House Sitting Perfected: A Senior Adventure

I’m enjoying coffee with Angela this morning. Our guest contributor is the resident in house expert on the team of Trustedhousesitters.com, the world’s largest house sitting organisation providing help and advice to both pet/home owners and house sitters, also a regular contributor with  RetireWow, Starts at Sixty and Boomeon, the online Baby Boomer Community.   Senior friends, enjoy her story.

Angela and John

“One of my favourite life quotes is from St Augustine: “The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.”

For 25 years John and I devoured a virtual library of travel with his job as a Petroleum Engineer. We traveled the world living the expat life not always in paradise, but I wouldn’t have missed a moment. It’s said there are only two certainties in life: death and taxes. There is a third … retirement, it comes to us all, eventually.

We’d planned for it financially but definitely not emotionally. In truth, as much as our travels had given so they had taken away a sense of belonging, roots and connection with a community. We had become life long nomads, staying put wasn’t even remotely appealing.

Retirement had all the prospects of  a life “too normal”, plus John and I are two very independent individuals with much of our married life spent apart. This wasn’t going to be an easy fix. So began our “putting down roots” quest: we knew where we didn’t want to live, what we didn’t want to do.

Holly

We bought a home in France, stayed a year. Then a beautiful ocean-front home on Vancouver Island, a B&B, realizing a long held ambition of mine. Accompanying us on this journey was our beloved Springer, Holly: from Africa to India, Germany, France, England and Canada she was there for fourteen years.

I believe our smart and beautiful Holly guided us towards this amazing pet and house-sitting adventure knowing exactly what we needed in our lives ….. animals and travel!

Taking us across five continents, we get to live like a local.  Our travels have purpose, keeping pets safe and happy giving owners absolute peace of mind. We’re not simply on vacation. Making new friends, both two and four legged, is unavoidable!

view from our terrace in Spain

This travel lifestyle has enriched our retirement beyond measure and could not be financially possible any other way, we’ve saved thousands of $$$$.  If we had to pay for everything, our children would have shut us down long ago, we’d be spending their inheritance.

Since October 2013 we’ve been on assignment in Spain enjoying a lovely villa with views of the Mediterranean and the company of a dear and lovable Doberman named Bruno. Our BC home safe in our sitters care.

It may not be everyone’s cup of tea but many seniors can enjoy this lifestyle. For these retirees, travel simply doesn’t get any better. Angela