Housesitting Horizons #2

Morning! Another short blog to keep you updated with all things ‘housesitting’.. We had a great weekend helped by the fact that the homeowners friend looked after the sausage dog for us from Friday evening to Sunday morning - as much as we love him, he just can’t cope with being outside in the heat for long, and his little tiny legs can only walk about a kilometre before he wants to be picked up (and rightly so!).

For Tom and I, this meant we could drive further afield and pop into Portugal for a day on a sandy beach, followed by a trip to Huelva in the afternoon, by which time it was too hot to do much other than visit the city museum (mainly for the A/C) and go for more drinks…

On Sunday morning we did a 6 mile walk, which doesn’t sound far for us, but believe me when I say it was enough - it was 35 degrees Celsius at 9am when we started it! #CaminoDeAracena

We then picked sausage dog up, and had a great Sunday Session at a bar in Jabuguillo. This sounds quite normal and a little unremarkable, but here in deepest Andalusia, nothing is open on a Sunday - not bars, cafe’s, supermarkets or clothes shops… absolutely diddly squat! And we had been warned. This was a little annoying for Tom and I, as the weekend is our only time off together to explore the local areas, so effectively this took away one of those days, as who can explore in these extreme heats without stopping for drinks every hour or two?! So, finding a place open all day on a Sunday nearby was like gold dust, and we’ll probably be visiting them each Sunday until we leave the area.

Other quickfire updates:

• The mercury has increased yet again and the days stretch ahead where the daytime temperatures are going to be 40+ 🥵

• We’re still struggling with our Spanish but have perfected the order for vino blanco and grande cerveza

• It turns out sausage dogs don’t like swimming much but they can float

• If you have to sit outside the front of a bar with your dog as they won’t let it inside, they’ll not only set up a table for you, but they’ll close the road as its so narrow #LegendLandlady

• One of the cats brought in a lizard they’d caught, dead, decapitated and by the time we found it, crawling with thousands of ants 🙃

Housesitting Horizons #1

This is the first post in a series of blogs I’m going to write to keep you more up to date with our housesitting lifestyle!

So we’re currently doing a housesit in the Andalucía region of Spain, looking after a gorgeous (and tiny) sausage dog and two cats (both bigger than said sausage dog). The weather is constantly sunny with blue skies, but the heat is quite stifling and something we’re still getting used to - it’s 35 degrees today and we’re pretty much hunkered down inside with the fan constantly whirring in the background. Housesitting can sometimes seem very glamorous when viewed through the eyes of social media updates but in reality it is a lot of hard work. For us, that hard work is outweighed by the incredible benefits that this lifestyle provides - but remember it’s all about balance! You can’t have the life you want without a little graft and getting your hands dirty. This housesit is our 17th, which sounds like a lot, and we’ve only been doing this just over a year. We still love the lifestyle and the freedom it provides us with.

The low down…

• This part of Spain currently feels very foreign to me; no-one in town speaks English, and we don’t speak any Spanish… “Hablas Ingles?” has been the extend of my conversations here so far, and is met with a resounding “No” every time. The area has a real desert-western-cowboy feel to it, with men on horseback wearing panama hats and trees bare of leaves and shedding their bark. Are we in Spain or Mexico?!

• Before starting this housesit the homeowner let us stay in their ‘holiday home’ for a few days, where we made the most of the pool to cool off, walked across their acres of land each day and spend the evening soaking up our first Andalucian sunsets. Dreamy 😍

• Although it is really nice to be back in the sun again, it is very tiring being in such extreme heat; we’re trying to get into the swing of siestas, but all we’ve managed to do so far is give ourselves insomnia.

• For some reason, vegetables don’t seem to feature on any tapas menu’s here, so as a vegetarian I’m really struggling to eat out at all.

• We’ve got 5.5 more weeks here so we’re really excited about finding our feet in the area and getting to know this region well - wish us luck!

• The pets, as always, make the house a home. Sausage dog has become my shadow and the two cats are providing several laughs a day with their hilarious characters.

