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Planning a weekend trip or a month-long adventure? It all starts with choosing who will care for your pet and your home while you’re away. Should you go with a dedicated house sitter who helps maintain your home while you’re gone, or choose a pet sitter through a pet-care platform who stays at your house?

“House sitting” and “pet sitting” do share a common goal: to care for your pet in their own environment. But the emphasis is usually a little different.

A house sitter from a traditional house sitting platform typically stays in your home (sometimes 24/7), handling not just feeding and walking your pets but also mail, plants, security, and more. A pet sitter, by contrast, might stay in your home or drop by regularly for visits, focusing primarily on your pets’ care.

In this article, we’ll unpack those differences so you can decide what best fits your and your pets’ needs.

House Sitting Vs Pet Sitting: Key Differences

	House Sitting	Pet Sitting
Main focus	Caring for both your home and your pet	Caring for your pet in your home
Presence	Overnight stays; sitters live in your home during the assignment	Overnight stays or daytime or scheduled visits, usually 30 min–1 hour
Costs	May be free (e.g., via a membership or house swap) or paid hourly/nightly	Paid per visit/day
Home care	Mail, plants, alarms, visible deterrent to crime	Minimal home tasks, unless requested (e.g., watering plants)
Pet care	Feeding, walking, play, overnight care	Focused solely on pet care, including feeding, walking, playtime, medications; drop-in visits or overnight stays
Accommodation	Sitter stays in your home	Sitter stays in your home or comes for drop-in visits (depending on arrangement)
Duration	Ideal for multi-day to multi-week absences	Ideal for short trips, long trips, or daily visits

When pet sitting might be best

• High-need pets. If your dog has anxiety, takes medications, or thrives on routine, dedicated pet sitters may offer the right consistency and experience.
• Multiple pets. Pet-sitting platforms typically charge per visit or per pet, giving you cost and care flexibility.
• Light home care needs. If you only need help with basic tasks like refilling the fish tank or watering a few plants, daily drop-ins or overnight stays from a pet sitter are likely more cost-effective.

When house sitting might be best

• Several home care needs. If your home requires more active upkeep like regular cleaning, managing a security system, or accepting package deliveries, the best choice is probably a live-in house sitter.
• House-swap or travel-style care. House sitting platforms like TrustedHousesitters connect pet parents with travelers who stay in your home for free in exchange for pet and house care. It’s ideal for people who want to exchange pet and house care for free accommodation.
• Longer or last-minute trips. House-sitting services are well-suited for multi-week or even month-long travel.

Traditional House Sitting

House sitting involves hiring someone to stay in your home and care for both your property and your pets. House sitters typically take on a mix of responsibilities: feeding pets, watering plants, bringing in the mail, taking out the trash, turning the porch light on and off, and keeping an eye on home systems like security alarms or HVAC units in case something goes wrong.

Their presence also helps deter potential break-ins by making it clear the home is occupied, which is a common concern for homeowners while they’re away.

Costs

Costs for house sitting vary depending on the platform. Some popular platforms include Care.com, MindMyHouse, and TrustedHouseSitters. Many house-sitting services operate on a membership model. Both homeowners and sitters pay an annual fee (typically $130–$200) to access the platform. In many cases, there are no fees beyond that.

House sitters are not paid but receive free accommodation in exchange for their services. Some homeowners, especially for longer trips, may offer to cover travel expenses or provide a small stipend.

Benefits

One of the advantages of using a dedicated house-sitting platform is that you get someone to look after your pet and keep your home running smoothly while you’re gone. Because your pets stay in their own home with someone there consistently, it can be less stressful (and more affordable) than boarding them. Your pet can also stick to their usual feeding, walking, and potty schedule.

Drawbacks

One drawback of choosing a house sitter is there’s usually a membership fee, which might feel like a lot if you’re only planning one trip and don’t mean to use the platform regularly.

Even with that membership, you’re not guaranteed to get the sitter you want. Some listings (especially in popular places or during busy travel seasons) get a lot of applications, so you’ll want to plan ahead.

