We Haven't Paid for Holiday Accommodation in Close to Three Years. Here's Exactly How.

In June 2023, I was trying to figure out how to spend two weeks with my girlfriend Caro in Bochum, Germany without spending a fortune. Hotels in the area for that period were coming in at €2,000 or more. I typed "house sitting in Bochum" into Google, and a listing came up five minutes from Caro's home. I applied. I got it. Two weeks later, I was staying in someone else's house around the corner frommy girlfriend, looking after two cats, and paying nothing for accommodation.

That was the accidental start of something we have now done 18 times across 11 countries.

Since then, Caro and I have house sat in Greece, France, Switzerland, Australia, Austria, Germany, Spain, Italy, and more. We have visited 32 countries together.

In November 2025 we moved out of our Bochum apartment, bought a VW T4 campervan, and started driving. Since then we have covered 15,000 kilometres, passed through 22 countries, and broken up the driving every two to three weeks with a house sit. The total cost of platform membership across close to three years: €378.

Here is exactly how it works.

The Exchange

House sitting is a straightforward arrangement. A homeowner needs someone to live in their home and look after their pets while they travel. A sitter needs somewhere to stay. No money changes hands. You stay for free, their animals are cared for, and both parties leave satisfied.

House sitting platforms are where homeowners list their sits and sitters apply. When I signed up in 2023, the annual membership cost me around $129. That single fee gave me access to thousands of listings worldwide. Apply, have a video call with the homeowner, get accepted, show up. That is the whole process.

What We Have Actually Stayed In

People assume house sitting means small flats and awkward situations. Here is what we have actually stayed in across 18 sits.

A home in Bochum, Germany, the accidental first one. Two cats. Two weeks. The sit that started everything.

A farmhouse on the border of France and Switzerland, in the French Alps, for a full month. Two outdoor cats who barely needed us. We fed them morning and evening and spent the rest of the time in the mountains.

A home in Kefalonia, Greece, during a tropical cyclone. We watched the storm from inside a solid house while our campervan would have been a very different experience. The cats were completely unbothered.

A chalet in Switzerland where the homeowner's coffee machine cost more than a month of our living expenses. We did not break it.

A week in Athens, within walking distance of the Parthenon, caring for a French Bulldog and two cats. Greece is extraordinary when you are not paying for a hotel.

A home near the Sydney Harbour Bridge, looking after a toy poodle named Coco.

An Austrian home in Linz with a cat called Boris and a dog called Chilli.

Manosque, in the south of France, where we spent ten days with an Icelandic Sheepdog who appointed herself my permanent shadow, and a cat who came and went as she pleased.

In May we begin a six-month sit in Portugal. One cat, four chickens, a garden. Six months of accommodation for free.

The Numbers

Our total accommodation savings across 18 sits sit at around €24,000, calculated against the cost of comparable long-term stays in the same locations.

Total cost of platform fees over close to three years: €378.

During house sits, we spend around €500 per month between the two of us, food, fuel, activities. When we are driving continuously in the van, that rises to around €1,200. When we had our apartment in Bochum, it was around €1,500. The sits do not just eliminate accommodation costs. They change the whole monthly number.

What You Actually Have to Do

The exchange is real and it requires real things from you. You are not a paying guest. You are a carer.

This means feeding the animals on schedule, walking the dog as agreed, keeping the home clean and tidy, and being available if the homeowner needs to reach you. For most sits this takes an hour or two a day. For more demanding sits it can be more.

We have carried a 17-year-old chihuahua around a garden in our arms because he could no longer walk on his own. We have restructured our days around a dog with separation anxiety.

This is not a burden. It is closer to having a pet of your own something that shapes your day, something you build a routine around, something you think about long after you leave. Caro still talks about the dog in Luxembourg. I think about the Lullin cats more than I probably should.

How We Find Sits

We use the app map view to look at what is available in the regions ahead of us on the route. We apply for sits that fit where we are already going. The sit does not shape the journey the journey finds the sits.

We were sitting on a beach in Greece, a group of stray dogs having adopted us for the afternoon, when Caro opened the app and found the Kefalonia listing. We were on a video call that evening. The sit was confirmed in under an hour. Two days later we were on a ferry.

We found our Manosque sit while driving through Serbia. We have filled the next several months of travel with sits, none of which required us to go anywhere we were not already planning to go.

The Part People Find Hard to Believe

Three years in, the question we get most often is: do homeowners actually trust strangers with their homes?

They do. The platforms have reviews on both sides homeowners rate sitters, sitters rate homeowners, and verified ID systems are standard. A sitter with 18 sits and all five-star reviews is not a stranger in any meaningful sense. They are a documented track record.

The first sit in Bochum required a leap of faith from both sides. I had no history, no reviews, no proof of anything. The homeowner took a chance. Every sit since has been easier because the record now exists. Good reviews compound. Homeowners see the history and feel confident. That confidence makes them more likely to confirm quickly, which means better sits, which builds the record further.

We have never had a homeowner return to a complaint. We have had homeowners message us months later to ask if we are free for their next trip. That level of trust takes a few sits to build. Once it exists, house sitting stops feeling like an unusual workaround and starts feeling like the obvious way to travel.

How to Start

Join a platform. Build a profile that shows who you are, includes a clear photo, and explains why you want to sit. Apply for local sits first to build your first few reviews. Have genuine video calls with homeowners. Do good sits.

Everything else follows from there.

I found the first sit on Google at midnight trying to avoid a €2,000 hotel bill. We are now 18 sits and close to three years into something neither of us planned. In a few weeks we drive south and spend six months in Portugal with a cat and four chickens, paying nothing for the roof above us.

€378. Close to three years. Eleven countries of house sitting. Thirty-one countries visited together.

It works.

Konrad and his partner Caro have been full-time travelers since November 2025, completing 18 house sits across 11 countries. They are currently driving through Europe in a VW T4 campervan and document their experiences on housesittersguide.com