Do You Need a Pet Sitter for Thanksgiving, or Is a Camera Enough? 2026 Data
This article was produced with AI assistance. Sources are listed at the end.
A pet sitter and a home camera solve two different problems, and most people traveling this Thanksgiving need both, not one or the other. A sitter physically feeds, walks, and medicates your pet; a camera only lets you see what's happening. If your pet needs daily care and you're gone more than a few hours, a camera alone isn't a substitute for a sitter — but a sitter without a camera leaves you with no way to confirm the visit actually happened.
This year that question matters to more people than usual. AAA found that 81.8 million Americans traveled 50 miles or more over Thanksgiving in 2025, a new record, with nearly 90% going by car — meaning millions of homes, and the pets inside them, were left in someone else's hands at once. (AAA, 2025)
How many people actually travel for Thanksgiving?
AAA's 2025 Thanksgiving forecast — the most recent full holiday travel count available, since neither AAA nor the TSA had published a 2026 forecast as of this writing — put the number at 81.8 million travelers for the Tuesday-before to Monday-after window, about 1.6 million more than the prior year. Car travel accounted for roughly 73 million of those trips, with about 6 million flying domestically. (AAA, 2025) With 95 million U.S. households now owning a pet — 71.6% of all households, per the American Pet Products Association's 2026 State of the Industry Report — a large share of those trips come with a pet-care decision attached. (APPA, 2026)
Is pet sitting getting more expensive in 2026?
Demand — and pay — for professional pet sitters is climbing. Pet Sitters International's 2026 State of the Industry Survey, fielded January 20 through March 11, 2026 among its members, found the average gross revenue for U.S. pet sitters reached $112,423 in 2025, up 12% from $100,537 in 2023. Sixty-eight percent of PSI members expect their revenue to grow again in 2026. (Pet Sitters International, 2026) Rising sitter revenue generally tracks with rising client rates, which is one reason more owners are looking at lower-cost ways to stay informed about their pet and their home while they're away.
Pets are also shaping travel decisions more directly than before. PetScreening's 2026 Pet Influence Report, based on surveys fielded in the first and second quarters of 2026, found that 64% of pet owners say their pet shapes their travel plans, and 48% have chosen a vacation rental over a hotel specifically to accommodate a pet. (PetScreening, 2026)
What does a pet sitter actually do that a camera can't?
A camera cannot feed a cat, walk a dog, give insulin, or scoop a litter box. For any trip longer than a work day, or for a pet with medical, mobility, or behavioral needs, a professional or trusted in-person sitter is doing a job a camera physically cannot replace. That hasn't changed, and it's still the main case for hiring one.
What a camera adds is visibility into whether the plan is actually being followed — whether the sitter showed up on schedule, how long the visit lasted, and how your pet behaved while you were gone. That's a gap purely verbal or text-based check-ins can't close.
Pet sitter vs. camera: what each one is actually for
- Pet sitter: feeding, walks, medication, litter/cage cleaning, companionship
- Camera: confirming visits happened, watching your pet's behavior, keeping an eye on the house itself
- Neither alone: fully covers a multi-day trip with a pet that needs daily care
- Together: care plus the ability to verify it, at no extra device cost if you already own a spare phone
If you only take one thing from this before you pack:
- Hire a sitter for daily care
- Add a camera for visibility, not care
- Tell your sitter it's there
- Reuse an old phone before buying new
How can an old phone help without buying new gear?
You don't need a dedicated pet camera to get this visibility. A phone you've already replaced — propped on a shelf with a charger plugged in — can record continuously and store footage so you can check in from a web browser while you're traveling. iCameraPlus turns an old iOS or Android phone into exactly that: continuous recording with a private cloud archive you can browse remotely, live viewing, and remote start/stop, so you can glance at the room your sitter is in, or your pet's favorite corner, from wherever you're spending Thanksgiving.
If you're deciding whether that old phone is even usable for this, our comparison of buying a refurbished phone versus using the one in your drawer walks through when a spare phone beats buying something new. For setup ideas specific to pets, see our pet camera page.
A sitter handles the care. A camera only tells you whether the care happened.
Does a camera at home also help with security while you're gone?
Yes, and it's worth weighing separately from the pet question. A home left empty for a multi-day Thanksgiving trip is a home with nobody there to notice a problem, whether that's a delivery, a maintenance issue, or something more serious. Our piece on whether leaving your lights on actually deters burglars digs into what the data says about traveling safely. A camera set up for pet check-ins doubles as a second set of eyes on the house itself, which is one reason many owners get one running before any trip, not just for the pet.
Quick answers
Is it OK to leave a dog or cat alone with just a camera for a few hours?
For a short absence, like a work shift or a day trip, most healthy adult pets with food, water, and a safe space are fine, and a camera lets you check in if you're anxious. For an overnight or multi-day Thanksgiving trip, pets still need in-person feeding, walks, or litter care, so a camera supplements a sitter rather than replacing one.
Do I have to tell my pet sitter there's a camera in the house?
Recording rules, especially for audio, vary by state, so check your local law before recording a sitter, and disclose as a matter of basic courtesy that a camera is running in any common area they'll be in. Treat a camera as something you use transparently to monitor your own property, never to watch a person without their knowledge.
Is a pet sitter or boarding cheaper for Thanksgiving?
Rates vary widely by city, pet, and service type, and no national pricing standard exists, so get local quotes rather than relying on a single number. What the 2026 PSI data does show is that sitter revenue, and by extension typical rates, rose 12% between 2023 and 2025, so budgeting for somewhat higher cost than a couple of years ago is reasonable. (Pet Sitters International, 2026)