• Oh, and I tried driving on the right hand side for the first time yesterday, with Tom in the passenger seat clinging to his door like he was about to jump out, telling me in a strangled voice that I was “Too close on his side” every few seconds, and choking out a smile and a “That was really good” once I’d parked and turned the engine off.

So that’s all I have to update you on today, keep an eye on the website for more Housesitting Horizons coming soon…

The Caledonian Sleeper Train

One of only two sleeper services running within the UK, the Caledonian Sleeper runs between London and Scotland. With a sleeper service running on this line since 1873, the journey is steeped in history and antiquity. After a multi-million pound investment and refurbishment in 2019, it now provides luxury travel to all those who step on board. With just one seated compartment available, the rest of the train is dedicated to providing private twin or double rooms complete with their own private en-suites. Oh, and don’t forget the fabulous dining carriage for food and drink on board; which gives priority to those in private cabins.

I’ve always found sleeper trains a very romantic and pleasurable way to travel. Not only can you can take on as much luggage as you want, you don’t have the hassle of a ‘check-in’ or tiresome passport controls (unless the sleeper traverses different countries of course!). On board the Caledonian Sleeper you can get a good dinner before getting some good quality shut-eye, waking up to views of the Cairngorms whizzing past and spotting wildlife.

When to go: The Caledonian Sleeper runs year round and Scotland is a stunning destination at any time of the year. It depends whether you are looking to scale munros; in which case you need them to be clear of snow and should opt for summer months, or whether a snowy scene is more up your street. I love Scotland in all seasons and would recommend visiting multiple times to see how the landscape changes.

Essentials to pack: Your sense of adventure! You don’t even need to bring an eye mask as the Sleeper service provides this in your cabin, along with some chocolate and toiletries.

How to get there: The Caledonian departs London Euston station every night except Saturdays. Euston has extensive rail connections across the UK.

Cost: The sleeper service ranges in price from approx. £50 per person for a seat to £200 per person for a private double en-suite, with twin cabins somewhere in the middle of that price. The price fluctuates throughout the year, with summer and school holidays being more expensive than mid-week shoulder season departures. Winter can also be expensive as Scotland is a skiing destination.

Top tip: Those who book the Caldonian Double and Club cabins are entitled to use the first class lounge at London Euston which provided us with free soft drinks, hot drinks, snacks and larger food options prior to boarding. The lounge also has private shower facilities along with hairdryers, plug sockets and very comfortable seating. A great way to start any trip!

Snacks in the first class lounge at London Euston

Hairdryer and getting ready area at London Euston first class lounge

On board the Caledonian Sleeper train

After boarding we headed to our cabin which was a private twin en-suite room (called a Club room on the website) and realised the train was not quite built for backpackers - the rooms, although luxurious and comfy, are very small, as are the corridors where we got a bit jammed walking through the train. We found a helpful carriage assistant who allowed us to store our backpacks in the luggage compartment so that we had enough room to move around our cabin. Once we’d ditched our non-essentials for the journey, admired the freebies in our cabin and settled in, we headed to the bar-restaurant carriage.

As we’d paid for a Club cabin, we were prioritised upon entry and guaranteed a seat in this carriage over those who had paid for seated or classic tickets. This is also the case for those who book the Caledonian Double cabins. We had ourselves a couple of drinks - Irn Bru and Whisky, of course - and then ordered a delicious dinner from the on board menu which prioritises Scottish dishes with ingredients which are locally and responsibly sourced.

Once we’d eaten a hearty dinner and sampled several Scottish Whisky’s, we retired to our cabin to enjoy the plush surroundings and get to grips with the en-suite toilet-cum-shower; of course I used it even though I was clean - I’d never showered on a train before and the water pressure and temperature was great.

The shower/toilet room - lifting the lid on the bench seat revealed the toilet - a very clever design.

We had a very peaceful and comfortable nights sleep in our cabin. The quilts and pillows provided were of exceptional quality and we were warm and cosy on board in March. We didn’t use the eye mask and earplugs provided but they were a welcome addition in case we did struggle to sleep. There were ample plug sockets, USB charging points in the cabin and also multiple light switches and temperature controls. There was also a “Host Call” button which our carriage attendant informed us we could use any time in the night if we wanted a hot drink or snack or simply needed assistance.

