What does ‘freedom’ look like to you? | Featured in Freelancer Mag

What does ‘freedom’ look like to you? | Featured in Freelancer Mag

Right in time for my birthday, I received a lovely email! Turns out Cooper and I have inspired the fab team at Freelancer Magazine with our podcast, Freedom and Four Paws 

This means the world to us, because recording each episode was so motivating – our guests, all sourced from this community, had such powerful, wild and wise stories to tell about how they’ve made travel and remote work a full-time reality.

It’s something we’re passionate about sharing and discussing too, and we are excited that it resonates with so many people.

social post freelancer mag freedom and four paws

Freedom and Four Paws is named in honour of the freedom we in this travel-curious community seek, and the collective love of animals we share – many of us being house + pet sitters and/or pet parents. If you’re not in the Facebook Group yet but would like to join the conversation, you can do so here.

So far on the podcast, we’ve published two series covering topics like:

  • How to get paid for house sitting
  • Off-grid travel
  • Solo travel and house sitting
  • Budget travel
  • Long term travel
  • How to make the most of your digital nomad community
  • Remote work productivity tips and tricks.

If this piques your interest, you can listen and subscribe to Freedom and Four Paws on YouTube, Spotify, Apple, and all your favourite podcast providers.

We’re planning future episodes too, so if there’s a burning question you have that you think would make a great topic, or you feel called to share your own story, please reach out, we’d love to hear from you. You can get in touch by completing the contact form on this site :)

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5 ways to make the most of off grid travel + house sitting

5 ways to make the most of off grid travel + house sitting

Off grid house sitting and travel is becoming a popular way of life for many. Let’s face it, most of  us want to switch off from the craziness of the world today. Living off grid is also an opportunity to practice a more sustainable way of living. When we had the chance to chat to Annemarie – an Aussie based in South America and living this lifestyle, we jumped at the chance.

 

Off grid house sitting and travel – living the dream?

In this episode of Freedom and Four Paws, we meet Annemarie, an Australian who has been slow travelling through Central and South America for the past few years. Annemarie offers wonderful tales of travels and friends made along the way. And, she shares excellent advice on what it takes to survive and thrive living off the grid. 

If you’re wondering what the off-grid lifestyle looks like, Annemarie says it is a dream for her. BUT it’s probably not for everyone. That’s where house sitting is a great chance to dip your toes in to see if it is for you.

 

Getting into off-grid living

Annemarie’s initiation to off the grid living came about by chance.

A friend asked her to come to Costa Rica to help him set up an off the grid art eco events centre on his permaculture farm. Her off-grid experience there lasted seven months where she quickly learned what it takes to survive.

By definition, off-grid living usually means you’re relying on your own energy and water supplies. It also comes with nurturing your own food and learning to truly appreciate all living things around you. An attractive proposition for many of us!

To become accustomed to jungle life, like in Annemarie’s case, you need to be able to cope with isolation, be good with your hands, calm and adaptable.

“You are off grid. There’s no shop, there’s no letter box, there isn’t anything,” explains Annemarie.

Find out more by watching her interview – click to play above

 

 

How to find house sits while travelling off-grid

Annemarie uses TrustedHousesitters, but like some of our other Freedom and Four Paws guests including Nicky who travels with her dog, and this family of four house sitters, has also built a reputation and now has people contacting her for sits.

Annemarie shares that it’s important to continue to develop and foster relationships with locals where you live too – often leads come in that way.

Additionally, join community groups in your area, on and offline. Let people know what you do – tell them you do house sitting and people will soon reach out to you. “House sitters are in demand everywhere,” Annemarie tells us.

 

Annemarie’s top house sitting and off-grid travel tips

Anne Marie’s biggest tip to finding work and getting involved in the community is through WhatsApp.

She tells us that in many countries, including South and Central America, many businesses don’t have a website, they utilise WhatsApp. 

A few key ways to finding work on the road: 

  • Join community groups in the region – network and get to know people
  • Groups (including online like Facebook, or offline in networks) are the best way to find out anything
  • Tell people what you do – you can’t sell a secret
  • Engage, develop relationships and opportunities open up!

 

Click here to subscribe to Freedom and Four Paws on your favourite podcast service

 

Freedom and Four Paws

Join us on our podcasting adventures as we hear inspiring stories from amazing people traveling the world. They’re living their best life, often with their pets in tow!

More advice from Freedom and Four Paws: House Sitting in a Foreign Language Destination, and Slow Travel: 9 Years on the Road House Sitting

 

Subscribe now and never miss an episode featuring excellent tips on how to slow travel, successfully work remotely or as a digital nomad, and house + pet sit. We’re on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google podcasts or your favourite podcasting app. Search ‘Freedom and Four Paws’

Freedom and Four Paws is brought to you by Travel Live Learn.com.

As a valued audience member, enjoy 10% OFF at our affiliate partner Cloudy – relieve stress throughout the day straight to a soothing sleep at night, visit trycloudy.com and use the code FREEDOM10.

