When planning our travels there is a wide variety of places to stay. You can stay at hotels which fit all kinds of budgets, stay in hostels which can range from 20 person dorms to private rooms with ensuite bathrooms, go the Airbnb route or even camp out.

Yesterday I wrote about an interesting opportunity to spend a night at an Ikea in-store display home. This is a one-time opportunity at an Ikea in Australia so you can’t really consider it another lodging option while traveling…

I just came across another idea and way to potentially save a lot of money on lodging while traveling.

Has anyone ever thought of house-sitting?

Budget Travel has a very interesting and potentially useful article about How To House-Sit Your Way Around the World.

This hasn’t ever crossed my mind before as a way to bring down the costs of our trips. Also, I’m not so sure that it really fits our style of travel since we like to move around a lot, not staying in one place for to long but for a different kind of traveller with more time on their hands this might be useful.

The Budget Travel article features a Canadian couple- Dalene & Peter Heck. “Five years ago, they sold everything for the sake of travel, and started a website, Hecktic Travels, about how they saved over $30,000 in accommodations costs by house–sitting their way around the world.”

The article says that house-sitting jobs can last anywhere from 2 weeks to six months.

The way house-sitting works is simple- “keep an eye on someone’s home while they’re away, and you get to stay in it for free. It’s a win–win since the owners get the peace of mind in knowing their houses (and sometimes pets) are safe, and you get to take the price of accommodations out of your vacation budget“.

House-sitting jobs can be located all around the world. The Hecks have house-sat in British Columbia, Canada (their first time), Roatan, Honduras (for six months) as well as in Ireland, Belgium, England, Spain, Turkey and the U.S.

What do you think about the idea of house-sitting to save money while traveling? I’d definitely consider it if we wanted to stay-put in one area for a good amount of time.

Find out more about how house-sitting works in the Budget Travel article HERE.