The Great Family Escape

Why You Should Be House Sitting

Justin Mussler — Mon, 13 May 2013 14:43:07 +0000

So here's the big, not-so-secret "secret" to traveling the world on the cheap:

Whenever possible, find cheap or free accommodation.

Travel comes with 3 major expenses:

1) Transport
2) Food
3) Accommodation

And of these 3, accommodation will easily impact your travel budget the most, unless, of course, you start finding places to sleep for free.

Before we started traveling, many people had told us that finding a good house sitting job with a family was nearly impossible.

Nobody wants a family with a bunch of little kids tearing up their house while they're gone.

But the idea of house sitting was just too enticing to ignore. Each day there are literally hundreds of listings being placed by homeowners around the world who need responsible people to look after their homes, pets, and plants while they're on vacation or working away from home. And, being responsible people with an open-ended schedule, it seemed - despite the pessimistic warnings - that we were quite destined to play a part in this whole house sitting thing.

After about 2 months of travel, we opened an annual account for $80 with TrustedHousesitters.com, posted a few pictures and a description of ourselves, and then - we started applying.

Our first 6 requests for house sits came back with rejection letters. Either the house sitters had already filled the position, or they just weren't interested. So, as per usual, we started to doubt ourselves a bit, but in the end we just kept on applying.

After 13 rejections we landed our first gig in San Diego, California. It was a 1 week house sit and it came with the bonus of having the kids be able to care for a cat!

A few days later we arrange a house sit in Calgary, Canada, and then - 2 more in Victoria, Canada! Within our first two months of membership we had arranged over 2 months of house sitting. And just last week we received a random request to house sit for a family in New Zealand.

It would seem that persistence and a little bit of faith work well when trying to get past the silly idea of "a bunch of little kids tearing things up".

5 Reasons Why You Should Be House Sitting

1) It's FREE! We'll, practically free. $80 a year is a small price to pay for the money you will save on hotels and rentals while you travel. You can even sign up for cheaper services like mindmyhouse.com for only $20, but you might not get the same results.

Like I said before, whenever possible, find cheap or free accommodation. Saving via house sitting will certainly help prolong and enrich your travels.

2) It's A Great Way To Travel. It is rare that one gets the experience of living like a local in a foreign setting. House sitting affords us the opportunity to integrate into a community as soon as we arrive at our destination. We're surrounded by locals, not tourists. We have our own space. It is a very pleasant way to experience a new destination.

3) People Need You. House sitting is more than a free place to stay. People are entrusting their precious possessions to someone they believe will care for them properly in their absence. They need responsible people to help them out. In an increasingly paranoid world, it's wonderful to see that there are so many people who will sort through some references and take a chance on people they haven't met.

4) It's For Everyone. If I was smarter and bolder, I would have started applying for house sits years ago when we were still living in Boston. House sitting is not just for long-term travelers. Odds are, there are a few people looking for house sitters in your neighborhood right now. And if you get a few references under your belt, you might be able to arrange a 2-week gig for that big trip you're going to take next summer.

5) You And Your Kids Will Love It. Don't underestimate yourself or your kids. If your kids don't like dogs, then apply for the house sit with fish instead. I am amazed at how often we broadly generalize and talk ourselves out of doing something. Sure, not everything always works out perfectly, but sometimes it works out pretty great. You'll never know until you try.

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2 Days In A Life Of Change

Justin Mussler — Wed, 01 May 2013 14:42:21 +0000

It's amazing how things can change.

With a little bit of work, flexibility, and faith - you can flip the world upside down and see it again for the first time.

Nothing stays the same. All rivers dry up; all mountains crumble. And yet, with change comes the new. Dried up rivers become beautiful canyons, and crumbled mountains become new playgrounds for my kids to explore. Change is inevitable.

And so we have a choice. We can stand on the mountain as it crumbles and cross our fingers, or we can bravely climb down and start exploring the worlds we only ever had the courage to view from a distance.

Got to make a choice. What do we do?

Day 1: September 13th, 2012

I wake up.

I rush to the shower to get ready before the kids wake up. It's 5:50 AM. Heidi is already at work.

I get the kids up at 6:40 and they stammer to the table for breakfast. Hugs, kisses, and I get them their cereal.

I set out their clothes and go to join the kids for a quick bite to eat. Bite over, I hustle the kids into their rooms to get dressed.

I grab the lunches, prepare my own, and start stuffing the backpacks for school.

Teeth get brushed, beds get made, and at 7:45 we are out the door.

We walk to school and I drop my daughter off around 8:10 and my son off at 8:45. Off to work by bike.

9:30 - 6:30: Work and commute.

Heidi's got dinner ready and we all swap a few stories over bites until 7:00.

Baths and stories til 8pm and then the kids are off to bed.

From 8pm to 11pm we make plans, write, pay the bills, etc...

It's 11 PM - off to bed!

No matter how hard we tried to change this schedule, we just couldn't make it work. We'd make adjustments, we'd sacrifice, and we'd keep working, but nothing we did seemed to make a big difference in our lives. At the end of the day it was an hour together as a family and for us that sucked. It just wasn't what we wanted. It wasn't working. Something big needed to change.

Day 2: April 30th, 2013. Less than 1 year later.

I woke up.