And if you’re a fellow traveller and pet lover who is keen to share your story and inspire the world, visit exhalemediagroup.com and mention FREEDOM20 for 20% OFF any purchased service including personalised storytelling coaching.

WATCH: Find out more about house sitting while you travel, view the playlist on YouTube

SIGN UP: TO TRUSTED HOUSE SITTERS HERE AND ENJOY 25% OFF! It’s on our VIP mailing list, including other freebies.

SUBSCRIBE: on YouTube for more adventures youtube.com/travellivelearn

 

How to travel on a budget (cheap or for FREE) in 2024!

How to travel on a budget (cheap or for FREE) in 2024!

Are you looking for how to travel on a budget, cheap or for free around the world?

In this episode of Freedom and Four Paws, we meet Frugal Travellers Mandy and Lee. They have been travelling the world on a budget for over 30 years and over 100 countries. These avid adventurers have mastered how to travel the world on a budget. Mandy and Lee share fantastic advice on how to get the most out of your money while exploring the world.

The Frugal Travellers were recently featured on CNN Chance Encounters, a show which highlights real life stories of couples who met while travelling.

 

How to travel on a budget: top tip, house sitting

One of the most popular topics on this website is house and pet sitting. Lee and Mandy lean on house sitting as a way to travel cheaply. Their introduction to this mode of travel came about by chance while living in Australia. At first, friends asked them to look after their pets. Word quickly spread that they were lovely and trustworthy and then referrals started to flow in.

In the years to come, Mandy and Lee joined several paid and free services that also enabled them to secure house sits.

They now house sit full time.

 

 

How to travel cheap and keep costs down

One of the couple’s success tips is to make a game out of sticking to a slim daily budget. These are a few key ways they save money while travelling:

 


 

International travel is available to everyone – you don’t have to be rich!

Through Lee and Mandy’s YouTube channel, their intention is to prove that you do not need to be a millionaire to enjoy a life of travel. The pair themselves embrace slow travel and the freedom it brings, and their inspiring content shows how anyone can do it.

 

Click here to subscribe on your favourite podcast service

 

Freedom and Four Paws

Join us on our podcasting adventures as we hear inspiring stories from amazing people travelling the world and living their best life.

Subscribe now and never miss an episode. Each includes excellent tips on how to slow travel, and successfully work remotely.  Search ‘Freedom and Four Paws’ on your favourite podcast service.

As a valued audience member, enjoy 10% OFF at our affiliate partner Cloudy. Relieve stress throughout the day straight to a soothing sleep at night.  Visit trycloudy.com and use the code FREEDOM10.

If you’re a fellow traveller and pet lover who is keen to share your story and inspire the world, visit exhalemediagroup.com. Mention FREEDOM20 for 20% OFF any purchased service.

WATCH: Find out more about house sitting while you travel, view the playlist on YouTube

SIGN UP: TO TRUSTED HOUSE SITTERS HERE AND ENJOY 25% OFF! It’s on our VIP mailing list, including other freebies.

SUBSCRIBE: on YouTube for more adventures youtube.com/travellivelearn

 


 
 

How to house sit in a foreign language destination

How to house sit in a foreign language destination

Discover important info on how to house sit in a foreign language destination: be prepared with safety tips for you and the pets in your care!

In this episode of Freedom and Four Paws, we share our experience around preparing for house and pet sitting in a foreign language destination – that is, for us, a place where English is not the first language spoken.

Watch on and discover some of our favourite resources, tips and tricks for learning the language, experiencing the culture, facing embarrassment, and importantly, surviving in an emergency or crisis situation.

 

How to house sit in a foreign language destination

Ultimately, our top five critical tips for house and pet sitting in a foreign language destination are:

  1. Know where you’re staying. Make sure you have the address written down and with you both on your phone and on your person. This is important in case you you lose your phone or the battery  dies.
  2. Make sure you know what the emergency services number is in the country where you’re staying, e.g. 000, 111, 999.
  3. Download key apps before you head off so they’re ready to go on the ground. For example, Google Translate, and your favourite language app.
  4. Always ask what you should do if you get locked out, and what to do if the pet gets sick. Make sure you know what the plan is! Also that there are emergency contacts who will be able to communicate with you.
  5. Just practice: give it a go, say hello, or hola, as the case may be.

 

 

We’d love to know what your tips and experience is in this space – let us know in the comments

 

 

Click here to subscribe on your favourite podcast service

Freedom and Four Paws

Join us on our podcasting adventures as we hear inspiring stories from amazing people travelling the world. They’re living their best life, often with their pets in tow!

More advice from Freedom and Four Paws: How to travel with your own pet! And how to house sit as a family :)

 

Subscribe now and never miss an episode featuring excellent tips on how to slow travel, successfully work remotely or as a digital nomad, and house + pet sit. We’re on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google podcasts or your favourite podcasting app. Search ‘Freedom and Four Paws’

Freedom and Four Paws is brought to you by Travel Live Learn.com.

