BAtB: Life in a Romanian Village

We arrived in mid-May to the small Transylvanian village of Blăjel for our next house-sitting gig. In the previous month we had been traveling through the area and scheduled a lunch to meet the homeowner and her pets in person before committing to the sit. We thought this would help prepare us for the experience. Little did we know that living in the Romanian countryside would be a bit like stepping through a time warp to a more simple time. Continue reading “BAtB: Life in a Romanian Village”

BAtB: Lake Balaton in the off-season

Our adventure starts with a house-sitting gig in western Hungary. Vaszoly (pronounced “vash-oy”) is a small village nestled in the hills on the north side of Lake Balaton. Our hosts, a nice English couple, left us in charge of their three dogs, three cats and chickens for about two weeks. We arrived in late March, right on the heels of a series of unseasonably cold and brutal storms that left much of Europe blanketed in snow. Continue reading “BAtB: Lake Balaton in the off-season”

House-sitting for fun and “profit”

Fara and I completed our latest house-sitting assignment a couple of weeks ago, located in one of the small villages surrounding beautiful Lake Balaton in the western part of Hungary. The menagerie of pets we were charged with the care of consisted of three dogs, three cats, three chickens and a rooster, by far the largest number of animals we’ve taken care of to date. Our daily dog walks took us through rolling hills, forests, and vineyards with some spectacular views of the lake. We enjoyed daily eggs provided by the hens and are now considering a flock of our own whenever our travels take us to a more permanent location. Our next house-sit, in the Transylvania region of western Romania, starts in mid-May. Since starting our adventure in August 2017, we have completed four house-sits in four different countries. By the end of 2018, we will have added at least three more to that total and we’re constantly on the lookout for more. It had always been our intention to incorporate house-sitting into our travel plans, we just had no idea how integral it would become. Continue reading “House-sitting for fun and “profit””