Whale Watching with Captain Mark in Pleasant Bay, Nova Scotia

August 20, 2019August 20, 2019

Whale Watching with Captain Mark in Pleasant Bay, Nova Scotia

Rachael and I had one big regret from our time in Baja this winter, we didn’t do a whale watching tour. These massive mammals make colossal journeys along the coasts of North America and we only caught a glimpse of them from a beach near Cabo San Lucas. When we started planning our trip to Nova Scotia and Cape Breton Island, we decided that we would book a tour and take our chances seeing these creatures on the opposite end of the continent in St. Lawrence Bay.

Enter Captain Mark. When you research whale watching on Cape Breton Island, this shop comes up over and over- fantastic reviews of a fun and educational experience with a local who respects the animals and knows the area extremely well. Sit tight as this is another review about how AMAZING our time with Captain Mark was.

Booking

Booking our trip was dead simple. Captain Mark’s website is super easy to use and processing was fast and secure. It took me less than five minutes to book our boat and are we glad that we did. The docks were littered with people who neglected to book early and were high and dry because they didn’t book early. Book early folks, Captain Mark fills up quickly.

Pre-Adventure Check In

We arrived 30-minutes early as the instructions online had told us to and the staff got us checked in, provided a receipt and had us sit tight for life jackets and departure. The life jackets were top of the line and were the smaller CO2 filled variety. This was a pleasant departure from the big clunky orange jackets that we were expecting.

Captain Mark greeted us on time and led us down to the boats. The pre-departure chat was informative and included all of the safety precautions about what to do if you go overboard or if the captain is rendered unresponsive. All required safety equipment was on board and we felt very secure in the Zodiac.

Let’s talk about the boats for a minute. When researching, I was expecting a large boat (think lobster fishing boat) with a ton of people on board and a creeping slow engine. We chose Captain Mark’s because they utilize a smaller, faster, and much more environmentally friendly watercraft, a Zodiac. The Zodiac is a combination of inflatable pontoons and a rigid frame that is one of the most common short distance watercraft in the world. Organizations that rely on speedy and concise travel in the water like the US Navy Seals and environmental protection agencies from around the world use the Zodiac for good reason, it works.

The smaller of the two Zodiacs available.

There are two Zodiac models available from Marks, the Northstar and the Tourmaster. The first is a smaller boat with outward facing seats and a smaller engine. In our case, this boat was captained by one of Captain Mark’s staff. The boat we booked was a bit bigger and had forward facing seats with 2 larger motors. The seats were as comfortable of seats as you could expect from a small ocean-vessel and the ride quality was extremely fun.

We departed the harbor on time and in style as Captain Mark pinned the throttle and the Zodiac sprang to life with the bow high in the air and the passengers all smiling ear to ear. Despite the 4-5 foot swells, the boat handled the rough water well and we never felt unsafe or like we would fall overboard.

The Tour

Once we got to open water we quickly spotted a family of pilot whales surfacing a short distance away. Every few seconds several pairs of whales would surface and spout from their blowholes. The benefit of the Zodiac over the larger vessels was obvious quickly, Captain Mark’s boats could simply get close to the animals quickly and turn off their motors in time to not disturb the animals. We drifted alongside this pod of pilot whales for around 30-minutes. Some would taper off to open water while others seemed to revel in the social interaction with humans and the attention that accompanied it.

The competing whale watching companies in the water at the same time as us were in larger boats, potentially old fishing boats. The boats seemed to rock more in the swells than the lighter Zodiac raft did and they were much slower, arriving to the site of the whales after they had long since left. We were glad that we were booked with Captain Mark.

After the first pod disappeared, we continued North and started to edge in closer to the shore before we came across a second large pod of pilot whales. These whales, much like the first pod, mostly stayed near the boat performing underwater turns and rolls before breaching close enough to the boat that we could feel the spray. I’m convinced we could have stayed with that pod all evening and they would have continued to put on a show for us.

