Who’s Watching the House? Renting Our Home for a Year Abroad

By Tristan | November 8, 2026 | Miles and Homework

This article is part of our Before We Left series, detailing how we prepared and planned for our world-schooling adventure through Southeast Asia.

Like many people, our largest recurring expense is housing. We’ve owned our home in Oregon for about six years, and we knew we’d want to come back to it after our travels. In fact, returning was a requirement for Hazel. Leaving the familiarity of home was hard for her, and knowing we’d come back gave her some comfort. Since we’d be out of the country for almost a year, deciding what to do with the house was one of the most important items on our to-do list. Everyone’s circumstances are different, but we wanted to share our experience in case it helps others planning long-term travel.

We considered a variety of different arrangements – worldschool house swaps, house-sitting arrangements, stringing together short term rentals like AirBnB, or even leaving our house vacant for the year. Ultimately, we determined that our ideal scenario would be renting the house furnished on a year-long lease. That would help cover our mortgage and stretch our travel budget further. We also liked having someone living in the house instead of leaving it empty for a year, so any problems would be noticed and dealt with. We weren’t overly attached to our things. We put our personal belongings in storage and left the larger furniture in place. With so much else to plan before our year abroad, renting furnished simply felt easier (bookshelf included with the rental, but our cat was not).

With that goal in mind, we started thinking about our ideal tenant. We live in a small university town that also has a hospital. We love university students, but we weren’t eager to rent to a group of four or five of them, since we hoped to come home to a house in one piece. We quickly settled on two ideal tenants: a visiting professor on a one-year assignment with the university, or a traveling nurse working at the hospital.

We looked into advertising through the university, but as far as we could tell, its message boards were open only to current students and alumni. So we tried good old word of mouth. Whenever we met someone connected to the university, we’d mention our situation.

I belong to a running club that meets on Wednesday evenings. A group of us runs a few miles, and then friends and family join us afterward for a cold, refreshing beverage. One Wednesday, we met a university professor who was friends with the club’s organizer. As soon as he mentioned the university, Bekah and I had the same idea. We explained our situation, and he said he might know someone who’d be interested. Another professor had spent the past year on sabbatical in Europe. He and his family were coming home soon and wanted to rent a place for a year while they settled back into the community. Our new friend quickly connected us by email, and within a few days we were talking live with the family in Europe.

We talked online a few times, and once they were back in the country, they toured the house in person. It turned out to be a great match. They’re seasoned travelers themselves, with a history of taking great care of other people’s homes as they move around the world. We agreed on a year-long lease.

Before leaving for Southeast Asia, we spent some time traveling around the Pacific Northwest to visit family. When we swung by the house to pick up our mail, we were impressed by how well they were caring for the house and yard. We even had a few “why didn’t we think of that?” moments when we saw how they’d rearranged the furniture and set up the yard. They also installed a zipline in the backyard, which we will definitely need to replicate now that Hazel has seen it in action.

Our house was built the same year that I was born, an excellent vintage but we are both showing some signs of age. There have been some home repair needs that have popped up since we left such as a dead oven and issues with the washing machine. Time zones have been the biggest challenge, as I’ve needed to call the plumber or oven technician first thing when I wake up in Asia (often before my morning coffee) to catch them before they wrap up work for the day back on the west coast. But we’ve navigated through it. We have an ongoing Whatsapp chat group with our tenants back home, and appreciate being able to regularly communicate about how things are going with the house. We also have great neighbors and friends who are willing to lend a hand locally if needed.

We feel very fortunate to have found such a great match, and we know it won’t always be this easy. Finding our ideal tenant felt like a long shot, but we also knew it would only take one. If you’re planning long-term travel, tap into your social networks and spread the word. That’s what led us to our happy outcome.