How Cat-Sitting Saved My Life
My World Travels as a Pet-Sitter & How You Can Do It Too
One of the best decisions I’ve ever made was to become a traveling cat-sitter.
I have been a house-sitter for the past three years, exclusively caring for cats and plants, and it has greatly enhanced my quality of life.
Cat sitting has offered me the freedom to travel and live in any city and neighborhood I want, in any style of home I prefer, for any duration of time—for free—in exchange for doing what I love, which is mothering cats.
I am basically like Mary Poppins—but for cats!
I feel that I’ve discovered such a life hack, that I felt called to share my story of how I got into cat-sitting and the abundance it has brought into my life, as well as some valuable information and tips on how others can get started too.
This is an in-depth piece, so sit down with a cup of tea, enjoy, and share your thoughts!
How I Got Started
So to be honest, I have always wanted to be a cat-sitter.
Over the past 10 years, I have made many earnest, passionate attempts to break into the game. But it’s only within the past 3 years that I’ve successfully made strides, likely due to a combination of sheer willpower and divine timing.
In 2014, I moved back to my hometown and applied for my first cat-sitting gig on TaskRabbit. An elderly white woman invited me to visit her home for an initial meet-and-greet, where I had a very pleasant exchange with her and her lovely cat. I thought everything had gone well, and she was interested in hiring me.
But after I left, she stalked me online and found my Youtube channel, and she was spooked over the vulnerability I displayed in my videos, particularly an older one where I had shed a few tears about wanting to end my career as a webcam model.
She was also displeased that I added my Mom as a reference (fair enough, but at the time she was the best person to vouch for my experience with cats)…
However, she was way more spooked by my Youtube videos—so much so that she called me to retract the hiring offer over the phone, while nervously blubbering on about how great it is that I’m so “open”.
I was disappointed, but I was also at peace, because I knew that I would have done an excellent job caring for her cat, and what I had openly shared about my my past had no bearing on my quality of work. It was primarily her own fears and insecurities that prevented her from hiring me. However, I dropped TaskRabbit after that, and I wouldn’t pursue another cat-sitting opportunity for many years.
I love cats, and feel deeply connected to them. I have lived with cats since I was 2 years old, with very few gaps in between. I can’t really explain what it is that I love so much about cats—but to me, they are the total package and spice of life.
There is just an everythingness about cats. I adore them to pieces, and I respect them too. Even when I am not in the presence of cats, I sing and daydream about them. Perhaps there is a past life, or ancestral connection there.
The long stretches of time when I have had to live without cats in my life have been somewhat harsh, like I am walking through a desert. I miss them when they are gone—and, maybe I am missing a part of me too.
My years living in Berlin, Germany was one of those times. The holidays were especially hard for me, being all alone in that apartment with nowhere to go, and no loved ones to snuggle with.
I yearned very much for a cat, and I knew that around this time of year there must be people who are in need of a trusted pet-sitter while they go and stay with their families.
So I took to Facebook, creating soul-baring posts in local groups about my immense love and passion for cats. I offered my home as a safe space where they can bring their cat on their Christmas holiday—for no charge. My posts got a lot of hearts and likes. People were very touched by my words, and a few reached out.
Most people wanted me to come and stay at their home—and although I understood why, I didn’t feel like doing all of that. I was very comfortable in my own space, with my lovely pole as the centerpiece of my room and morning practice.
The second year that I tried to charge a bit of money for my cat boarding service in Berlin, I got even fewer bites. So, it didn’t work out.
Finally, in the Fall of 2021, I moved back in with my family in the U.S.
As many of you know, I have a very difficult living situation with my Mom, which I have written about in several essays.
One evening in early December, just two months after had I moved back—I was minding my own business, surfing the web in my bedroom when my mother came to my door to harass me about something completely insane.
The anxious way she was talking made me very nervous about being trapped there for the holidays, where I would have no escape from her mental instability.
I silently looked at her as she was yapping her mouth at the door. Then, while she was still standing there, I made the executive decision to turn to my laptop and make a post in a local “Queer Exchange” Facebook group:
“Hi Everyone, I am a local Artist who has just moved back to my hometown after some time away. I live in a very toxic family home and I am looking for a sublet where I can stay through the holidays so that I will not feel trapped here. I cannot offer a lot of money but I am multi-talented and can trade or do work-exchange. I have experience with cats, plants, and various creative skills. Please send me a message if you’re interested. Thanks!”
The next day, I received a message from an interracial Black/Asian lesbian couple who needed a cat-sitter through Christmas and New Years. I was thrilled! We met at my favorite cafe, and after that meeting went smoothly, they took me to their home for a brief tour, where I met their cats.
