Book your homesitter for your summer holiday early

Posted on 21 February, 2023

Lots of people will be busy thinking about booking their summer holidays, especially those with children who are restricted to school holidays. In fact travel agents saw a surge in holiday bookings on what has been dubbed ‘Sunshine Saturday’ by the UK travel sector.

The first Saturday of the New Year is usually the most popular day for booking a break and agents reported a stampede, with some seeing demand soar 500 percent compared to the same period last year[i]. But once booked most people don’t tend to start thinking about their holiday again until much nearer the time.

This can be a mistake as there are a few things that should be booked at the same time, such as travel insurance. Money saving expert, Martin Lewis recently advised people to book their travel insurance as soon as they book their holiday – so they are covered in case they can’t go due to illness or some other issue[ii].

We recommend that people also think about their pets as soon as they have their travel dates to ensure they have someone to look after them. It’s one less thing to have to think about and avoids a mad panic just before the holiday when people realise they can’t find anyone to take care of their pets and pet boarding facilities or kennels are full.

There are many options for people with pets including asking family friends or relations or putting a cat in a cattery or a dog in kennel. However many people are choosing to book a home and pet sitter to come to stay in their homes. Most pets don’t like leaving their home environment, especially cats, so employing a homesitter can be a good option.

For younger pets this can be preferable too especially if they are still at the puppy or kitten stage, but also for older pets who may need medication or who are simply too old for them to settle anywhere else.

A homesitter will stick to the pet’s usual day to day routine which can reduce the stress on them when the family goes away. For dogs this means walking in familiar places, which also means less opportunity for them to run off and get lost. For someone that has multiple pets it can also be a more cost effective option.

Often clients use the same homesitter, so their pets get to know them and it’s just like a family friend coming to stay. Booking early helps ensures clients get their regular homesitter or if a new one is booked that there is time for the preliminary meeting with the homesitter.

Homesitters also take care of people’s homes and can help prevent burglaries as it’s occupied, as well as deal with any emergencies that may happen such as burst water pipe or leak, or weather damage such as tiles or fencing falling down.

All our homesitters are fully vetted and employed by us. They have a preliminary meeting with their prospective client to go through the pet’s feeding, grooming and exercise routine and everything they need to know about the house. And once the homesit has been confirmed it’s guaranteed to go ahead.

Even if the homesitter themselves has an issue nearer the time and is unable to do the assignment, we will find a replacement. This is reassuring and means people are never let down at the last minute which can sometimes happen with family and friends.

Travers (featured in photo above) and Katie Nettleton of Marlborough, Wiltshire have been using homesitters for eight years to look after their two dogs, Archie and Bruno (featured in photo above), and their home when they travel.

The couple run Garden Art Plus in Hungerford, a business which specialises in antique garden ornaments, statues and garden design. The company exhibits at Chelsea Flower Show every year and the Nettletons find it greatly reassuring that Archie and Bruno are well looked after by our homesitters while they’re away.

They first started using us because they felt it was too much to ask of a friend to look after two dogs, but didn’t like the idea of putting them in kennels as they are used to being in the countryside with lots of space to run around in. Homesitters was the ideal solution.

Travers explains, “We’ve found it very reassuring that we get to meet the homesitters before the assignment begins which takes away any worries about using the service. The company is very professional and the paperwork very detailed which puts our mind at rest. We also like the fact Homesitters employs more mature home and pet sitters as we feel comfortable knowing someone responsible is staying in our home.”

The Nettletons take pride in their own garden, so when they travel in the summer they’re glad to have someone staying in the house who can water the plants. The family are also keen skiers and appreciate having someone reliable staying in the house when they holiday during the winter to keep an eye on things.

If there were ever any problems such as frozen pipes, power cuts or flooding they know that there is someone in the house that can deal with it.

Thankfully the family home hasn’t suffered any such emergencies although Archie did once get stung by a bee while being looked after. Travers says, “When we got back the homesitters told us that Archie had been stung by a bee but they’d known exactly what to do and had dealt with it all with no drama – and hadn’t bothered us with the news while we were on holiday which we were grateful for.”

“Every time we’ve been away we’ve come home to an immaculate home, the dogs are happy and the homesitters have even made sure that there’s milk and bread for us. One of our homesitters even wrote a dog diary telling us what they’d done with the dogs each day which was very sweet and we enjoyed reading it when we came home.

“Having run our own company for many years we really value the level of service that Homesitters provides, they are extremely efficient with great attention to detail and we’d certainly recommend them to others.”

If you are booking your holidays in the next few months, why not get your professional homesitter booked in too? We’re expecting a busy year so it makes sense to get your homesitter booked sooner rather than later to ensure we have availability.

To find out more about booking a homesitter click here.


[i] www.express.co.uk/travel/articles/1718541/summer-holidays-booking-cost-of-living-britons

[ii] www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2023/january/martin-lewis-travel-warning/

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