Pet Sitting

Pet sitting generally means hiring a professional to care for your animal (usually in your own home) while you’re away. That could be a few visits a day or, for higher-need pets, someone staying overnight for multiple days or even weeks.

Pet sitting focuses on feeding, exercise, companionship, playtime, medication, and grooming. It tends to be more personalized and less stressful than boarding facilities.

Pet sitting can take several different forms:

• Boarding your pet. Boarding refers to leaving your pet at the pet sitter’s home rather than having them stay at your house. While it’s technically a form of pet sitting, it doesn’t involve a pet sitter staying at your home.
• Regular drop-in visits. With drop-ins, a pet sitter swings by several times a day (typically 2 to 4 visits, each lasting 30 to 60 minutes) to feed, walk, play with, and check on your pet. While drop-ins may work for pets who are comfortable alone at home, anxious pets might benefit from a pet sitter who stays at the home 24/7.
• Pet house sitting. This is when someone stays overnight in your home and during much of the day, focused exclusively on caring for your pet.

Costs

Pet-sitting rates vary depending on services, location, and pet needs. Typical drop-in visits cost $20–$30 per visit, and overnight pet house sitters can charge anywhere from $40 to $75 or more per night. Holiday and weekend bookings usually mean higher fees, too.

Benefits

One of the biggest benefits of a pet sitter is that your pet stays in their own home, which means less stress for them. A dedicated pet sitter will also be 100% focused on the happiness and comfort of your pets—especially important for high-needs pets. Plus, paying a sitter for visits or overnight care is often cheaper than upscale boarding facilities.

Drawbacks

Background checks might vary by pet sitter provider, so it’s recommended to do a meet-and-greet with the pet sitter first so you and your pet can get to know them. Pet sitters can also be in high demand during certain times of the year, so it might be difficult to find one last-minute or around holidays.

Cats vs dogs

Since dogs need frequent bathroom breaks outside and shouldn’t be left alone for more than eight hours, they usually need frequent drop-in visits or overnight pet sitting.

Cats, on the other hand, are sometimes happier at home with minimal disruption. Some cats dislike strangers staying over, while others stress out when left alone for more than a day or two. If your cat is anxious or tends to hide from new people, drop-ins may be more comfortable for them rather than overnight visits.

Benefits of Searching for House Sitting on Rover

Rover specializes in pet-first care tailored to individual pets’ care requirements. Filter the app’s search results for house sitters or drop-in care providers, then read detailed profiles and reviews to find a good fit for your pet’s specific needs—whether that’s a pro at giving cats medications or an expert in high-energy pups.

Home care needs are often flexible; many pet sitters are happy to bring in the mail, water plants, and take on light household tasks. Talk with your sitter ahead of time to reach an agreement and give yourself maximum peace of mind while you’re away from home.

Choosing a Pro

You’re trusting someone with your pet and your home—it’s totally normal to want to be thorough! Whether you’re booking a pet sitter or a house sitter, the goal is the same: find someone responsible, trustworthy, and caring. Here’s what to look for in a sitter:

• Background checks and insurance. A solid house or pet sitter should be vetted. Look for platforms that offer ID checks, background screenings, and liability insurance.
• Great reviews from pet parents like you. The more specific the reviews, the better. You should also look for a sitter with a high number of repeat bookings. They’re often the most reliable and experienced. Avoid profiles with sparse or vague feedback.
• Experience with similar pets. A sitter who’s amazing with Golden Retrievers might not be the right fit for your anxious senior cat. Look for someone with experience caring for similar breeds, temperaments, or routines.
• Recommendations and references. Ask friends, neighbors, or your vet if they have a go-to sitter.

Before you commit, consider doing a meet & greet to see how the sitter interacts with your pet and discuss routines, quirks, and responsibilities.

You can even try a one-night stay or a drop-in visit before a longer trip. It’s a low-pressure way to test compatibility with your pet and home routine, so you can feel great about your pet’s care while you’re gone.

