Ama Amanzi, an authentic African Bush Lodge situated in a UNESCO heritage area is offering a money-can’t-buy travel experience for animal lovers all over the world to stay in the luxe lodge for five months in return for taking care of the owner’s two dogs while they travel.
The opportunity is listed on TrustedHousesitters – a site that connects homeowners with caring verified pet sitters who offer their services for free in return for accommodation. The bush lodge on site normally measure up to $200 AUD per night for guests and is situated in a close proximity to Entabeni game reserve, providing pet sitter with the opportunity to experience a true African safari where they can witness the Big Five- lions, leopards, rhinoceros elephants, and Cape buffalos.
In addition to this, sitters will have access to the nature pool and with the early evenings in South Africa, guests at the lodge can also enjoy barbecues and dining under vast starry skies.
For rural adventure lovers with less than five months to spare this summer, then a three-month lodge and dog-sit in peaceful and beautiful Botswana is also listed on the site.
The sit involves staying in the middle of thirty hectares of natural bush, surrounded by hundreds of species of plants and some 1,500-year-old baobab trees, beside the banks of the hippo inhabited Nhabe river. Elephants are also known to pass the area from time to time.
Everything at the lodge has been built in harmony with nature. The accommodation is solar powered, the owners win and purify their own water, grow their own vegetables and have their own sewage system and eco-friendly waste management.
These idyllic get-aways are not the first time that money-can’t-buy locations have been listed on TrustedHousesitters. In October, cat and dog lovers were invited to look after a beautiful private island in Greece that offers a tranquil yoga retreat every summer.
Other remote getaways on the site include one month in Swedish Lapland where sitters get to take care of two cuddly cats while experiencing the magnificent Northern Lights. The listing offers a remote village great for fishing, hiking in the summer and ice fishing, snowshoeing and cross-country skiing in winter.
Jess Stephens, Chief Marketing Officer at TrustedHousesitters, said: “We have thousands of sits, from remote locations to city escapes and beachside getaways – and we’re finding that remote sits are increasingly popular on our site. They suit digital nomads, creatives and retirees who want to lose themselves in nature, plan new projects or just experience how other people live. With the company of pets, remote sits are the perfect place to switch off and relax.
“It’s really not unusual to find that home-owners not only allow caring, verified sitters to move into their properties to take care of their pets, but they offer the use of their car, or sports and hobby equipment as well. Having chosen their sitter carefully, after phone calls and sometimes Skype meetings, they can often feel like they are welcoming a friend into their home and because no money is changing hands, there’s much more goodwill between the owner and the sitter. Both sides are grateful that they have been connected with each other through their shared love of pets.”
Trustedhousesitters operates across 130 countries and has facilitated more than two million nights of house and pet sitting globally, saving its members more than half a billion dollars in accommodation and pet care costs since it launched in 2010. All arrangements are made through trust, with members building their trust profiles through references, recommendations and police background checks.
