It was January of 2023 when I discovered TrustedHousesitters. I had just finished a brutally stressful year of work, and was taking two months off before starting a new role. I thought it would be relaxing and beautiful, I had visions of getting into cooking and finding myself. In reality I found it almost as stressful as working.
I was so used to waking before 6am to get a head start on emails, then working out, heading into the office, coming home, and… doing more work. Suddenly I felt like I had too much time on my hands. So I started thinking of productive ways to fill my time, and maybe make or save some money.
- If you are already set for the TrustedHousesitters lifestyle you can sign up here and use our Promo Code HATW25 to save 25%
The Housesitting Side Hustle
One of my favourite side hustles before Sam and I got together was catsitting. I used to watch two cats for my old boss-turned-friend while she and her husband travelled each month. In return, I stayed in their beautiful two-bedroom flat in Islington, overlooking Regent’s Canal. At the same time I rented out my quasi-dilapidated studio in Hackney Central on Airbnb. A perfect win-win.
Our TrustedHousesitters Review
Around the time of my work break I had also just lost my precious little Covid hamster, Iberico. So animals were more on my mind. That’s when I came across TrustedHousesitters. I’d never heard of it before, but it was highly rated on TrustPilot. There was a £100 joining fee that seemed steep at the time, but in hindsight, was an absolute bargain. You see after paying your subscription fee the homeowner and the sitter exchange nothing but services. The homeowner receives trusted care of their home and pets while they are away. And the sitter… well the sitter receives that accommodation and animal company in exchange.
Well, you can imagine how that appealed to a couple of animal-loving hustler travellers! At the time of writing this in summer 2025, we are taking care of Sammy & Billie (that’s Billie on her terrace in the main photo) over a glorious seven week catsit in Madrid, while low-end hotel accommodation nearby is more per night than our annual fee.
The TrustedHousesitters Obsession
I became obsessed with TrustedHousesitters during those two months off work. Originally I thought Sam and I could do the same thing that I used to do with my old boss/friend. We could housesit locally and make some money through renting our place out on Airbnb. But it quickly became more than that and it has opened the door to a whole new life of travel.
Since our first TrustedHousesitters catsit in February 2023, we have looked after Leo in Berlin, Phoebe in Chicago, Dimples, Hank, and Louie in Lisbon, and Raymond in Barcelona. We’ve completed too many catsits to list in London!
A Beginners Guide to TrustedHousesitters
This is not an instant pass to free travel around the world. Similar to booking flights on points, getting good housesits, especially in headline cities across the world, is super competitive. We have over 50 five star reviews on our account. Even still we don’t get every sit that we apply for. Some sitters will have over 100 sits. Sometimes households prefer single sitters to couples. And sometimes you’ll never know why they went with another applicant!
It’s a bit of a journey, but here’s how to work your way up to traveling and sitting abroad.
- Tip – we are still working remotely and we cherish our weekends – we almost exclusive sit for cats who can enjoy our company during the week without needing walks, and who don’t mind if we head out for the day at the weekend.
How to Find a Sit on TrustedHousesitters
So you’ve paid for your membership, but anytime you go to search for your dream trip in New York or Barcelona, all of the sits are already reviewing applications. This means you are blocked from submitting an application. There are often zero available sits in headline cities, as it is so competitive. This is because TrustedHousesitters blocks applicants from applying after a sit has already received five applications. This five sit cap means that great sits disappear in a heartbeat.
Personally I think this is somewhat unfair to hosts, as it really limits their range of applicants. Why not make it 10 or 15 applications? Hosts do have the option of rejecting some of those first applications in order to open the listing up again, but we don’t see this happening too often.
- Tip – pay for the Standard membership, set your smart searches, and mark sits that aren’t yet accepting applications as favourites to get a massive advantage on competitive sits…
Strategy 1 – Mark Old Listings as Favourites
When I was on my break, I spent hours combing through pages of past London listings and favouriting the ones I liked. This means that if those hosts list again (and both they and you have a standard membership or higher), you’ll get a notification the moment it goes live again.
