Five Reasons to House Sit in Italy

1. House Sitting is an alternative to hotels - that's free!

Are you put off going to Italy because of the cost? 

A great way to reduce your spendature is to cut out accommodation fees, because they are invariably a traveller's biggest expense (and indeed most people's biggest expense)! 

A hostel can put you back €7 per day in Italy (at the very least). Hotels and AirBnB are considerably more (even with the €23 AirBnB discount we can give you). 

House Sitting is free accommodation - world wide. It's the main reason we can afford to travel. It basically entails looking after the pets and house whilst the owner is away (think baby sitting, but for houses). 

House Sitting is very popular in Italy - especially with English/American expats. We often see House Sitting opportunities in Italy.

So yes, visit Italy, and stay for free - doesn't that sound great?

2. But wait, it's not just any free accommodation!

Now I'm not promising anything, but normally the houses you will be House Sitting will be epic!

For example, we've house sat in a Spanish house with a swimming pool, an apartment in the centre of Berlin with a sauna, and a Portuguese house with a orange grove  not to mention the sunny homes we sat in Australia all with their different advantages including nearby beaches, koala and kangaroo neighbours and swimming pools.

But this Italian House Sit is our best one yet: the house is set on 25 acres complete with an organic vineyard and an organic olive grove! There is also a genuine pizza oven and panoramic views to die for. 

We've sampled the wine and it's great! It's so cool to drink wine that's been grown outside. Most fields in this area are vineyards so we've also tried a couple of the neighbourhood wines too. 

Maybe wine and olives aren't your thing, but what I'm trying to emphasise here is that, generally, the houses you will be looking after will be amazing. Unlike most other types of free accommodation... Furthermore, you will be alone in these houses.

Not that you wouldn't want to spend more time with your home owners, because...

3. The Home Owners spoil you rotten 

Most home owners spoil you with good food/wine/day trips. Of course it depends on the person, but most animals owners want to look after the people who are looking after their pets. 

Now, if you're spoiled by home owners in Italy, spoiling takes on another level because the food/wine/day trips in Italy are to die for. 

Our home owners in Italy have set the bar high with their generosity. They picked us up from the airport and took us out for a piadina and beer (very considerate as we'd had a long journey). The next night they prepared a fantastic, authentic Italian feast which included a pizza baked in their special pizza oven, fresh sole and prawns from the nearby sea and local olives stuffed with cheese and meat! They left us cash to go out for meals and enough food to survive three apocalypses!

Yum.

After we'd finished the House Sit they actually bought us a GoPro - it was insane. 

Why do they want House Sitters? Well, they have peace of mind that their pets are going to be, in turn, spoiled rotten and that their house will be well maintained. And of course, they can avoid the cost (to their wallets and their pets happiness) of kennels!

Generally, this is our favourite thing about House Sitting - everyone wins, and it's a fair exchange. However, these Home Owners have been SO KIND and so generous, we'll need to go the extra mile (or ten extra miles) to keep our consciences clear :) 

4. You'll find yourself enjoying areas you would probably never have discovered otherwise

BH (Before House Sitting) we probably would still have gone to Italy, but we probably would have picked just Rome or Florence or Venice. That's the beautiful thing about House Sitting, you never know who is going away and hence which areas are available to be discovered. 

When we House Sat in Australia we House Sat in a real mixture of places we'd heard of (Brisbane, the Gold Coast, Melbourne) and places we'd never heard of (Glen Osmond, Hopetoun WA, Newcastle). Generally the places that we'd never heard of (and hence would never have gone to) were the best places to House Sit in! 

At the moment we're House Sitting in Ripatransone, Italy. Before this sit we'd never heard of Ancona, let alone tiny weeny Ripatransone. But it's so perfect!! There are no tourists, no macdonalds, no H & Ms. I don't think there's even a pub. This is Italy at its most authentic and ancient and we love it.

Ripatransone is also blessed with some of the best views ever. To the west you can see the mountains and in the east is the sea:

We seriously love it so much here that we are strongly considering settling down here (once we're done House Sitting around the world)! 

We get to walk around the area and through the vineyard everyday, which brings me onto the fifth reason to House Sit in Italy: 

5. The Pets!!

House Sitting almost always comes with a new furry friend (or three) to look after. (So please don't even consider House Sitting unless you love animals.)

But if you do love animals, House Sitting is definitely for you! There are not that many other forms of travel where you get to enjoy it with lovely animals. 

In this current sit we are looking after two awesome dogs; Buttercup and Gidget: 

But maybe you're not really a dog person, that's okay, we're looking after Luna the cat too: 

So what is stopping you from starting to House Sit right now? It's suitable for part-time travellers, full-time travellers, couples, singles, families - whatever your situation is, start letting House Sitting work for you! 

If you're ready to sign up, here are some pieces of advice: 

• Check out our post about how to start House Sitting it has a few tips about (you guessed it) how to start House Sitting
• If you'd like even more tips, please check out our ebook House Sitting in Australia - a guide for first time house sitters, whilst it does have specific Australian related advice, it also reveals how we got our first sits and how you can do so too (location independent)! 
• We also recommend signing up to Trusted House Sitters. We've been with them for two years now and they really are great - and the main reason we've been able to House Sit in 8 countries. If you would like a 10% discount for the membership, subscribe to our free mailing list now! (Subscribe here)

We're also on hand via Facebook, Twitter, the comment box below or email {travellingweasels [at] hotmail [dot] com} to answer any of your questions about House Sitting. We love it so much and think you might too :)