We left the pod and turned toward the shore where the real beauty of the tour began to shine. The amount of unique local knowledge that Captain Mark shares on his tour is impressive- from old settlements that no longer exist to Buddhist monastery that offer a 3 year retreat on the cliffside of Cape Breton Island.

We were all smiles after our time with Captain Mark!

Captain Mark took his time navigating the coast and pointing out points of interest as well as an abundance of seals, eagles, and even some “wild” horses on an isolated beach. Mark seemed to be as involved in the local community as he was in his tour business and had stories to prove it. The boat ride itself was a fantastic adventure even if we hadn’t seen whales. The Zodiac is a blast to ride in and it made spotting and seeing the whales up close extremely easy. We had so much fun and we can’t wait to come back to Cape Breton just to enjoy Captain Mark’s tours.

To learn more about Captain Mark’s tours and to book your excursion check out their website: https://www.whaleandsealcruise.com.

August 9, 2019August 9, 2019

July Travel Update

July has been an interesting month, to say the least. We said goodbye to family in South Dakota and began our slightly mad journey to the East coast. The journey was mad only because we chose to do it in the hottest month of the year in a bus without air conditioning. July was also a lot of driving and not a lot of enjoying locations on the map, hopefully August will slow down and cool off a bit. We are still on track to visit all 49 driveable states by 2020 and we knocked several off of the list in July.

A North Dakota National Park

We are on a journey to see all 50 states together and to take our bus to 49 of them, so a side trip to North Dakota was needed. ND gets a lot of hate from the other states and it is pretty obvious why…there is not a lot there. One place worth mention and a visit if you are close is Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Unfortunately for us, our vehicle was too big to pass through the construction area on the road in the park so we only got to see a portion of Teddy’s park.

Wild Horse herd at Theodore Roosevelt National Park.

The claim to fame of the park is its wild horse herd, which we were lucky enough to see in our short time there. These some 1000 horses roam free here and are truly something to behold. Like most of the plains, there are a ton of prairie dogs and bison to see roaming the banks of the Missouri River. The landscape and horses make a visit to this park the MOST interesting thing that one could do when visiting North Dakota, and I say that in the nicest way possible.

Headwaters of Big Muddy

Due to the time of year that we are crossing the country, most of the things that we would like to do in Minnesota are in the far-north and simply not an option right now. We have plans for a Boundary Waters trip someday that will allow us to explore Minnesota more in-depth. An attraction that we did get to visit in Minnesota was Itasca State Park near Bemidji. Lake Itasca is the start of the Mississippi River and at the headwaters Big Muddy is a simple 8-foot wide stream.

Itasca State Park is riddled with bike trails

The park is extremely nice and we gladly paid for camping to have access to the showers and water fill up. The bike trails that run through the park were also a super nice way to go check out the mighty Mississippi without having to move the bus.

Caves in Iowa?

Another state on our list that was relatively close to our route was Iowa. Although we would have loved to hang around for RAGBRAI (on our bucket list for sure) the only other thing that we found of interest to do in Iowa was to go caving. You read that right, we found a cave to explore in IOWA! It would be unfair to compare these caves to the caves we just explored in South Dakota as they are completely different types of caves and these are not nearly as elaborate or as well-preserved as the caves in South Dakota.
We hiked all over the small Maquoketa Caves State Parkand had mostly free rein of the some 10-12 caves in the valley. We were pleasantly surprised by the lack on any real rules or regulations in the park and it was pretty much chaos compared to the National Park managed caves that we visited in June. Would I travel across the midwest to walk around these caves in East Central Iowa? No. But I would stop in on my way to other places on the East Coast.

This was THE only cool place to hang out in Iowa

Iowa was also a really good stop to get my stitches removed from my misadventure in SD with a table saw. It cost $2500 to stitch my finger in South Dakota and only $97 to remove the stitches in Iowa.

