travel cost is the one most people underestimate. When we build sits into trips we are already taking, the cost is near-zero. When a sit requires a specific flight, the economics change considerably. Our house sitting costs breakdown covers the full numbers.

The emergency fund is one people rarely mention. We always have enough accessible to cover a vet visit, a night in a hotel if something goes wrong, or an unexpected cost at the property. It is not money we necessarily spend, but it needs to exist.

The thank you gift is optional but we include it because it reflects how good sits tend to end. A bottle of wine, a small local gift, contributing to a dinner with the homeowners. It is never expected and always appreciated, and it is part of why homeowners invite us back.

The savings extend beyond the nightly rate too. A kitchen means we cook instead of eating out three times a day. A washing machine means no laundromats. These are small things individually. Over a month-long sit they add up meaningfully, and the quality of life difference is significant.

What We Get Beyond the Money

The financial case is easy to make. The harder part to explain is what house sitting does to the quality of travel itself.

When we stay somewhere for a week or two, we stop being tourists. The bakery in our French village in Lullin started gifting us samples because we kept coming back. Our local coffee shop in Athens started making our drinks when we walked in the door.

Returning to a home each evening is different from returning to a room. We are in the neighbourhood, not adjacent to it. We go to the same shops, walk the same streets with the dog, nod at the same faces. We move into the community temporarily rather than observe it from the outside.

House sitting also helps us figure out how we actually want to live. We have lived in Switzerland and discovered we love it. We have lived in Italy and Greece and France and learned things about ourselves and what we want from a home and a life that no amount of hotel stays would have taught us the same way. We are no longer ticking countries off a list. We are experiencing them. That is a different kind of travel entirely.

The Real Downsides

House sitting is not without genuine trade-offs, and anyone saying otherwise is selling something.

The most obvious one is the commitment. When we confirm a sit, we take on responsibility for living animals. We cannot decide on a Tuesday to take a spontaneous long weekend somewhere four hours away. In Lullin, during our month-long French sit, there were moments when it would have been nice to go further afield for a few days. The two outdoor cats were fairly low-maintenance, so it was not a constant constraint. But it was always a consideration. The way we think about it: this is the same limitation every pet owner lives with permanently. For us it is temporary, and the upsides on the other side of it are significant.

We are also always in someone else's home. We live by their rules. Most homeowners are entirely reasonable. But it is not our space. We cannot invite people over without asking, we are responsible for their possessions, and we are accountable in a way that a hotel guest is not. For the right person this feels natural. For someone who struggles with that kind of responsibility it could feel stifling.

The early days are competitive too. Before we had reviews, getting confirmed was harder. We were competing against sitters with five-star track records and no way to demonstrate ours yet. The solution was to start local and start small, and it required patience and some early rejections before the momentum built. Our house sitting profile guide covers how to handle the early phase.

In 2026 specifically, THS limits listings to five applicants before closing to new applications. Popular sits in desirable locations fill within minutes. If we see something we want, we apply immediately with a personalised message. Speed matters more than it used to.

The People Side, Honestly

This is the downside nobody writes about in house sitting articles, and it is the one that has affected us more than the logistics or the spontaneity trade-off.

Not every homeowner is wonderful. Some are difficult to communicate with. Some create tension that makes the sit uncomfortable even when the home and pets are great. Sometimes we finish a sit and know we will never be in contact with that person again and we are entirely fine with that.

What we have learned is that one difficult sit does not define the experience. Our worst sit and our best sit happened back to back. We came out of a sit that had been genuinely uncomfortable and walked straight into one that reminded us exactly why we do this.

The difficult ones taught us things the easy ones never could. They taught us what to ask before confirming. They taught us how to read a homeowner's language in messages. They taught us our own limits. If every sit had been perfect, we would not appreciate the exceptional ones the way we do. Everything had its place and we are grateful for all of it.

When Things Go Wrong

Things do go wrong. Here is what has happened to us and how we handled it.

A homeowner asked us to cancel a sit about a week before we were due to arrive. The sit was near the Dutch-German border, about two hours from Bochum. Her adult son had been feeling sick and wanted to stay home while she was going to be away. We agreed without pushing back, because going to a sit where the homeowner was already trying to cancel felt like a recipe for discomfort. It cost us nothing beyond the time we had spent planning around those dates. The lesson was simple: never build an entire travel plan around a single confirmed sit without a backup, and never book non-refundable travel before a sit is locked in. Our cancellation guide covers the full process for sitters.

A pet got sick during our very first sit. In Bochum, one of the cats developed a swollen paw from a bee sting. We were brand new sitters with zero experience handling a pet emergency. We used the THS 24/7 vet line and had a qualified vet assessing the situation remotely within minutes. A diagnosis and care plan arrived before the homeowner had even fully read our message. That vet line is one of the main reasons we pay for Premium over Standard. It does not eliminate the stress of an animal emergency. It means we are not handling it alone. Our pet emergency guide covers what to do when something goes wrong.

We arrived at a sit that did not match the listing. Kefalonia was described as one dog and one cat. We arrived to find nine cats, several with fleas, and a kitchen that had not been cleaned. We stayed for the full two weeks. If we found the same situation today, we would seriously consider leaving. Arriving to conditions that are materially different from what was described is not something a sitter should feel obligated to endure. We document everything on arrival with a video walkthrough, contact the platform if something is genuinely wrong, and make our own decision about whether to continue. Our what house sitters wish homeowners knew article covers this in full.

Who This Works Best For

House sitting works best when it complements something you are already doing rather than replacing everything else.