Their apartment was really cute, their cats were cute, and one of the women even shared my birthday. It felt right for all of us, and we were all happy to move forward with the booking.
Voila!
My stay at their home was so nourishing and needed. I was healing from a bad breakup, and being able to grieve in a safe space was really helpful for me.
That New Year was also one of the best I’d ever had in my life. I invited a local friend over to bake a vanilla/vanilla cake from scratch, and we had a great time cooking, laughing, and eating our creations.
I would not have been able to have this safe, healing warm space with my family, and I’m so grateful that I was able to create it in a non-traditional way through my own creative resourcing.
I thought that this would be a one-time thing. After all, I never planned to live in my hometown for very long, and I didn’t think I would need to do it again. But later that winter, another local friend connected me to a woman in a nearby town who was looking for a pet-sitter during a couple of weeks in the Spring, for her 3-legged dog and deaf cat.
Her home was notorious for its gorgeousness, amongst those who knew her.
We spoke over the phone and I was stoked to petsit for her. Our arrangement was to meet after I returned from my long trip to Jamaica—but she later cancelled, because she wanted to give the opportunity to a friend who had recently become homeless.
Although I understood, I was also devastated about the lost opportunity, because I was really suffering in my Mother’s house, and I needed every bit of relief I could get.
When I explained my situation to her, she was very understanding, and offered me a Summertime opportunity instead, which would only be for her cat. I gladly accepted. That was better, since I prefer to care for cats, anyway.
However…receiving that offer and having it fall through—motivated me to find a way to create my own opportunities.
The moment that I realized I can actually do this—I pursued it with a fire. 🔥
That was the moment when I decided to join Trusted House Sitters—a platform that kind of works like Airbnb, but for pet-sitters.
People advertise their home when they are going away, and travelers can apply to stay in these homes on their travels, in exchange for pet, garden, and/or light home care.
I had known of Trusted House Sitters for years, but it never felt accessible to me.
Looking back, I think a lot of that feeling of inaccessibility was internal.
“Why would someone trust me, a total stranger, to enter their house with their keys?” I thought. It seemed like a very exclusive club for people who were in with the ins, and it was somewhat intimidating.
On this website, everyone pays the same annual fee to gain access to the community.
Even though the annual fee is very affordable (and worth it) I didn’t have that disposable cash available to me in the previous times when I had considered house-sitting as an option. Maybe I wasn’t sure if I could get a good bang for my buck. Maybe it all just seemed too good to be true.
But this time, I was determined.
So, I paid the fee, and took several hours to write and perfect my profile. I got a criminal background check, and filled out every security checkpoint available.
I also reached out to all of my gay friends whose cats I had cared for in the past few years, including the lesbian couple in my hometown, and my former neighbors- Italian ballet and circus artists who lived in my apartment complex in Berlin.
They each wrote me honest and glowing reviews which showed up on my profile as “external references”. This helped me launch myself as a new sitter.
Within 4 days, I booked my very first sit.
It was a 2.5 week cat-sit in a luxury apartment in Philly, throughout late Spring.
This was ideal for me, since I was most interested in visiting nearby cities in the Mid-Atlantic where I could potentially see myself living, and Philly was at the top of that list, along with Brooklyn.
There were a lot of other opportunities too—all over the country. In fact, all over the world.
To this day, I haven’t even scratched the surface of all the places I can go through Trusted House Sitters.
But I always see cute and beautiful homes in places like Japan, Mexico, South Africa, Thailand…and of course, all throughout Europe.
The idea that I can go and live in a gorgeous apartment in Berlin for free with cats—is insane. And there are dozens of sits like this posted all day, every day, all over the world—with all kinds of animals, and all kinds of homes.
But still—I mostly spend my time in the places that are most accessible to me.
My priority is to situate myself in environments where I can fill my cup, have a nice retreat from the unique stressors of my environment and lifestyle in my hometown…and have greater access to communities I’m most familiar with. So, I have only used it to visit cities I can get to via train, which has been great for me—and affordable too.
But I do plan to use the website for cities that require more distant travel. Now that I have recently upgraded my membership to include travel insurance, I feel more secure booking sits that are further away and require a flight.
When I tell people I am a cat-sitter, a lot of people tend to assume that I do it as a job, and that is partially true.
A few months after I joined Trusted House Sitters, I actually started to offer free and donation-based house-sitting to folks in my local area, just to offer myself even more opportunities to live away from my family home.
To get the word out, I posted flyers all over my hometown, on social media, and handed I out postcards that I had designed myself.