Time. There just never seems to be enough of it. It always seems to move too fast (and, every year, it seems to just move faster).

Time is something people always tell me they don’t have enough of and is one of the main reasons why they don’t travel as much as they would like. (Money is also an issue, which I’ve talked about here.)

While there are more digital nomads and remote workers now that COVID has changed the concept of the office, not everyone is able to work remotely these days.

But, even if they don’t want to be nomadic, most people I know with office jobs (specifically Americans) want to travel more than they do. They just feel like they don’t have the time.

They are wrong.

Here’s why.

Let’s say you work 50 weeks a year and get two weeks of vacation. (Not American? Then you probably get a lot more and that’s wonderful.) Counting your vacation time and every weekend brings the total number of days per year you can travel to 110 (104 weekend days plus the 10 days in your two-week vacation). That’s a lot of time to travel. Throw in three-day weekends and holidays, and we can add even more days to our total. It may not be all continuous, but you can do a lot with that much time.

Let’s think about that for a second: 110+ days of free time per year. That’s close to four months of potential travel time per year! Four months! The world is your oyster with that much time.

When looking at it this way, our busy schedule becomes a lot more open. What are you doing with that time?

Everything is about priorities. Yes, there are certain obligations we have in our day-to-day lives that take up time but if you really want something, you find a way to make it happen. It’s like when I say I don’t have the time to go to the gym. I have plenty of time to go to the gym; I’m just spending that time elsewhere.

Because the gym just isn’t a priority for me (though it probably should be).

Moreover, most people associate “travel” with a long-term, big, expensive trip and thus discount all the short-term methods of travel. When people think “I want to travel” they envision a two-week vacation, a cruise, or some long, multi-month journey. It’s a big trip to a faraway land.

That’s not really their fault. It’s just how the travel industry tells us we need to travel because long and big trips mean people will spend more money. We internalize that concept and never consider other options.

And if you hear something enough, you believe it. I used to. It’s why Jessica is never going to Ireland and Bob will always be a hater.

However, if COVID has taught us anything it’s that there are TONS of things to see and do close to home. Even when you don’t have months to travel, as we’ve seen, you still have 110 days of potential travel per year. If you make it a priority, you can certainly travel more.

But what do you do? What kind of trips can you take on a smaller time scale that still have a big impact? Here are some trip ideas to help you plan to travel when you have limited time:

1. Take a weekend getaway

Spend a weekend away somewhere. Two days isn’t a lot of time, but it’s still enough to explore a city, town, or camp in a national park close to you. I used to spend a lot of time in New York City. From there, weekends away would include trips to Atlantic City, Fire Island, the Hamptons, the Berkshires, Boston, Philadelphia, and Washington DC — and those are just the ones a few hours away!

Try to incorporate more weekend trips away. It can help break up your routine and keep your wanderlust in check until your next big trip. Even a couple of days somewhere are better than no days anywhere!

2. Go somewhere close

Only have a week? Don’t travel halfway around the world, wasting tons of time getting to your destination. Go somewhere a short distance away.

Living in Miami and Fiji is too far? Head to Central America!

In Sydney and Los Angeles is too far? Go halfway and stop in Hawaii, visit New Zealand, or pop over to a Pacific island nation!

In Europe? Well, 90% of the continent is a three-hour flight away so you’re set!

Stay close and you’ll need less time to do what you want. Additionally, the best flight deals you can find are often for destinations close to you. So be flexible.

Anywhere you haven’t been is a good place to visit.

And, when you travel, less is always more.

3. Be a local tourist

I don’t think people are tourists in their own city often enough. How often do you visit the museums, explore new areas in your town, or visit the major attractions of your city? I know New Yorkers who have never been to the Met, Bostonians who have never walked the Freedom Trail, and Amsterdammers who have never wandered through the red-light district.

Take the weekend, move out of the house and into a cheap place to stay, and be a tourist. I love playing tourist in my own city because it helps you learn and understand where you come from.