In the morning, soft light streamed in through our cabin window as we got up and dressed slowly and lazily, enjoying the comfort and privacy our cabin provided us with. We watched various stations whizzing past and at around 7am we went to the restaurant carriage again to have our breakfast which was included in the ticket price - you can choose from porridge, cereal and continental style choices, or opt for something more substantial such as eggs on toast or a full Scottish breakfast. We got to eat our breakfast whilst enjoying incredible Scottish scenery and were ready to depart once we arrived in the Cairngorms.

To travel by the Caledonian Sleeper is an adventure that I think everyone should experience at least once - for a comfortable and luxurious travel experience with amazing food and outstanding service from the staff, the price is actually incredibly reasonable.

The worst part of the journey was getting off the train - I’d loved every second!

Who are Hitched and Hiking?

We’re Jess & Tom, a couple of 20-somethings (just about) originally from Gloucester, UK, but we just can’t sit still. Our feet itch and our souls need feeding with new places and new experiences. We got together when we were just 19 years old, and the thing that binds us together more than our love for coffee, quizzes or spicy food is travel.

Travel has always been the epicentre of our relationship. When we were 21, we set off on the trip of a lifetime, where we ended up travelling for 2 years straight, visiting 4 continents and 14 countries. We don’t usually count the countries we travel, and we tend to deal more in the experiences we have, and the people we meet along the way. I couldn’t tell you much about the sights we saw in Manilla, but I can still remember the taste of the pumpkin curry at Gacayan, a cafe in Port Barton, Palawan, The Phillipines, and that it cost 60 pesos for that and a drink (approx. £1). I still have the drawing that the daughter of the homestay we were living in drew of Tom and I and still regularly think of the host and her families’ generosity whilst we lived there.

As you can tell by the blog name, not only are we married, but we absolutely love to hike, walk, roam, wander, explore, move. Every new place we go, we like to explore on foot as well as by other transport. We feel that walking around a place gives you a much better connection to the land; literally, physically and mentally. Walking also allows to you understand how the place flows, what roads lead to where and what footpaths there are. Plonk us down in any place and we are wandering around it before you can say “walking boots”. We also have a head for heights and constantly look up hills or mountains we can hike up. We will be posting about our favourite walks, hikes and jaunts on here as often as we can. Please feel free to share your favourite walks with us too - we’re always looking for new ideas.

In 2022 we took a big leap of faith and rented our house out long term, effectively making ourselves homeless. We now do housesitting which enables us to travel slower, explore places we would never have visited otherwise and look after people’s lovely homes and pets. We did housesitting in the UK for six months straight and now have various sits booked in overseas for the rest of the year, in between travelling to countries we’ve always wanted to spend more time in. I’ll be trying to keep the website as up to date as possible with guides to cities we have spent time in, housesits we’ve done and hikes we recommend. Alongside this I’m currently writing a travel book, and Tom is working full time as an accountant (someone’s gotta pay for our caffeine addiction!).

This is my blog to document our travel exploits, be that abroad or in the UK, hiking or flying, rainy or sunny. I hope you find it interesting enough to read on, and I hope I inspire you to do what makes you happy.

Be authentic, be the real you, and don’t apologise.

There’s no perfect time to travel

I’ve come to realise over the last decade that there really is no perfect time to travel.

There will always be something that makes you feel it’s not quite the right time to take that leap of faith.

We tell ourselves that next year we’ll have saved more money and be in a better position financially.

That next year we’ll have brought the right gear.

That next year we’ll have researched into the countries we want to go to more fully.

That next year we’ll have received a qualification or milestone at work and once that’s under our belts we’ll go travelling.

That next year travel may be safer, cheaper or more viable for us.

That next year maybe I’ll have found a travel buddy.

That in a few more years I’ll have got that big promotion, and a big salary increase to match it.

That in five years I’ll have saved enough to buy a house, and isn’t that more of an investment?

