It all began with an Idea. A Dream of Escaping from the daily grind of exchanging hours for dollars, and the perpetual creep of expenses keeping in lock step with any salary increases. A Dream of being our own keepers, choosing when and where we want to work, on our own terms. And a Dream of a life of freedom to travel and live a life somehow less ordinary, less ‘normal’.

But where to start? How can you escape the rat race?

For us, it began with House and Pet Sitting. We realized we no longer needed to keep paying high rents for a house just for the two of us, if we could find a new form of accommodation. We were offered a farm sit for several weeks, close to the vet clinic where Alison worked, where we could stay for free in exchange for keeping the house and lawns in order, and supervising twenty sheep and twenty goats. We had a marvelous time, and really enjoyed the antics of the baby goats who turned the rocky cliffs into a rural parkour course.

We are both wanderers at heart, not bound by a need for stability or security, instead we are fired up by the thoughts of change, travel and adventure! So we gave notice to our landlord, sold a lot of possessions, and moved a few things in to Graham’s mum’s place so we had a place to stay if we had gaps between accommodation bookings.

We haven’t looked back!

One successful sit and glowing review lead to another, and another, and another…. all based in our home town within commuting distance to Alison’s vet clinic. We learned to reduce the amount of things we carry, learned to adapt to new homes and pets routines, and have a wonderful time caring for cute cats and crazy dogs. Our house sitting has now become our full time accommodation, and we treat our pet and home care as a profession, looking after every animal and every house as if it were our own.

Our story will continue in following blog posts, where we share how we transitioned to a location independent income and lifestyle, where we can travel wherever we have internet.

Subscribe and follow as we share our adventures, and our journey to become full time travellers. We update our newsletter regularly with animal encounters, tips on how you can start house sitting or developing your own location independent life!

Thank you for taking the time to read this house sitting story of ours - we hope you enjoyed it and hope you will follow along on our future adventures!

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