There’s so much around you that you probably don’t take advantage of when you’re busy leading your regular life that, when you stop and look for a second, you can find plenty of exciting activities to fill your time.

After all, travel is about seeing and learning about new things – and that can take place right in your own backyard!

Important: If you are going to do this, stay somewhere that’s not your house so it feels more like a vacation. Otherwise, it will be too tempting to wake up, run some errands, and then “run out of time.” For this to really work, you need to break your routine — and not staying in your house is important to do that.

4. Maximize your time

Don’t try to see everything under the sun. You’ll run around too much. I field a lot of emails from people who want to see half of Europe in two weeks or want to conquer all of South America in a month.

When you think that is how you have to travel and try to cram everything in, it’s easy to get burdened by your itinerary. You look at all those destinations, get overwhelmed, realize there is not enough time, give up, and hold off until you do “have” the time.

I get that you don’t have a lot of vacation and want to see a lot, but don’t! Sticking to just one or two places suddenly opens up a lot of time and opportunity! You’ll never be able to see it all. Even with my open schedule, I still can’t see everything I want. I stopped trying long ago. In travel, less is more. Quality over quantity.

****

You may not have months to travel, but that doesn’t mean you can’t travel at all. There are a plethora of ways to get out and travel the world on a budget without having to be a nomad like me. Telling yourself you don’t have time is just an excuse.

You do have the time and you can learn the skills to travel better. The problem is you probably aren’t thinking of how to spend that time beyond the typical “two-week vacation.”

So the next time you think “I don’t have the time,” think of all the places nearby you could explore. Yes, you’ll have errands to run and things that require your attention. But by using your time productively, prioritizing travel, and thinking outside the box, you’ll find you do have time to explore the world.

Travel is about exploration, and that exploration can happen anywhere for any length of time.
 

Updated May 2024

“Mom, I can’t go,” 

I heard my 16 year old son say as he walked down the entry hall.  

I was loading the dishwasher and the dryer buzzed. The usual clamoring that occurred in my head around the 5 o’clock hour continued. Practices, homework, piles of items that were requested to be put away days ago all lay in front of me.  

“Mommmm, I can’t go.”  

He said it again, and this time I heard an inflection in his voice that paused the internal noise.  

What was he talking about? His little brother’s baseball game. Are we supposed to be at dinner with his grandparents? 

I looked at him and shot back.  “Where? Where can’t you go, Hunter?”  

“I can’t go on Spring Break, Mom. I can’t go with you guys.”

A multitude of emotions flew through my being as I processed his words. 

In the past, we had always been able to arrange our trips around him and his commitments. His little brother and sister are 7 and 8 years younger than him, so they had a flexible or non-imperative schedule. But, now, as they’ve aged, their little lives have grown to be less pliable.

“What do you mean you can’t go?”  

I came across with anger as if he had some sort of control or choice over the statement. This was a family trip we had been planning for seven months. 

A big one. An expensive one. One where memories would be made, gosh darnit!

For this Spring Break, we had decided to go outside of our norm and show our kiddos the world of the mountainous terrain out west. Skiing, snowboarding, tubing, all things snow!  We were hoping for solid quality time together in a new and awesome place that we had never explored before: Colorado.  

I took a breath as I looked at his face and – in that moment – I saw a young man standing in front of me. My be-bopping, moppy haired boy was not just standing taller than me, but also leaping fast and furious into a new chapter of his life. One that I didn’t see myself being as much a part of as I thought I would be.  

I had heard about the teenage years and the cliche of only having 18 summers. Gosh, I would love to have 18 summers. But, guess what… you’re lucky if you get 18.

For some, it’s about 12. 12 summers. 12 Spring Breaks. Once he hit the teen years, we were met with commitments. Much more significant ones. And also, the voice inside my head told me that I had to follow through with supporting what I had always told him,”If you make a commitment, you have to see it through!!” 