Newest US National Park in Indiana

I too have been seeing the buzz all over social media about Indiana finally having a National Park, Indiana Dunes National Park. Previously designated a Lakeshore, the National Park Service has simply slapped a Nat’l Park sign on the entrance and has neglected to do much of anything else. We spent the day hanging out on the beach and attempting to enjoy the waves of Lake Michigan lapping on the sand. In true National Park style, there were thousands of people in the park and no accommodations had been made for extra trash or more porta-potties and parking at 8AM was a nightmare for a 22-foot long school bus.

We still had a good time as we tend to do just about anywhere, but we hope the NPS invests in Indiana before the next time we visit. The BEST part about our trip across the midwest was getting to meet up with a bunch of Rachael’s extended family, most of whom I (Zach) had never met. We were welcomed in to the air conditioning, thankfully, and we got to go out to lunch with most of the Fort Wayne cousins. It was an absolute treat and we now have a reason to come back to Northeast Indiana!

Bay City Bust

We made a mistake- We should have driven the West Coast of Michigan and explored the Upper Peninsula for a couple of weeks while a heat wave attacked the midwest, but we didn’t. Instead we wanted to explore part of Ontario so we drove through the least pretty and most boring section of Michigan, the Southeast. I had visited Bay City as a kid and remember it being a type of coastal town with pretty boats, I was twelve after all. We made the drive to Bay City to find a ghost town. Shops were closed in the middle of the day, streets were empty, and it just seemed like nothing had happened here in a long time, perhaps since I was there as a twelve year old.

We hung out by the river and got some work done but soon made plans to escape Michigan and head to Canada, at least we would have Tim Hortons to console us. And console us it did. Although Tim Hortons sold to the company that owns Burger King, we will still continue to patronize them as long as they continue to serve delicious crullers and affordable coffee.

Shortest International Visit EVER

Entering into Canada north of Detroit was a really smooth border crossing. Something that always happens in our bus, people tend to think we smoke weed, which we don’t. No huge political stance or moral objections to it, it’s just not our thing. The border agent seemed to think we looked like drug users and informed us several times that weed was legal in Michigan and in Canada, we simply needed to declare it, only we had nothing to declare. Ahh the joys of living in a school bus and having long hair!

We spent a few days in Canada lounging along the North Shore of Lake Erie in the little town of Port Stanley. This town was the perfect place to charge the batteries and sit in the cold lake while record highs smacked the Midwest and Northeast. We found public camping near a beach and road our bikes or walked all over town and worked in a nearby coffee shop when we needed to. It was a pleasant couple of days.

Niagara Falls was the other reason that we wanted to cross Ontario and we were not disappointed. Although Niagara is a haven for tourists, the falls are still beautiful, especially from the Canadian side. After exploring around the falls, we prepared for another breezy border crossing back into the states and we suddenly found ourselves in New York!

Upstate New York

Upstate New York is a really interesting place to visit. The bulk of attractions in Upstate revolve around the lakes region of the Finger Lakes, Lake Champlain, and Adirondack Park. New York is also home to the Number 1 State Park in the United States, Letchworth State Park and was the site of the Winter Olympic Games in the 80’s.

As is the case with most of the Eastern US, public land is rare, but we found several good camping spots and explored the North end of the state, one of which was next to a retired fire tower. Unfortunately, we did not have a ton of time to spend in New York and hopefully we can come back and spend a bit more time when the weather is cooler.

Vermont and New Hampshire

Despite the challenges of camping for free in VT and NH, we still managed to see some sites like the Ben and Jerry’s. Factory, the Green Mountain National Forest, White Mountain National Forest, and beautiful landscapes of dense green forest along the way. We found there were simply too many people touristing for our speed. Also, the heat was a bit much. The temperature was in the 90’s during the day and high 70’s at night and in a bus with no AC, that is simply too hot.

We will likely make a weekend trip to Vermont and New Hampshire in the fall some day, but for now we are heading North!