For Caro and me as full-time van lifers and digital nomads, it is close to perfect. We drive the T4 around Europe and house sits are the reset points along the way. After weeks of continuous movement, arriving at a sit with a proper kitchen, a washing machine, reliable wifi, and an animal that wants a morning walk feels like a genuine exhale. We always look forward to getting back in the van after a sit and always appreciate the van more for having had the sit first. The rhythm between campervan travel and house sitting is the thing that makes the whole lifestyle sustainable.

For retirees and seniors, house sitting offers a way to travel slowly and affordably with all the comforts of home included. My mum and stepdad have built a successful track record sitting in Australia, and our house sitting for seniors guide covers how they did it.

For remote workers, the combination of free accommodation, reliable wifi, and a quiet home office is genuinely compelling. Our best home office setups guide and the staying productive during house sits article cover how to make the working side of it function properly.

For someone trying it for the first time on a holiday, it works best when a sit aligns with a trip that was already planned. Building a trip specifically around a sit concentrates too much risk in one arrangement. Using a sit to solve accommodation on a trip that was already happening is a completely different, and much better, calculation.

Who This Is Not For

People who want to party. We are in someone's home, responsible for their animals, and accountable for the condition of their property. A homeowner who comes back to a house in worse shape than they left it will leave a review that follows that sitter permanently on every future application.

People who see pets as an amenity. The animals are the reason the arrangement exists. A homeowner choosing a sitter is choosing someone to care for their pet first and enjoy the home second. If the animals feel like a burden, house sitting will frustrate everyone involved.

People who are not naturally tidy. Leaving a home in the same or better condition than we found it is non-negotiable. Not obsessive. Just respectful. Our cleaning guide covers what homeowners expect and how to meet that standard consistently.

People who need total spontaneity. If fixed commitments feel suffocating, the responsibility of confirmed sits will be genuinely difficult. House sitting works best for people who are happy trading some spontaneity for depth.

What Three Years Actually Taught Us

The conventional approach to travel optimises for coverage: as many countries, cities, and landmarks as possible in the available time. House sitting inverts that entirely. It pushes toward depth over breadth. We spend two weeks in one place, learn its rhythms, find our coffee shop, walk the same route with the same dog enough times that the route starts to feel familiar. That is the thing most travellers are quietly looking for and cannot access without the anchor that house sitting provides.

Through referrals and the relationships we have built with homeowners, we now have enough confirmed future sits to keep going for another three to four years without needing to think about renewing our platform membership. That is what happens when you approach each sit as a potential friendship rather than a transaction.

Would we do the first Bochum sit differently if we could go back? No. Everything that happened, including the difficult sits, had its place. The difficult sits taught us what to look for. The easy ones taught us what to appreciate. If every single sit had been perfect, we would not know how to read a listing properly, how to handle a vet emergency calmly, or how to leave a home in a way that earns five stars every time. It was exactly how it was meant to go.

Conclusion

Is house sitting worth it? For Caro and me, it has been one of the best decisions we have ever made. Not because of the $26,500 we have saved, although that is genuinely significant. Because of the mornings in Cortona with Teddy nudging us awake. Because of the Manosque evening where we finally stopped moving and realised that stopping was the whole point. Because of a toy poodle in Sydney who waited at a bedroom door after I had already gone.

If the idea of looking after someone's pets in exchange for free accommodation in places you could never otherwise afford sounds like something you would enjoy rather than endure, then yes. It is worth it. It is worth it in ways the savings figure alone does not capture.

If you are ready to start, our TrustedHouseSitters discount code brings the entry cost down and our complete profile guide covers how to get your first sit confirmed.

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. Send us a message on Instagram if you have questions, we read every DM.

Frequently Asked Questions

• How much money can you actually save house sitting?

  We have documented $26,500 in accommodation savings across 20 sits, calculated conservatively at $100 per night. That excludes the additional savings from cooking in a full kitchen and having access to a washing machine instead of laundromats. The TrustedHouseSitters Premium sitter membership costs $259 USD or £199 GBP per year. Ours paid for itself in the first two nights of our first sit.

• What is the biggest downside of house sitting?

  Two things. First, the commitment to the animals means we cannot leave on a whim. We have agreed to care for living creatures and that commitment is real. Second, not every homeowner is wonderful, and communication difficulties can make an otherwise good sit feel uncomfortable. The key is understanding that one difficult experience does not define the lifestyle. Our worst sit and our best sit happened back to back.

• Do you need experience with animals to start?

  No formal qualifications, but a genuine comfort around animals is non-negotiable. Homeowners are trusting sitters with their pets, and for most people those pets are family. We built our experience sit by sit, starting with less competitive listings and working up from there.

• Is house sitting worth it for a one-off holiday?

  It depends on how the trip is structured. If a sit aligns with a trip that was already being planned, the value is significant and the risk is low. Building an entire trip around a single confirmed sit concentrates too much risk in one arrangement. Use sits to solve accommodation, not as the reason for the trip itself.

• Can house sitting become a full-time lifestyle?

  Yes. We have been doing it full-time since November 2025 alongside van life across Europe. It works best when combined with something else, a campervan, remote work, or a flexible home base between sits. Through referrals and the relationships we have built, we have enough confirmed future sits to continue for another three to four years.

• What types of homes and pets can you expect?

  Across our 20 sits we have stayed in Swiss chalets, Italian farmhouses, Greek city apartments, beachside properties, canal houses in the Netherlands, and a multi-million dollar home in Sydney. Pets have ranged from a single elderly cat to nine outdoor cats with fleas in Kefalonia, plus dogs of every size, chickens, and more. The variety is one of the best parts of the lifestyle.

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