As a valued audience member, enjoy 10% OFF at our affiliate partner Cloudy – relieve stress throughout the day straight to a soothing sleep at night, visit trycloudy.com and use the code FREEDOM10.

And if you’re a fellow traveller and pet lover who is keen to share your story and inspire the world, visit exhalemediagroup.com and mention FREEDOM20 for 20% OFF any purchased service including personalised storytelling coaching.

WATCH: Find out more about house sitting while you travel, view the playlist on YouTube

SIGN UP: TO TRUSTED HOUSE SITTERS HERE AND ENJOY 25% OFF! It’s on our VIP mailing list, including other freebies.

SUBSCRIBE: on YouTube for more adventures youtube.com/travellivelearn

 

 

Make the most of a pet sitting and digital nomad community

Make the most of a pet sitting and digital nomad community

In this episode of Freedom and Four Paws, we share some insight on how to make the most of a house and pet sitting and digital nomad community.

 

Your digital nomad community and house sitting friends!

We cover three key aspects:

  • the people you meet along the way;
  • networking in like-minded online spaces;
  • and getting involved at niche in-person gatherings for travellers or digital nomads.

As house and sitters ourselves, and the group admins of a popular Facebook Group on the topic, we’ve experienced the very best of what this exceptional travel niche has to offer.

Our eyes were originally opened to this wonderful house and pet sitting community when we first took to the road for about eight months travelling, house and pet sitting throughout the UK and Europe.

Each sit saw us meet fun, interesting, smart and creative people. We are actually still friends with all the home owners that we’ve sat for. Some of those people we are actively in touch with on WhatsApp and Messenger three years later!

We went into this for the pets, as you’ll see in some of our other videos. But what we didn’t expect was to come out with so many friends – all with a wonderful story of their own. Take Teresa and Geoff in Malta, or Andy and Helen in Sharnbrook for example.

 

Getting your doggie fix

When we were living in London, we desperately missed having a dog. We did sign up to a new service called Borrow My Doggy. It offers animal lovers like us the chance to connect with people who want to share their pups for a play in the park or walk. The service was so popular that the ratio of borrowers to doggies available was out of proportion. Lots of people want a furry friend, it seems.

Later on, we came across TrustedHousesitters, and the rest is history!  

We started out doing short local sits in the city to get our pet fix and build our reviews, then we took the show on the road.

 

Building the community – pet sitters, nomads and wanderlust

We got so into the house sitting scene that – just for fun – we started a Facebook Group to attract like-minded souls. Our intention was to connect with people who saw the world the way we did: through dogs, travel and a search for freedom that sees us living and working wherever we want, whenever we want.

COVID obviously put a cold hard halt on our dreams for a couple of years, especially as we ended up in Australia, which was one of the last countries to open up a good two years after the pandemic began.

Our Facebook Group continued to thrive though, and at time of writing is very near to 15,000 members! The Facebook community has offered great conversation, and it’s so heartening to see how many people swap services on there, find their next sit/sitter and help each other with advice.

 

Travel communities and learning more

Another of our favourite ways to build community in the travel space is by attending conferences.

One of our very favourites is TBEX where you can meet like minded people and learn how to better your craft. 

 

It’s well worth the investment attending something like TBEX. The learning is inspiring and motivating. The travel is extraordinary. But the unexpected benefit is the international friends you walk away with!

Of course, the next one we shall attend is in Greece in 2023… can’t deny we are really pumped about that!

 

 

Click here to subscribe to your favourite podcast service

 

Freedom and Four Paws

Join us on our podcasting adventures as we hear inspiring stories from amazing people travelling the world. They’re living their best life, often with their pets in tow!

In this episode of Freedom and Four Paws, find out about how valuable a global travel community can be for your work and wellbeing. 

Have you found a community through house and pet sitting? Let us know about your experiences in the comments and tag those who you have met along the way.

 

 

 More advice from Freedom and Four Paws: How to travel with your own pet! And how to house sit as a family :)

 

Subscribe now and never miss an episode featuring excellent tips on how to slow travel, successfully work remotely or as a digital nomad, and house + pet sit. We’re on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google podcasts or your favourite podcasting app. Search ‘Freedom and Four Paws’

Freedom and Four Paws is brought to you by Travel Live Learn.com.

As a valued audience member, enjoy 10% OFF at our affiliate partner Cloudy – relieve stress throughout the day straight to a soothing sleep at night, visit trycloudy.com and use the code FREEDOM10.

And if you’re a fellow traveller and pet lover who is keen to share your story and inspire the world, visit exhalemediagroup.com and mention FREEDOM20 for 20% OFF any purchased service including personalised storytelling coaching.

WATCH: Find out more about house sitting while you travel, view the playlist on YouTube

SIGN UP: TO TRUSTED HOUSE SITTERS HERE AND ENJOY 25% OFF! It’s on our VIP mailing list, including other freebies.

SUBSCRIBE: on YouTube for more adventures youtube.com/travellivelearn