That in five years I may need these savings for something big like a new car, deposit or wedding.

You can see how quickly it turns from next year to five years, and before you know it travel is a distant dream you once had when you were young and able to do “those things”.

Then there’s the “Well if I wait a few more months” voice telling us that we want to be around for a parents’ big birthday, a family wedding, a christening or an anniversary. We book tickets to concerts and shows sometimes years in advance and then we use those things as an excuse that we can’t possibly go away now.

The truth is, there will always be events and occasions that you have to miss, if you want to live life on the road. But here’s the golden nugget - you can do both. Last time we went travelling, we went away for 2 years straight, no returning home. Some family came out to see us, but we didn’t go home to see the ones that couldn’t come to us. Was this selfish? Yes. Did our family mind? No. They supported us. We kept in contact with calls, facetime and postcards (yes I’m a bit old school!).

This time, we have decided that we are going to make time to come home for events or pre-booked things if we can afford it. So, we are going home in a couple of weeks for my nieces birthday party. She’s going to be 4, and I know she’d like us there! We are planning to be around an hour from home at Christmas so we can see family then too. And there’s a concert in May that I’ve got tickets to which is in Bristol, which I will fly home for.

There is no easy way to ignore the voice in your head. It will always be there, and you will always get home sick and miss your family. But if you want to make a lifestyle that works for you, you need to work out how often you want to go and visit friends and family, what events can’t be missed, and which ones you’d just quite like to go to. Then, make the time in your trip to facilitate this.

We have decided that this is our time to live the way we want to, carving out a life which works for us and we are both content with. You know what I think? I think it’s time for you to do the same too…

How to make a difference to the places you travel

For those of you that travel, whether short term or long term, we all leave physical and environmental footprints. This is inevitable and we should all consider how we can off-set these footprints and make a difference to the places that we travel.

Community

All cities, towns, villages and hamlets have a community. A group of people that live there and are the life-force of that place. If you are going to travel somewhere, try to talk to the community that live in that place, speak to the locals and find out what they love about the place they live. Get tips off them; you may find some little known walks, viewpoints or things going on in the town whilst you are there. You may find out where to get the freshest vegetables or best cup of coffee in town. Mostly, you’ll gain the respect of the community members that live there; you have taken the time to speak to them and find out how you can make a difference to the place they call home. You may even make friends and have people to call upon should you ever return.

Support independent businesses

Most areas encourage visitors as people need places to stay, places to eat and almost always buy souvenirs or gifts. This means that the economy in that place improves dramatically. You can help encourage the growth of the economy by supporting local or independent businesses. This way you will also undoubtedly buy things of better quality which last longer, eat food which has travelled less food miles and stay in accommodation in which the host truly cares about your experience.

Go to local events

If you see an event advertised in a small village, go to it! This could be a fete in a small English village, a religious event which says “welcome to all”, a yoga class, a talk presented by the local horticultural society, a wine and cheese night or literally anything else. Yes you may feel out of place to start with but most people are friendly and you won’t regret going. Unless the talk on cacti is really boring of course! There really is a lot going on in the smaller places you visit, and it’s out there for you to find. If you are looking for the energy in a place, it can usually be found in the people that live there.

Treat the place as if you lived there

No littering please. We see these signs everywhere, but I know that some of you still litter, as I see litter ALL OVER THE PLACE. There is usually always a bin nearby too. Come on people, get it together! Treat the places you travel as you would treat the place you live. If you see litter, pick it up and put it in the bin. If you see a problem with litter, speak to someone local about organising a litter pick. If you see someone struggling with their shopping, help them. If you see an unkempt frontage and an elderly person living there, see if you can donate an afternoon to them to help tidy the place up. Look around you at the places and people you see, look properly, and you will see proactive ways you can assist a community. Then the hard part - once you’ve seen it, do it!