The kids are downstairs playing with the cat. We no longer live in a house in Boston. Today, we are caring for someone's pet at their home in San Diego while they are away.

I head down to join the kids and make breakfast.

As we're playing, Heidi returns from a run and we get ready to eat.

After breakfast, everyone gets dressed. I pull some good news out of my inbox, and we have a quick celebration.

I head off with Sam to work on our schoolwork, and Heidi gets ready with Maggie. We swap lessons each week. Homeschooling - for lack of a better word - is really going well of late.

We eat lunch and then delve into a project. We made our own paint today. And then we made cupcakes!

We head out to get Fish Tacos because today is Taco Tuesday and the already cheap and wonderful tacos in this town are even cheaper and wonderfuller on Taco Tuesday.

We head back home and call family on Skype.

Sam is exhausted so he brushes his teeth and heads off to bed. Maggie is devouring a book and can't fall asleep until she finds out what happens next.

Heidi finishes some work and goes off to bed and reads.

I sit here happily and write this.

Now, as I see it, there are 3 reasonable reactions one can have to reading this:

1) Bull Shit! What a spoiled ass! How can you complain about having two jobs when some people have been out of work for nearly a year. Silver spoon stuck way up your . . .

2) But how do you do this? How do you afford this lifestyle? No home? You don't work? How do your kids handle this? What about insurance? What about . . .

3) Wonderful! We are trying to do something similar. I want to open a business in Belize and my husband and I are paying off our debt and . . .

I get a good amount of emails, and pretty much all of them play out like 1, 2, and 3. You know . . . we're not all that different. We pretty much all want the same things. I think a lot of us want to do good, but we just don't know how and we're scared. We want good for ourselves, our family, and others. We want to be happy, fulfill some dreams, and lend an honest helping hand when we can.

I'd like to tell you that I don't care if you're a 1, 2, or a 3, but I'd be lying. I care a lot.

I've been a 1, and it sucks. Who wants to hear how good someone has it when you can't even seem to keep your shoelaces tied and find your keys in the morning? But you can't find change being a 1. You have to change to find change.

I've been a 2, as well. That's how this all started. Instead of fighting I started asking questions. And sure enough, people started giving me answers. I'll always be a 2. Asking questions helps you figure out how to make paint with your kids on a Tuesday afternoon.

As for being a 3 - that is tough! There are not enough 3's in the world. 3's are special. 3's see others before themselves. Most of us have to change to become a 3, just like most of us have to change in order to travel the world - but it is possible!

Everything good happens as a result of change, but we have to be willing to let the change happen.

How do we make big things happen?

We change, and then we change some more, and then we change some more.

See that Grand Canyon up there in the picture? That is change!

A little bit of work, flexibility, and faith, and over time, anything can happen.

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Up And Up The Grand Staircase

Justin Mussler — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 15:34:47 +0000

Why did we do this?

It will be fine.

It won't be fine! The car can't take this and we are in middle of nowhere! We don't have enough water, there's no cell service, and we can't afford to have another breakdown! This was a stupid idea.

Back in town, the man at the grocery assured me the road was a breeze.

Don't worry . . . It's unpaved, but you won't have any issues. They just fixed it last month!

The man back in town is a LIAR! Or, at the very least, his definitions of the words 'breeze', 'road', and 'fixed' differ greatly from mine.

The road we are on now is by far the worst road we have ever been on in our lives. 40 miles of deeply-grooved gravel and stone, loaded with pot-holes, and covered in red dirt and dust. Not a second goes by without a jolt from the tires or a knock from the engine. And as the wind kicks up, we're lucky if we can see 10 feet in front of us.

The kids yell out over the defining rumble from the road.

It's like we're in a car wash!

Yes . . . but THIS car wash is not doing a very good job today!

Dad?

Yes?

Is that a cow?

I hit the brakes and the car crumbles to a stop.

All is quiet except for the groans and bells from a herd of cattle that has decided to take over the "road".

We wait.

Why are we out here in the middle of Utah? What are we doing?

Sometimes we ask these questions as we wander off on these crazy journeys. It doesn't seem worth it at times, but that is precisely when we have to push on through. Turn around? What's the point in turning around? If we turn around all we get is a busted up car, a crappy experience, and a sarcastic wink from that guy back at the store. No one is turning around. Might as well see what's at the end of this nasty road.

As the cows make way, we press on to our destination. We are on our way to the slot canyons of central Utah; just a small part of the massive Grand Staircase at Escalanate National Monument. These canyons - like everything else in the American Southwest - were formed by water millions of years ago. At one point, everything from Kansas to California was covered by a deep ocean. Over time, the ocean receded, the lands shifted, and what we have left are thousands of otherworldly rock structures, covered in red-rusted iron, just waiting to be explored . . . and we are explorers.

We pull up to the trailhead of our destination and we all breathe a collective sigh of relief.

Now all we have to do is get back.

We stumble out of the car, gather our dust-covered belongings, and head out to the canyons. It's windy, hot, and we're all still vibrating a bit from the drive out. The land is empty; nothing for miles.

Off We Go!

A few weeks back I met a man from Germany. He had shipped his van from Europe to the southern tip of Argentina and then driven it all the way up to its present home in Utah.

Must have been a bumpy ride getting up here?

Oh, Yes!

Some rough roads I bet?

Yes . . . but the best things lie at the end of the rough roads.

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