July 9, 2019February 6, 2023

How to Improve the Handling, Steering, and Ride Quality of Your Van, Skoolie, or RV

Originally our skoolie handled like a boat, it stills does. But now it handles like an appropriately nimble boat. We were constantly having to take turns much slower than we should have to prevent the entire bus from feeling like it was tipping over. Off-road the bus was a mess. Although it is built on a similar chassis to the Express Van and Silverado, it behaved oddly off-road with a 10,000 lbs GVWR. Every obstacle (think small rock or pothole) on forest service roads would create a lean and sway that was annoying, dangerous, and really inconvenient to handle behind the wheel. After a long day of driving like this, the person driving is completely spent which defeats the purpose of traveling in the first place. This will be a simple article walking you through how we improved the handling in our short skoolie conversion without breaking the bank.

Continue reading “How to Improve the Handling, Steering, and Ride Quality of Your Van, Skoolie, or RV”

March 21, 2019June 8, 2019

Okienomads at Overland Expo 2019 WEST

We are super excited and extremely humbled to be a part of the programing at Overland Expo 2019 WEST. If you don’t know what Overland Expo is, start HERE.

OX is the premier overlanding event in North America with shows in Flagstaff, AZ and on the East Coast at a new, all-weather venue in Fall 2019. Overland Expo attracts hundreds of vendors from the overlanding segment, hundreds of world-travelers telling their stories, and thousands of attendees coming to learn new skills, buy new gear, and meet lifelong friends.

We are really pumped that we will both be involved in programs available in the Overland Experience class schedule and a roundtable that is available to all attendees. Our roundtable discussion is with two other traveling couples Matt & Amie of The Traveling Together Journal and Marisa and Tim of Notiers’s Frontiers. Both couples have done some serious traveling and we look forward to hanging out and chatting about our challenges and experiences living full-time on the road.

Rachael will be teaching a couple of yoga classes geared toward traveling. In “No Mat Yoga”, Rachael will be walking the class through a yoga flow that is designed to relieve some of the issues that come from spending long days in the truck or on the bike. Often times a yoga mat takes up too much room to bring along, so this entire flow will be sans yoga mat.

Her second class, “Recovery Yoga” will focus on relaxing and relieving tension that can often arise after a long day on the trail. The stretch-intensive flow will be beginner friendly and doable for even the least flexible of the EXPO crowd (her husband included). Vehicles aren’t the only ones that need recovery!

Overland Expo is a great place to meet new friends, try out that roof top tent you have been shopping for, and learn new skills to make your time on the road that much better. Tickets are for sale HERE now!

March 14, 2019April 4, 2019

FREE National Geographic Quadrangle Maps

If you are like us, you spend a fair bit of time in the woods and often times a good map of the area that you are exploring is hard to find. We use GPS often, but sometimes we enjoy route planning on a good, ole fashioned paper map. A good practice that we have started its when taking off into the woods is to keep a paper copy of our map stuffed in a ziplock baggy somewhere on our person in case of GPS failure, dead batteries, etc. One of our favorite maps is the National Geographic Quad and now you can download them for FREE!

The Nat Geo 7.5 minute quad is a highly detailed topographic map style that was created and used by the United State Geological Survey for decades. These maps are available for anywhere in the continental US and did we mention they are FREE. Keep in mind that the USGS hasn’t updated these maps in a few years, so some landscapes may have changes a bit, but how much can a landscape really change?

How to Download Free Nat Geo Quad PDF’s
To download, navigate over to the National Geographic PDF Quads Page.
Enter an e-mail address to sign up, nothing is FREE anymore! You can always unsubscribe when they start sending you e-mails.

Find the area you want to explore on the map or search for a particular area.

Click a red box to open a new window which will contain an overview map of the 4 quads that your selected red box borders as well as the 4 individual quads themselves.

That’s it! A super easy and extremely helpful tool for route planning and backcountry exploration. We are already planning out some backcountry routes for 2019 and you should too!

If you found this article helpful and informative, please let us know by subscribing to our e-mail newsletter, following us on Facebook and Instagram and subscribing to our YouTube channel.