Stay longer in each place

If you have the luxury to travel slower, it is not only better for the environment but you will have a more wholesome experience of a place. You will get to know people in that area, find your preferred walking routes, develop a “local” drinking place and a favourite restaurant. I can vouch for this; I have travelled quickly from place to place due to a dwindling budget and a need for speed! I needed to see as many places as possible so I could join in those hostel conversations of “Oh yes I’ve been there too, but I much preferred this well-known place 4 hours down the coast”, and so I could tick things off on my bucket list. Maybe the inclination to travel slower has come with age. When we left to travel hastily across the world (ok, some people may not call two years a hasty trip but trust me, it felt it!), we were just twenty-one years old. Now, we are twenty-eight, and the difference we feel in our mindsets is quite staggering.

If you take my advice and stay just a tad longer in each place, you will feel as though you know the place differently, as more of a “local” yourself, and that you are entitled to form a full opinion of the place as you have given it the time and respect it deserved.

How to travel the world for free

Yes that’s right, it is now possible to travel the world for free!

We were in China in 2016 when we met a family who were slowly travelling the world by looking after other peoples houses and pets. “Slow travel” sounded appealing to us, as we’d spent the last few months hopping from place to place. All in all we spent two years travelling quickly, working out how much time we could spend in each place by looking at our ever shrinking bank balance.

The family we met told us all about something called “Housesitting”. At the time, 6 years ago now, this was a foreign concept to us and something we’d never even heard of. We had a rough plan in place for our travels but we had always planned to come home to the UK at the end of it (or when we ran out of money). We were still young then, returning home in 2018 after two years away and being just 23 years old. We settled down in our home town, got “proper” jobs and bought our first home in 2019.

However, our feet were always itching to go away and explore new places. We knew that although we had family and friends here, deep down we both had a longing for travel. We only felt truly at home when we were on the road. We realised it would take us quite some time to save up travel funds again and we had plans to visit India and South Africa in 2020 but then Coronavirus hit and we ended up cancelling our plans.

The covid-induced lockdowns that then struck us throughout 2020 and restrictions that lasted long into 2021 meant we put most of our travel plans on a halt. We had also gotten engaged in 2020 and planned our wedding for September 2021, which kept us very busy with planning and honeymooning until early 2022. Yes, we had two honeymoons - do you know us at all?! - We went to Malta for a week in October 2021 and Italy for 3 weeks in December 2021.

Over the two year enforced break from real travel, we kept fuelling the fire that we had inside us to travel and we added a gazillion places to our “we need to go here” list. We started saving again after the big spend for the wedding and we decided that it was now or never. We wanted to get moving again. No, we needed to get moving again. Our spirits had been damaged by corporate workplaces and the inflexibility of life - it just gets in the way!

Tom started looking for a fully remote job which he secured in July 2022 and I decided to be brave and quit my job completely in order to focus on our travels and hopefully start to write. It seemed as though the stars were aligning and so we rented out our house and booked in several house sits.

Let me tell you more about house sitting…

The family we met in China all those years ago had inspired us to look into housesitting as a way of moving around the world. We signed up to Trusted Housesitters and created a profile. Trusted Housesitters is a network of people looking for reliable house and pet sitters, and those looking to do the “looking after”. We both love animals and new places, so this seemed like a great thing for us to do. We immediately started house and pet sitting in our local area in order to build up reviews.

Once we had started getting reviews (all 5* thank you very much!) and realised how much we enjoyed the process, we agreed this was the way to kick start our new form of “slow travel”. We also quickly found that the longer the sit the better, as you could really relax into the space, form bonds with the pets and get to know new areas and neighbours.

We started being picky about the locations and lengths of the house sit we would apply for, and also started looking in advance. House sits go onto the site as much as a year in advance, and can be as long as the host needs. We have seen house sits in Australia for as long as 4 months, with only a pond of fish to look after. The best thing about Trusted Housesitters is that it is something you can do worldwide; you can house sit for a parrot in Panama or a cat in Canada.

So, here we are, about to embark on 5 house sits in the UK that will take us forward 6 months. Most of the house sits are around month long in duration and we have a variety of pets to look after. Best of all, our mortgage is covered by our rent payments, and we don’t have to pay any utility bills. We simply need to feed ourselves and enjoy life, exploring new places as we go!

Wish us luck…

Mrs H x