Commitments aside, by the age of 12/13 or so, kids start having opinions about how they want to spend their time. Maybe you can make them go… but they won’t be happy about it.

How had I just been coasting along and not seen this coming?  

Because: life.  

Because each morning, I wake up and fall forward to wade through the insurmountable day-to-day obligations: take them here, pick them up, wash uniforms, someone has a field trip, the dog ate a shin guard and soccer is tonight, one kid needs an orange shirt on Thursday but hates orange and doesn’t have one, three kids need a parent at three places and last time I checked there are only two of us, and what, they want to eat, too?  

My head crashes into the pillow and then…rinse, wash, repeat. 

That’s how I didn’t see it coming. 

Sixteen years of “rinse, wash, repeat” came to a screeching halt as I realized I couldn’t get one single day back. 

Not one day.

Not one week.

Not a spring break or a Christmas, a summer or a little league game.  

And now, not an opportunity to take a trip.

That stupid Facebook post that I’ve seen a million times haunted my mind… the days go slow but the years go fast. It’s that simple. It’s really that simple. 

I looked into his eyes and I realized that this was as hard on him as it would be on the other four of us. Maybe even harder. I said I was sorry, but we both knew that there weren’t words at the moment, or maybe ever, that would help.  

He explained that there was a tournament during that week that he felt he couldn’t miss. It wasn’t mandatory or because his coach made him feel he had to be there. It was because he knew it was the right decision.  

I gave him a hug and said, “We’ll figure it out,” knowing good and well, there was no figuring it out.  

That night, I laid there thinking of all the years that passed that we had reasons to delay or put off trips: finances (trips are expensive!), timing with work and really, Mom Life.

As I continued to lie there, I couldn’t help but think of my littles and what I wanted to (quickly) change about the years that I have left with them.  

Take the trip. Just take the trip. 

I thought of the missed opportunities and the regrets. I’m not one to dwell on the should-haves and could-haves because I truly believe if we are raising kind, happy kids, it’s okay to miss a lot of things.  

But this one really bothered me.   

If only we would have paused and realized the utter importance of the gift of travel as a family.  

While I will never forget leaving a piece of my heart at home while the plane took off to Colorado, it ended up being an important lesson as well as a trip that has quite possibly changed the trajectory of my daughter’s life. This meek and anxious 9-year-old, who had not a lick of self-confidence, found herself skiing down a mountain like she’d been raised on one.  

“Hi Mom!!!”  She waved and smiled so brightly a day after completing beginner’s ski school. “I’m moving to Colorado when I grow up and I’m going to be a ski instructor!” 

With that, off she went and hopped onto a ski lift after apparently checking any fear back at the gate.  

Was this the child I’ve known and loved for 9 years? Did that actually just happen? In one week, my daughter transformed. All because of the trip. 

Days and then weeks (eventually months) after our ski trip, it became more and more apparent to me as to what a profound impact travel can have on children, families, spouses and friends. 

Maybe it’s a quick getaway or maybe it’s that once-in-a-lifetime family bucket list destination.  Or maybe it’s a long weekend to reconnect with your spouse. No matter what it is, just take the trip.

Vacation, trips, whatever you want to call them, are experiences. They are memories that will be taken with each of us no matter where life goes. They can be impactful, even life-changing. 

As I reflect on the last sixteen years of motherhood, I have a few profound takeaways. 

It’s not what our children can hold that they will remember, it is what they felt. 

Memories and experiences from trips aren’t left in a toy box or on a shelf. They aren’t under a bed collecting dust or eventually dumped in a donation bag. They aren’t phased out as our children enter a new age and stage of maturity. These memories get quietly stored in a section of their hearts and minds that eloquently and gracefully make their presence known throughout their lives, that help shape who they are and who they’ll become.  

So where are you going this year? 

—————–

Jen Grove is a travel advisor for Living with the Magic Family Vacations ~ Cruises, Beaches and All-Inclusives

Email her or check her out on Facebook to start planning your family’s dream vacation.