I still do this today. Every couple of days, I check for new listings and save the ones I’d like to apply for. The downside: if the host only has a basic membership, you won’t get notified even if you’ve favourited the listing.
Strategy 2 – Set Up Saved Searches
The second way to find your sit is to set up smart searches. TrustedHousesitters allows standard members to save 50 active searches at a time. You can refine searches by place, dates, length of sit, and type of pet. You can also filter by themes such as city or country, or mountain or beach.
The geographical search can be very broad. For example, we have a catsit search for all of Spain, any time. Or you can make it narrower. For example, even though we have a Spain sit search, we also have a more specific Barcelona search, as we are ALWAYS looking for Barcelona sits. Sits in Barcelona are super far and few between and ultra competitive. This means we will do our best to jump on these alerts as soon as they come up. We have them set as a banner notifications on our phones. Sam even gets notifications on his watch (too hectic for me).
You can go ultra broad geography, and more specific on time, too. We have a catsit search called “Global Long Stay” which is set to sits anywhere in the world over a month long. We have seen some three, four, and even six month sits come up. You can also go ultra narrow in geography and time.
How to Land your First Sit on TrustedHousesitters
This will be the hardest one to get as you won’t have any reviews yet. Don’t expect to land your dreamsit in a world class city just yet. After writing a good application, there are one of two ways to secure your first sit.
- Tip – try to build up some reviews before applying for your dream sits. Our acceptance rate shot up after our 5th five star review. We now have over 50 and get accepted for the majority of sits we apply for.
Option 1 – Apply to Local Sits
When Sam and I first started on TrustedHousesitters, we did so to rent our own place out on Airbnb while sitting locally. We weren’t looking for the most luxurious place in town. We were actually just looking for the closest so we didn’t have far to go. This turned out to be a great selling point when messaging prospective sits, as we said we lived just down the road and that we would be happy to swing by to meet in advance and pick up keys.
We were actually in Jamaica when we had our first video call to land our first sit, but even then being a ‘local’ made a big difference to landing it! We continued to sit in London exclusively for the rest of 2023 until we landed our first international sit – a long weekend in Berlin in December.
- Tip – always offer a video call in your application. The pet owners will be trusting you with their home and beloved pets and they will want to get to know you. Not only this but sometimes people just aren’t aligned in their expectations and a video chat is a great way to get to know each other.
Option 2 – Apply to Low Application or Last Minute Sits
Not everyone lives in a sit-rich area like East London. If there aren’t a ton of sits available in your neighbourhood, you can always apply for a sit in the sticks or a last minute sit. TrustedHousesitters now adds badges to these listings to make them easier to find. While we’ve never personally used this method, it’s likely a good entry point for building up your reviews.
- Tip – if you can, offer to visit before the sit begins. If it’s an international sit, offer to arrive in town the night before and arrange your own accommodation for one night.
From One Sit to a Lifestyle
Even now, with over 50 five star reviews on our accounts, we still don’t get every sit we apply for. There are veteran sitters out there with 100+ reviews. Sometimes, we have no idea why we didn’t get chosen. Our profile is strong and we spend a lot of time on our applications.
Nevertheless we’re privileged that we can now assume we’ll land most sits – but we never take it for granted. We always offer a video call when applying. For international sits, we offer to arrive a day early (at our own cost) so the host doesn’t need to stress about flight delays.
We also get invited back to many of our sits, a sign of trust that we don’t take lightly. We always put the pets first. That’s meant vet visits, last-minute changes of plans, and emotional goodbyes. If you’re considering joining TrustedHousesitters (and you really should!), make sure you’re in it for the animals, not just the travel!
If you are ready for the TrustedHousesitters lifestyle you can sign up here and use our Promo Code HATW25 to save 25%.