House and pet sitting: travel almost for free by looking after a home
How house sitting and pet sitting work for travelling almost for free: the real platforms, costs, duties, and slow destinations where you can try them.
Foto: FeatherWeatherK (CC BY 4.0) — Flickr
Sleeping in a country farmhouse, a city apartment or a stone house inside a village, without paying for accommodation: in return, all you have to do is water the plants, collect the post and, almost always, feed a cat or walk a dog. That is the principle of house sitting (looking after a home) and pet sitting (looking after the animals): two formats that let you travel almost for free and stay somewhere long enough to truly live it, rather than rush through it.
How it works
How it works, concretely. Those leaving need someone to stay in the house: an owner who is going on holiday but does not want to leave the dog alone, or shut the animal up in a kennel. You offer to stay there in their place. No money changes hands between the two parties: no rent to pay, no fee for the sitting. The exchange is even, accommodation for care. The only real cost is signing up to the platform that connects people and acts as a guarantee (mutual reviews, identity verification, insurance).
The platforms
The platforms that really work. The largest is TrustedHousesitters: it operates in over a hundred countries and is based solely on pets. The annual membership for a sitter starts at around $129 (basic plan) and rises to $259 (premium); in late 2025 a fee of around $12 per stay was introduced, waived only on the premium plan. For Europe, and in particular for France, Belgium and Switzerland, it pays to look at Nomador, born in France: it offers a Discovery plan of around €89 a year (or around €34 for three months, useful if you do not travel all year), verified profiles, a double review and a "stopover" feature for short stops between one assignment and the next. There are also smaller outfits like HouseSitMatch and MindMyHouse, with lower fees but fewer listings. In Italy the network is still young: assignments cluster around the homes of foreigners in Tuscany, Umbria and the villages of the South, but it grows every year.
Duties and common sense. A house sit is not a holiday with the home thrown in for free: it is a commitment. It means respecting the animal's routine, keeping the house as you found it, handling any breakdown or a vet visit, and being reachable. Before accepting, always have a video call with the owner, ask who to contact for emergencies and have the animal's habits explained to you. The golden rule: leave everything better than you found it. That is how you build the reviews that will open the best assignments to you.
Pros and cons
Pros and cons, no illusions. The advantage is enormous: weeks of free accommodation in places where a stay would cost a fair bit, and the chance to experience a territory from the inside. The drawback is that you are tied down: the animals need you every day, the dates are decided by whoever is leaving, and the first assignments are the hardest to land without reviews. It works best for those with time and flexibility: digital nomads, retirees, slow travellers. And it pays off enormously in the low season, when the supply of homes grows and competition falls: it is worth reading why the low season is worth it, also to decide when to apply.
Where to try it
Where to try it, staying off the crowded routes. Pet sitting is at its best where a long stay makes sense: slow territories, with rhythms of their own. In the Sardinian interior, for example, looking after a home means having time for the Barbagia of cheeses and lake at Gavoi and for a four-day itinerary through the villages of inland Sardinia. In the Apennines, a week is enough to explore the empty villages of the Tuscan-Emilian Apennines or to climb at leisure to Anghiari, in the Valtiberina. In Emilia there is the Val d'Arda of Castell'Arquato; in the Montefeltro the stone and woods of Frontino; in the Maremma the walled village of Pereta. On the Adriatic side, an assignment is the perfect excuse for the villages of the Gran Sasso at a slow pace and for discovering Molise, the region that "does not exist". Abroad the network is denser: in Albania Berat, the city of a thousand windows awaits, in the Portuguese Alentejo the village-museum of Mértola on the Guadiana.
Ultimately, it is one of the most coherent ways to travel differently: no hotel rooms, a real home, an animal to care for and whole weeks to understand a place. If the idea appeals to you, it is also a concrete way to avoid overtourism and shift your travels to where there is still room.
Practical guides for Todi
Practical info
When is the best time to visit House and pet sitting?
The recommended time is April, May, June, September and October, when it is less crowded.
Where is House and pet sitting?
House and pet sitting is located in Italy.