I was successful with this endeavor, and a lot of people were more generous to me than what I expected. In retrospect, I recognize they were just doing the right thing and trying not to take advantage of me. I have always provided the same high-quality service regardless if I was getting paid or not, simply because I valued the opportunities that I was receiving so much.
Honestly, I was just house-sitting for survival at the time. It took me a few months of constant travel and near-burnout to learn my boundaries for what my time and energy is worth.
That meant making some serious decisions about who I work with, what kinds of homes I stay in, where, and for how long.
Cat-sitting looks easy, and the cat-care part usually is pretty simple—especially for someone like me, for whom it comes naturally…but it’s the constant moving and out of people’s homes, deep cleaning, packing up, traveling, arranging logistics, sending updates, genuinely caring for the cats…
It’s real work!
By the end of my first 4-month Summer marathon of cat-sitting, I was financially drained, exhausted, and back living with my Mom, which further drained me. That’s when a friend convinced me to go into business as a cat-sitter. So, I did.
I designed a beautiful website, ran a flyer and mail campaign with hand-painted postcards, and started my own cat-nannying business.
Some of my local Trusted House Sitter clients loved my service so much that they became repeat clients through my professional business.
Nowadays, I can get paid as a cat-sitter when I’m either at home, or when I am stationed in one location for a long time.
I have actually traveled to another city using Trusted House Sitters, and gained clients during my long-term stays in that city. I would do live-in care for my THS clients, and then walk to a neighbor’s house for a paid drop-in visit to care for their cat.
I also make myself available for paid overnight care when I am not traveling through the website. But I am very selective about who I work with, and I am not shy about raising my rates every so often.
This year, I got paid a large sum of money to stay in a gorgeous old luxury home in Boston with a spoiled little black cat—all because a woman I met through Trusted House Sitters (who by the way, hosted me as a cat-sitter in her gorgeous loft during my research at Harvard for my essay on Pauli Murray)…loved me, and decided to refer me to her wealthy friends.
So, I do cat-sitting professionally, as well as purely for travel, but I tend to do the vacation-sits more often, because it better suits my needs and lifestyle at this time.
My cat-sitting business is all set up in case I get a word of mouth client, but it’s mostly dormant for now, at least until I relocate.
So here I am 3 years later, now a very highly-rated and well-loved Cat-Sitter with nothing but glowing reviews.
I am writing this from a house-sit right now with two cats that I am obsessed over—one of whom is sitting on my lap now—and I have several cat-sits lined up for the rest of the year, and counting.
It is admittedly very hard for me to pay for an Airbnb, knowing that I have the option to housesit instead.
For me and my needs, it’s so much better, at least for travel within the U.S. and other Western countries where housesitting opportunities are most abundant, and where Airbnb and Hotel prices tend to be high.
I remember wanting to travel to Brooklyn earlier this year and finding a room listed for a little over $1,000 per week—and that was on the low end.
Several days later, I managed to book a nice studio apartment in Brooklyn—in that same neighborhood—for a month. With a cat. I had a great time paying nothing to live in New York!
All it took was a little bit of patience, faith, and diligence.
So, I want to offer some knowledge and tips for those who want to get into House-Sitting, and specifically who would like to use Trusted House Sitters as their platform.
How To Get Started
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First of all…the Money:
The annual fee ranges anywhere from $130-$260 per year.
For my first two years, I had the Standard membership which is currently $169 per year, and this is what I recommend.
You’re welcome to use my code RAF526906 to get 25% off your first annual fee.
As long as you put effort into completing your profile with a couple of good references, and keep an eye out to apply for the type of sits you want, the annual fee will pay for itself, 10-fold—real quick.
At least, that has been my experience.
In my case, I’ve been able to stay in dozens of homes that I wouldn’t have been able to afford if it were not for my service as a cat-sitter through this website.
Aside from that, I think getting started is pretty intuitive. The website has some great tips for those getting started, too. But here are a few personal notes to keep in mind for newbies:
Animals:
There are all types of sits available, with all kinds of animals, including horses, reptiles, farm animals, bunnies…you name it! A few housesits (although rare) even have no animals, and just want you to maintain their pool and garden.
Personally, I choose cats because I love them and I feel most confident and relaxed caring for them. Cats are part of the holistic experience I want to create for myself.
So when I search for sits, I set a filter for the website to exclusively show me cat-sits, with the exclusion of all other animals, except for (maybe) fish and birds. You are welcome to sit for dogs, or dogs in combination with other animals. If you do open your options to include dog care, you will have many more options available to you.
