Friendly Outdoorsy Pet-Loving Digital Nomad Couple

About this sitter

Hi! We’re Shannon and Katie, two online business owners in the outdoor travel and software industries. We love hiking, trail running, walking, snowshoeing, skiing, kayaking, biking and just generally being outdoors. We don't have any pets because we travel so much but that doesn't stop us from cuddling, playing with and spoiling our friends' and family's pets when we get the chance.

Even though we love to have fun outdoors, we're generally pretty quiet and like to work on drawing, writing, designing and photography projects at night. Katie recently published her first book, loves creating new camping food recipes and is excited to practice her nature and wildlife photography skills somewhere new. Shannon loves a good board game, working out and cooking but is especially excited to be working on his latest software passion project. A few years ago Shannon was even featured in "Money" magazine for one of his business successes.

More recently, we planned and saved up for several years before going on an epic 2 year honeymoon hiking adventure. Katie left her job as an aerospace engineer in Ohio and Shannon hired an operations manager for his online business before embarking on a 6,000 mile hiking adventure. We walked famous trails such as the Pacific Crest Trail (CA-OR-WA), Continental Divide Trail (NM-CO-WY-ID-MT), Florida Trail (FL), Superior Hiking Trail (MN) and many national parks. We both fell in love with long distance adventures and aren't sure if we'll settle down any time soon!

Currently we’ve been housesitting for family at a fairly remote summer lake house in Minnesota for the past 2 years. (The picture of us with the northern lights was taken after a day of ice fishing on the frozen lake!) However, we’re looking to change up the scenery and maybe get closer to the mountains, desert, city or ocean where it’s easier to be more active.

We also are excited to take care of someone's pet(s), whether it entails taking them for long daily hikes or simply cuddling on the couch with them.

However, one of our requirements would be that the assignment does have good wifi since we both need to be communicating with our global teams for our online travel and software businesses. Other than the wifi, we're very easy-going and can adapt to whatever needs to be fulfilled to keep your house maintained and your pets and plants happy and healthy!

Why they want to house sit

We love housesitting because it allows us the freedom to live some place new and while allowing us to work on our online businesses. Typically in the summer we're out traveling on hiking expeditions and in the winter we're catching up with our remote teams on operations and strategic work.

We love animals and since we don't have any of our own, it would be so much fun and fulfilling to take care of someone else's pets while we're at this nomadic stage in our lives.

Even though we've been offered to stay throughout the summer at the remote family cabin in Minnesota, we have the travel bug and are looking to try somewhere new where we can be closer to trails, mountains, desert, ocean or city so we can be more active. We're looking forward to taking care of your home and leaving it in better shape than we found it.

Their experience

Yes - we have a good amount of experience housesitting. When we haven’t been out hiking and traveling the past few years, we’ve actually been housesitting for various friends and families totaling 2.5+ years.

As for taking care of animals, we have mostly pet sit for cats, dogs and fish but occasionally chickens, horses, cattle and other livestock. We both grew up with lots of pets (dogs, cats, gerbils, frogs, fish, hermit crabs) but since we travel so much as adults, we thought it wouldn’t be fair to have our own pets with us being gone so much. We’ve helped pet sit mainly for friends, making sure their animals are well-exercised, played with and spoiled with treats, pets and cuddles.

Shannon grew up working on an organic cattle ranch in Minnesota before moving to the US Army Corps of Engineers. In the Army, he led construction teams and carried out carpentry, electrician, HVAC and plumbing projects for deployed US military troops. Besides being very handy around the house, he is also very technically savvy, especially with all things computer related.

Katie is a mechanical engineer trying out the business owner life for a while. She’s worked on horse farms, professionally landscaped for several years and is a big fan of gardening and taking care of exotic plants. Katie has helped her friends with running a successful dog sitting business which involved cleaning kennels, playing with the dogs and of course taking them for walks in the woods.

We both enjoy keeping a tidy living space and enjoy living in places ranging from the remote wilderness to the busy city. We lived at our last apartment for 6+ years and helped our landlord maintain her 3 story Victorian mansion with various computer issues, small construction projects and appliance repairs. We even helped humanely (and safely!) relocate several pest squirrels and raccoons which had gotten inside the old house walls. We aren't afraid to get our hands dirty but do like to keep where we live well-maintained and clean.

What can they bring to the assignment

We hope to bring our attention to detail, cleanliness, open communication and love of animals (and plants!) to the assignment. Both of us were engineers in our earlier careers with a variety of experiences in maintaining a well-functioning home inside and out. As business owners, we're constantly needing to foster open communication to manage remote teams. We're more than happy to communicate with you regularly to send updates about what is going on at your house and of course pictures of your pets.

We hope to keep your home as tidy and cared for as we would treat our own place. We love animals and would love to occasionally send you pictures of them doing cute things (if it doesn't bother you!). We both love playing with animals as a break from work. With our flexible schedules, it's easy to adapt to your pet's routine and any necessary home maintenance, gardening and cleaning.