What Do You Do With Your Pets When Traveling?

We usually leave our two babies home, and ask someone (usually a family member or friend) to come over and feed them and do the pan once a day. We've never been on a vacation that was longer then a week though. My cousin does do pet sitting as a side job though; when people leave on vacations, they call her up and pay her to come by their house and feed their animals, and if they're dogs, walk them around. I also have a friend who does pet sitting, but instead of dogs and cats, he'll take care of lizards, snakes, birds, fish and other "exotic" pets. He's in training to be a vet tech, so all the pet sitting counts as "experience" handling animals.