Free Lodging for Nomads
I’ve been so excited recently since I’ve clued into these free lodging opportunities. I decided to google world housesitting and found a handful of sites where you can be matched with people who need housesitters. They are scattered about the world (mostly in English speaking countries). Most of these sites have a membership fee. I chose to join House Carers where the fee was about $35.00 per year. This buys you a listing where you can insert a description of yourself, who your traveling with, what countries you want to housesit in and your dates. If you match criteria for someone looking for a sit, they can contact you. You can also browse sitting opportunities and make the first contact yourself.
I also found Intervac which is a house trading site. Again, there is the yearly fee. Here you must have a house to trade, put up pictures of it, etc.. A friend of mine belongs and told me her family has been to Italy, London, France and NYC on housesits through this site with good results. The stays tend to be much shorter here 1-4 weeks typically. The trades on the housesitting site are typically longer. Some are more than a year.
You can expect the housesitting opportunities to require pet care. Sometimes this is extensive. For instance, I found one in Alaska with 26 sled dogs and a cat! However, there are many that aren’t quite so daunting. For the nomad on a budget this could be pure gold!
