Want to travel the world but are deterred by all those pesky hotel and accommodation costs?
Well, one woman figured out how to find safe places to stay for free by doing what she loves to do best: hanging out with cats.
Madolline Gourley is able to travel the world on a budget by cat and house sitting.
A job she says takes about 30 minutes of work a day.
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Gourley, a 32-year-old writer from Brisbane, Australia, says she’s kept about $28,000 in travel expenses in her pocket since 2017.
She has house and cat sat for almost 50 homes in the U.S. and Australia.
“As a sitter, you house or pet sit for ‘free’ in exchange for accommodation,” she said.
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She uses websites like MindMyHouse, House Carers, and House Sitters America to find places to stay, and then works it into her travel schedule to avoid paying for hotels.
But Gourley says that she’s often hired because of her experience with cats. She’s had cats all her life.
“When I found out about the whole house/pet sitting for accommodation thing, I only wanted to do it looking after cats because I’ve only ever cared for cats,” she said.
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Gourley is not paid for her services. The only compensation she receives is a free place to crash, which she finds totally worthwhile.
Most recently she spent 75 days in the U.S. and watched about 15 cats in nine different houses in seven different cities around the country.
Gourley has spent time in Seattle, Salt Lake City, Denver, Chicago, Portland, Chelsea, South Park Slope, and Prospect Heights.
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When she’s not feeding and spending about a half hour taking care of the cats in the house where she’s staying, she goes sightseeing and gets to highly recommended restaurants.
She did have to spend about $7,200 during that 75-day stay in the U.S., which amounts to about $96 a day.
That included a $1,300 round-trip plane ticket to and from Australia and the U.S. She used the $9,000 she gets back every year on her Australian tax returns to fund those costs.
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Everything went well until she had a peculiar incident when attempting to get into Canada and was asked some very bizarre questions by US border officials.
Gourley was traveling from Los Angeles to Canada where she planned to catsit for another client.
But Gourley was stopped and detained by US Border Officials who patted her down, fingerprinted her, took her photo, and interrogated her.
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As if that wasn’t bizarre enough they asked her if she was pregnant.
She was asked the very private question twice.
“I don’t know if she had forgotten, or she wanted to work out if I was lying or something. I said no, and she looked at me again and said, ‘Have you recently had an abortion?'”
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Gourley was later told that her entry into Canada had been denied since she breached the conditions of the visa waiver program.
This program allows Australians to enter other countries and the U.S. for short trips without needing a regular visa.
She was subsequently deported back to Brisbane within a few hours.
Officials said the visa waiver programs prevents one from engaging in “any type of employment or getting compensation for services rendered.”
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Gourley was shocked since she hadn’t had the issue while entering the U.S.
A spokesperson for US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) chalked up the pregnancy questions to “unpleasantness” and “unprofessional behavior” which they say they take “seriously’ and plan to investigate.
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