Sitter Stand-In

My friend Tzaddi is a gal who’s in the know.

She always has the most informative suggestions (I credit it to her being umbilically linked like a cyborg to her computer :-)).

When Tzaddi heard that my plans for a Fredericton studio swap had fallen through, she sent me a link that took me to housecarers.com, a site that connects people who need their houses sat on with folks that want to sit on them.  Last night I got lost on the site for several hours, browsing through different countries and imagining what it might be like to transplant myself somewhere foreign for an extended period of time.

If you’ve ever wanted to walk a mile (live a week – or a month, or five) in someone else’s shoes (life) this is the site for you.  In most cases the folks that need house sitting have pets and/or livestock, and/or gardening and landscaping that needs tending to.  Essentially, you are becoming them, acting as their surrogate and accepting responsibility for their daily routines.

You might decide to help a family in rural France run a B&B for half a year in exchange for room and board.  Or maybe you want to see what it’s like to look after a hobby farm in Australia for a month.  Or maybe squatting in Italy for a season, tending to the upkeep of an owner’s expansive garden is more your style.

The possibilities are vast and ever changing.  Think about it – if you were able to work remotely what could be better than experiencing different parts of the world on a budget while you make your living?  The vision of a traveling studio is dancing in my head.

I’ve got my eye on the African farmhouse in Namibia (could be the cold, wet, dark winter days have me attracted to “must like the heat” in the header line).

Where would you like to temporarily live?  What kind of life would you like to try out?