February 25, 2019February 25, 2019

Off-Grid Living Might Not Be For You If…

We have settled in to the off-grid lifestyle at a housesitting assignment in the remote mountain wilderness of the Sierra de San Pedro Mountains in Baja California, Mexico. We have spent 6 weeks living in a completely off-grid house 70 kilometers from civilization and have experienced record snowstorms, temperatures below freezing, as well as mechanical malfunctions and so much more in our short time here. After this article you should have a better idea if off-grid living is for you or if you should avoid moving to a cabin in the woods.

You Are High Maintenance

You might say, “I am not high-maintenance”, but how many showers have you had this week? Was your water really hot? Did each shower last longer than 5-10 minutes? If you take a shower every day, want your shower to be the same temp as the sun, and want to scald your flesh for 20 minutes or more, you are likely not ready to live on limited water in an off-grid home. That is not to say that you can’t enjoy a hot bath on occasion, but you have to plan ahead and insure that your bath isn’t going to deplete your drinking water supply for next week.

Are you accustomed to modern HVAC and are used to having your living space at a comfortable 72.5 degrees? Unless you are using a very sophisticated solar setup, modern heat and air is an unrealistic comfort. Learning to be comfortable in an off-grid home is often a matter of planning ahead (see below) and layering up or down. If you are cold in the winter, grab a jacket or sweatshirt. Hot in the summer? Run down to the stream for a quick dip to lower your body temperature. Small adjustments like these are a major part of living off the grid.

You Can’t Plan Ahead

The Boy Scouts of America motto has never been more relevant to us as it has while living off-grid. Being prepared for anything is vitally important when living away from the security of society in an off-grid home. You must make the most of your trips to town and make sure you are bringing back enough fuel, food, and supplies for anything that might happen before the next trip to town.

We have developed a schedule of resupplying every 2-3 weeks. We could easily resupply once a month, but we really enjoy fresh produce and seeing the sights of Baja. On our last resupply trip we topped off fuel, visited the hardware store, fish market, electronics store, Walmart and two grocery stores in a matter of 24 hours. Lists and discipline go a long way when shopping for a month’s worth of groceries and the process was a real adjustment for us compared to keeping 4-5 days of food in our bus and literally camping in grocery store parking lots on occasion.

You Need Instant Gratification

If you need to exist in a world where you must have fast food, fast internet, and fast traffic, off-grid living might not be for you. Although this isn’t the case in all off-grid applications, in our case we are 70KM’s from a town (a small town at that) and over 2 hour’s drive from the nearest market. The closest McDonalds is over 200 kilometers away, a 4 hour drive!

Your average work on an off-grid property will likely not be instantaneously rewarding either. Consider a garden, you will need to wait through an entire season of hard work and dedication before you ever see a reward from your labor. However, once you enjoy the spoils of fresh produce the work will be some of the most rewarding you have ever done. Parts for repairs are hard to come by in a timely manner, fuel is a long drive away and wood piles don’t cut down, split and stack themselves. At the ranch we are on, mail is delivered to Ensenada for pickup, near the closest Big Mac which you will remember is 4 hours of driving at minimum. Amazon 2-day shipping doesn’t apply here.

If you think there is a chance that you are going to have an urge at 2AM for a cheeseburger, hopefully you read there first point about being prepared and you have some ground beef in the freezer and cheese in the fridge and not have to rely on the minimum wage employee to greet you at a drive-thru window with your sustenance.

You Aren’t Mechanically Inclined and Won’t Learn

Do you often break something in your house and immediately call a repair man or relative for help? Do you refuse to learn new skills and techniques to fix things yourself? If so, off-grid living might not be for you! Off-grid homes are built on systems, often times redundant systems so that if one fails, you aren’t out of water, electricity or heat. So what do you do if the nearest plumber is at least 2 hours away and you have a toilet that is running or a water filter that is clogged? You learn how to fix it yourself. Most things in life, on or off grid can be fixed with common sense and hard work. The same is true when living off the grid.

