IL Magazine: Discover the Best Retirement Haven + 24 More SUBSCRIBE NOW AND SAVE 35% about subscribing to International Living Magazine 
After five years of traveling in over 30 countries, my husband, Michael, and I find it hard to pick any one spot as our favorite. We’ve stayed in so many lovely homes; each with their own unique characteristics and charms, but all with one thing in common…
The warm turquoise waters of the Gulf of Mexico are just steps from “our” nine-room boutique hotel on the outskirts of Celestún on the Yucatán peninsula, where we're currently housesitting. Most mornings my husband, Michael, and I have the beautiful white-sand beach and some of the clearest waters in the Yucatán all to ourselves.
My husband Michael and I just celebrated a big "travel" anniversary. After traveling full time for over five years, we are neither broke, nor burnt out. The reason that we still love our nomadic life is because we've figured out a way to travel that saves us up to $30,000 a year in accommodation costs and has helped keep us sane.
With record breaking snowfalls this winter in many parts of North America, my husband Michael and I are betting that many folks are dreaming of escaping to somewhere warm and tropical. Perhaps even dreaming of that vacation home they are going to have someday.
Ecuador’s capital city, Quito, located high in the Andes mountains at 9,350 feet, is the highest capital city in the world. It is also one of the most dramatically situated, hemmed in by encircling peaks and volcanoes. But, like most large cities, it has rush hour, traffic pollution, and less salubrious neighborhoods.
As 2016 drew to a close and family and friends were starting to feel the growing pressure of the holiday season...we hadn’t a care in the world. My husband, Michael, and I were enjoying a stay in a three-bedroom apartment in one of the nicest suburbs in Quito, Ecuador...for free.
Cynthia West bounced through the door vibrating with the news she was about to tell her husband Robert. He listened with mounting glee as she explained her medical company's plan to inject some younger blood into the workforce. They were offering an early retirement package—one that would give Cynthia "an avenue of escape" from her high stress, 10-hour-a-day job in Silicon Valley. She grabbed the opportunity. Though Robert, 62, was working part-time...
In exchange for looking after the house, garden, pets, and pool, my husband Michael and I have saved around $24,000 in accommodation costs. Whether you want a dream vacation or to sample a retirement destination, the trick to being successful is to stand out from the crowd. Competition is fierce, with many homeowners receiving 20 to 60 responses to their "housesitter needed" advertisements. Here's how you can join this group of savvy travelers and score the best housesitting gigs around the world.
Sitting in our own private little courtyard with a bubbling stream on one side, a warbling symphony from the aviary on another, with pink bougainvillea and fiery red geraniums cascading down a third, my husband Michael and I could be in Italy.
After spending a crazy weekend in Paris decades ago, dashing madly from the Louvre to the Arc De Triomphe, with chaotic traffic and irate Parisians, I had no desire to return to France. That was until my husband Michael and I spent a few weeks at an award-winning vineyard in southern France. It was a far different experience than the chaos of Paris.