What do you do with your pets when you are traveling?

I have too many cats and too little money to board them anywhere, so I trade petsitting with one of my cat owning friends. I put out multiple dishes for food and water and extra litter boxes, and the friend comes over every other day or so to scoop and replenish. Every now and then I have a problem cat or two, like orphaned kittens, or cats on meds. In the past, I would go to a Christmas time street festival where there was a silent auction for charity. One of the items you could bid on was a weeks delux boarding at an all-cat vet hospital in the neighborhood. I won it several years, paying about half what it would have cost me otherwise. Then when I took my week and a half trip every August, I would trade this for a slightly longer period of standard boarding for a senior hyperthyroid cat on daily meds. More recently, I met a dog rescuer who offered to cat sit at her place if I needed for litters or problem cats. I took her up on this with a litter of kittens, and then I acquired a very sweet cat I kept who is food obsesed and over weight. I can't leave her the extra bowls of food; she would eat it all the first day. So she goes to the sitter, who can ration her food, and another sitter comes over and takes care of the rest.