In our limited time on the ranch we have replaced toilet fill valves, replaced PVC pipe, rebuilt a water sump pump, and have repaired a few roads and trails to avoid washouts from the seasonal rains. I had never repaired a sump pump before, but by following the owners manual and paying attention, I was able to restore our drinking water supply.

The Solar Panels Aren’t Going to Clean Themselves Off

You Are Afraid of Hard Work

Similarly to above, if you don’t like working hard and don’t want to learn how, off-grid living is likely not for you. Between managing a garden, livestock, firewood supplies, house and property repairs, vehicle repairs and more, the work of an off grid property can seem like an endless endeavor. If you are able to put in the hard work early and often, the work is manageable and satisfying. Similarly to life, if you procrastinate and let up, you are often the one suffering because of it.

We have experienced a colder (and wetter) than normal winter in Baja, and therefore we have needed more firewood than expected. This means that instead of kicking back and binging Stranger Things on Netflix, I have to load up the chainsaw and tractor and bring back wood for the rest of the season. This is not an inconvenience if you plan ahead and work hard early in the season to maintain a large back stock of firewood, but if you let it get out of control, you can be left in a very cold house.

Thank You for reading along on our travels and adventures. Hopefully you were entertained, enlightened, or otherwise felt like the last few minutes reading this post was a worthwhile investment of your time. If you enjoyed our content, there are a few ways that you can help promote what we do and keep us on the road a little longer:

Follow us on social media platforms likeYouTube, Facebook, and Instagram. The more viewers, subscribers, likes and comments, the better our pages rank.
Share this article or our website with others that you think might enjoy it.

February 11, 2019April 4, 2019

Beach Camping in San Felipe, BC: Campo #1 Touristico

While traveling the Baja Peninsula, camping can be really easy to come by at times. Most seasoned travelers to the area have a “if the gate isn’t closed, it’s free game” mentality and that will serve you well for the more remote areas of Baja, but what if you want to see a city and camp close to it?

We took a weekend trip down the San Felipe for groceries, the beach, and to see a new town in Baja. San Felipe is a town dependent mostly on fishing and tourism and is know as the home to the last Vaquita Porpoises remaining on the planet. We wanted to camp close enough to town to walk to the main strip for tacos and not be required to pack up camp and drive each evening. We chose Campo #1 Touristico for a few reasons.

It is Secure-ish

Not that we are very worried about security in Baja, nearly everyone is happy and friendly, but having a gate locked overnight provides a peace of mind to some travelers. One thing to note is that being a beach that is so close to town, people can simply walk through camp from the beach any time of day, so the gate is only useful for vehicle travel.

Amenities Galore

One thing we got used to while traveling the Western US in our school bus conversion, was the lack of amenities at free campsites. In Baja, sometimes you can’t avoid paying for a campsite and sometimes you get your money’s worth with Wi-Fi, hot showers, and an on-site restaurant.

The Wi-Fi was not fast, but we were convinced that some of the snowbirds camping there for the winter were hogging some bandwidth. There was still plenty of signal to check and send e-mails for work and the LTE signal in San Felipe was fairly dependable too.

The showers were hot for about a minute, then they turned to lukewarm, which was still really nice after getting out of the Sea. The water in the showers and sinks outside were all freshwater and had good pressure. Some of the sites had electric connections for an RV, but our site at the very end of the row had no hook ups, which was fine by us.

We did not sample the food in the restaurant, but if the smells from the food-prep were any indication, the food was likely delicious.

Proximity to Town

We wanted to explore San Felipe properly and for us that means walking most everywhere. Being able to hike a bit from the campground to the main drag in town was very beneficial. It took us about 20 minutes to walk from the truck to row of taco stands waiting on the boardwalk. The walk can actually take you past the lighthouse, a now abandoned disco-tech the “The Boom Boom Room” and the National Shrine.

We spent both evenings of our weekend on the strip sampling fish and shrimp tacos and ceviche from the various culinary offerings across from the beach. Although the tacos weren’t better than the ones we had in Ensenada, they were still better than 99% of the fish tacos in the states.