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Please do not select cats just because they are “easy”. Please respect the animals you care for. Please only care for animals you love. The animals can feel your energy and they will sense if you don’t give a shit about them and are just there for a free vacation—and so can the people you sit for, and that will reflect in the quality of opportunities you are able to attract, and so on and so forth…
A lot of people over the years (off-site), have asked me to care for their dog and I always say No, because it is not my passion. I love dogs from a distance, but I do not want to take care of them, and most dogs grate my nerves.
However, I am aware that if I opened up to dog-care I could have lots more opportunities, financially and for travel. I just do not want to take advantage of someone’s pup for my own gain and be inauthentic or stress myself in the process.
I have the success I have with cat-sitting because of the love and passion I pour into what I do. Remember that the community thrives off reviews and vibes!
You get what you put in.
Location:
If you are in the U.S., about 60% of housesits are on the West Coast, especially in the Pacific Northwest, such as Oregon, Washington, and Northern California.
Don’t ask me why—I have no idea!
About 25% of U.S. sits are along the East Coast, and the rest are scattered all over the country in the South and Midwest. There are also plenty of sits available in Europe, especially in the UK, and plenty more scattered around the world.
Don’t worry so much about these numbers—there are so many sits posted everyday, that you can likely find a sit you like in any city you want. If you are looking to travel internationally, there will likely be a sit available as long as it’s in a reasonably developed country, even if it’s in a less popular town or city.
I only travel within the East Coast U.S., and I still find plentiful opportunities, but sometimes it means I have to be more patient or diligent to find the ones that are right for me, which brings me to my next point:
If you want to travel to NYC, you need to keep a very watchful eye over the site listings, and sign up for notifications, etc. because these sits get cannibalized extremely fast. This is because a sit is no longer listed publicly after 5 people apply. Sometimes they are re-posted if the homeowner wants or needs to keep looking, but not always.
It wasn’t like this when I first started—and to be honest I don’t like this new feature—but it is what it is. The sits are gone within 20-30 minutes because everybody wants to stay in New York—including New Yorkers, themselves.
For those wanting to do house-sitting full-time, it’s wise to open your options in whatever way you can, whether that be the type of animals or location, or both. It depends on what is important to you. But don’t ever feel pressured to do something that doesn’t spark joy, because it is all about joy, especially when money is not an object…and there are loads of opportunities available.
I am very selective over what kind of place I stay, for how long, who I work with, etc. I am working exclusively within sits that are in the minority on that website, and here I am, still booking back-to-back sits if and when I really want to. Sometimes, random people reach out to me and offer me an opportunity that I did not even apply for, to stay in a big luxurious mansion in a New England forest with their kitty cat.
I am always flattered by these offers, but I cannot stay in those locations because they require a car to travel to, and I prefer to stay in cities anyway. But you might like to have those opportunities. And this is just a taste of what happens when you build up your street-cred with cats.
So there may be fewer opportunities overall, but I have gained credibility within cat-sitting as a niche, so people are more likely to select me. Just do what you love and the opportunities will follow. Don’t sell yourself short.
There is Something for Everyone!
I truly believe there are opportunities on that site for all kinds of people, in various life circumstances.
I know a woman who was hesitant to get started because she has small children, and she felt like they would be a liability. However, there is a tab where you can filter “family-friendly” homes, only. Remember that some people have families of their own, and their home may be child-proofed or even have a nursery. I have stayed in a very beautiful home just like this.
There are also options to filter sits based on whether they have disabled access, public transit nearby, use of car included, etc.
Also, while I prefer long stays because I have the ability to work remotely—there is an abundance of short sits for weekend getaways, or even just for a night.
It’s important to recognize that this site works best if you have a little bit of flexibility with your travel dates.
Chances are, you can find something for the general time you need—but if you need exact dates and exact location…it’s a coin toss.
You can get lucky, especially if it’s a popular travel time like a holiday weekend.
But if you’re linking two THS bookings, you might need to get an Airbnb for a night or two in between (as I am doing)…but this can be worth it for long-term travel.
That’s all I can think of for now! I am so grateful that I started cat-sitting. Even amidst my challenges, writing this article has heightened my gratitude for the abundance I have cultivated over the years through this endeavor.
My heart is very full. I hope this has helped some of you who are feeling a little gypsy spirit in your bones.
Now, I must get back to the kitties! 🐾
What an opportunity for adventure! Related: I heartily recommend the book My Beloved Monster by Caleb Carr for anyone that loves and feels a kinship with cats!
Oh! This is the dream. I love cats a lot and would love to get paid to take care of other people's fur babies.
Maybe next year I can try this! It is so cool that there are so many opportunities for unconventional ways of living.