Affordable Prices

We paid $30 for two nights at Campo #1 and felt like it was a fair deal. It is impossible to find a campsite in the US with electric, water, wi-fi, security, and showers on the beach for $30 per night, much less half that amount. The views were beautiful and listening to the ocean waves at night was a nice way to fall asleep.

It is rumored that if you wish to stay for a week or longer, the rate comes down significantly. This is the word of the men camped there for the winter, your mileage may vary.

All in all, if we find ourselves on that side of Baja and need a place to camp, we will likely stay here again. The staff was friendly, the prices were fair, and the nearby fish tacos were tasty!

As always, thank you for reading along on our travels and adventures. Hopefully you were entertained, enlightened, or otherwise felt like the last few minutes reading this post was a worthwhile investment of your time. If you enjoyed our content, there are a few ways that you can help promote what we do and keep us on the road a little longer:

Follow us on social media platforms likeYouTube, Facebook, and Instagram. The more viewers, subscribers, likes and comments, the better our pages rank.
Share this article or our website with others that you think might enjoy it.

February 7, 2019February 7, 2019

Travel Video: Montana from the Air

Check out our newest video showing some of our favorite places in Montana. Big Sky Country is a fascinating place with mountains, lakes, waterfalls and enough beautiful scenery to keep you busy for a long time. The views are so unique from the drone and we were fortunate to see all that we did in Montana.

Please subscribe to our YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRVDfzibhxyN1I-niylEiKg

Although there was a ton of Montana that we didn’t get aerial footage of, we are okay with that because a lot of the state is protected by Wilderness Areas and National Parks. We have done our best to respect the laws and regulations related to flying our drone.

You can learn more about our travels and where we have been, here: https://www.okienomads.com.

Please follow us on Instagram and Facebook to stay up to date on our travels and to know when new content is posted.

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January 14, 2019January 14, 2019

Housesitting 101

What is Housesitting?

Thousands of people around the world have purchased homes and at some point they find that they don’t want to live in their home but they aren’t quite ready to sell it and either aren’t able to rent it or don’t want to rent it. Some are retirees that spend six months of the year visiting warmer climates in an RV and the rest of their time is at their “home”. Most folks would rather have someone living in their home than board it up. Others have a home on the market to be sold and know that it has a much better chance of selling if someone is actively living in it and keeping up with the house.

Off grid Mexico estate — Our housesitting gig in early 2019: Off-Grid Ranch in Baja, Mexico

How Do I Find Housesitting Gigs?

Build Your Housesitting Portfolio

If you are serious about housesitting, the first step should be to build your portfolio of references from people that you have housesitted for in the past. Most strangers on the street aren’t going to let someone they don’t know into their home for any period of time. However, if you had a list of credible references, your chances of being selected to house sit increase tremendously.

Offer to housesit for family or close friends when they go on vacation. Do an excellent job, let them know that you would love to housesit for them again, and ask if you can use them as a reference for future housesitting gigs. Now you can maintain a “resume” of your housesitting experience and use it as a bargaining chip with potential clients.

Create an Online Presence

The next step is likely the most important, creating an online presence. This can be different depending on the part of the world you wish to housesit in, but at minimum you should create a profile on a housesitting websites such as Trusted House Sitters and/or Luxury House Sitting.

Similar to filling out a job application, create a profile that is inviting and appealing to the particular type of assignment that you are interested in. Your profile photo should be high-quality, up to date, and accurate to your appearance as well as inviting. Don’t use a mug-shot as your profile photo on a housesitting website. Have someone proofread your profile for grammatical errors and try to be as professional as possible.

Remember that in a digital age, your online footprint means as much as your reputation did in 1950’s small town America. As soon as a potential client sees your name as an interested house-sitter, they will likely scour your social media and web presence to help determine if you are a credible applicant. The obvious solution to this predicament is to maintain social media as a decent human being and don’t post hateful, rude, racist, or overly political content. A less obvious way to avoid missing out on houses because of your meme addiction is to set your social media accounts to private.

Insider Tip Perform a “web audit” of yourself every 6 months or so to insure that you have a spotless web identity. If you do find something negative or defamatory, make steps to have it removed.

Provide a Quality Service

Like any industry, it doesn’t matter if you land the biggest client of your life if you can’t deliver a high-quality product. Once you get a housesitting gig, no matter the size, do the best job possible. Oftentimes going above and beyond your responsibilities as a house-sitter can yield glowing reviews online and excellent recommendations when someone calls. Similar to the rest of life, being excellent at what you do will net rewards continually over time.

Standard Duties of a House-sitter

The duties required in your housesitting agreement (yes, you need to sign a housesitting agreement) can vary depending on the geographic location of the house, the style of property (ranch, condo, apartment, etc.) and the reason that the owner requires a house-sitter. If the owner needs a house-sitter to make the home look inhabited, it’s probably best if you know how many hours per day you should be around the house.

In our 2019 housesitting agreement we signed on to live at an off-grid ranch in the remote mountains of Baja Norte, Mexico. We were interested in this assignment because it’s in Baja and because we are extremely interested in living off-grid someday and this was a perfect way to try that lifestyle without a huge commitment. Our duties at the ranch included the following:

Cleaning the main house and income property and preparing the income property with linens, supplies and a warm welcome if someone were staying.
Tending to the flower beds, gardens, and fruit trees on the property.
Feeding the dog, Pepita!
Monitoring the off-grid systems like satellite internet, solar power, and water.

Your responsibilities at a house might be very different and may include things like walking a dog or washing windows or dusting furniture. There is no right or wrong set of responsibilities as long as you are getting as much value out of the arrangement as the home owner. If you are staying in a 10’ x 10’ room with no windows and the owner of the house has you painting the exterior, reflooring the living room, and building on a garage, you have made a mistake. Remember that the home owner is seeking a housesitter for reason.

A House-sitter signs a Housesitting Agreement

A written document agreed upon between the owner or manager of the home and the house-sitter is vital to a mutually beneficial arrangement. This document should be signed and dated by both parties and outline the term of the arrangement, responsibilities of the house-sitter, any compensation involved, and how to handle expenses paid out of pocket by the house-sitter.
Final Tips for Housesitting
To sum up our experiences looking for housesitting jobs and apply for many, the golden rule applies as much to housesitting as it does to the rest of our lives. Treat other people’s homes how you would want someone to treat your home and be the applicant that you would hire if you were looking for a housesitter. Happy hunting and let us know if any of our tips helped you land a gig!

Final Tips for Housesitting

To sum up our experiences looking for housesitting jobs and apply for many, the golden rule applies as much to housesitting as it does to the rest of our lives. Treat other people’s homes how you would want someone to treat your home and be the applicant that you would hire if you were looking for a housesitter. Happy hunting and let us know if any of our tips helped you land a gig!

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January 13, 2019January 13, 2019

New Travel Video: 4×4 Driveway to Our Housesitting Gig

Join us as we travel from the nearest paved road to the house that we will be house-sitting for the next 4 months. The road into the ranch is roughly 6 kilometers long and takes approximately 40 minutes to drive. In this video, our commute to civilization is sped up 8 times to give you the full experience of traveling into the remote interior of Baja Norte.
Please subscribe to our YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRVDfzibhxyN1I-niylEiKg

We are traveling in our 1986 Toyota 4Runner 4×4 with a set of Old Man Emu leaf springs and Bilstein shocks. The ride is rough, but would be much worse without the suspension upgrades. Our tires are Bridgestone All Terrains that have plenty of grip for all of the sand, slick rock, and mud that we experience in Baja. The tires were aired down to roughly 70% of highway pressure for the road and will likely be aired down a bit more the next time we leave the house.

You can learn more about our rig and the changes we have made to live out of it full-time here: https://www.okienomads.com/4runner/

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