Try a house swap on your next trip
Save money and see a foreign country like a native
By Ilona Biro
Travellers come in all shapes and sizes, and so do the places they stay in along the way. If you’re looking for comfort and convenience no hotel can ever match, try swapping your home for someone else’s the next time you go on holiday.
Live like a local
Carolyn Cavicchio of Long Island City, N.Y., has exchanged homes two or three times annually for the past seven years and can think of no better way to travel. In her most recent exchange, she spent 10 days in a village in County Clare, Ireland.
“My hosts own a holiday cottage in which we stayed, as well as a pub, which became our homeawayfromhome for the entire stay,” she says.
The Cavicchios were even treated to an unexpected guided tour by one of their hosts’ friends and invited to their hosts’ home to celebrate their daughter’s 18th birthday. “None of that would have happened if I had been staying in a hotel!”
Why swap?
Beyond the friendships, the advantages of home swaps are endless. You can
- forgo costly hotel and restaurant bills
- enjoy access to toys, books and often babysitters
- live like and meet locals
- experience a different culture
- have the reassurance that your home is occupied while you’re away
- save on car rental costs by exchanging cars
Use technology to swap
Back in the early days of home exchanges, swappers found an agency — usually through word of mouth — paid a fee and received an annual catalogue filled with home listings and photos.
Web sites: Today the process is easier and quicker. Swappers create web sites that display photos and videos of their properties; they post welcoming messages to “sell” their locations to prospective travellers from around the world.
Slide shows: To prepare your online ad, you could take photos of your living room. Then use the panoramic stitching feature of Windows Live Photo Gallery to join the images and create an impressive scene that shows off everything. You could also drag and drop pictures into Movie Maker to create a slide show.
Blogs: If you’re writing a daily blog, you can plug your home to attract potential swappers. While researching destinations online, they might serendipitously come across your blog.
Social networks: Even social networking tools such as Windows Live Spaces can get the word out. Discover all the places on the web that can drive traffic to your site, and shoot for the stars.
How to swap
Arranging a home exchange is straightforward. Just follow a few guidelines and use a checklist to find the best accommodations possible. The key to success is finding the right home-exchange web site.
Start with an agency: Lois Sealey is the founder of Base Holidays, a home-exchange site in London, England. She recommends searching the Internet for long-established agencies that
- charge a modest fee
- provide up-to-date listings with expiry dates
- list phone and e-mail information
- provide a private area for members where contact details are hidden
“If you’re looking for an exchange in a particular country, you can do better by joining a smaller agency based in that country than by joining a larger agency in your own,” Sealy says.
Talk it over: Good communication between swappers is vital — before, during and after the exchange. “The more you know about your exchange partners and their house, and the more you share about yourself and your house, the better the exchange will be,” says Cavicchio.
Sign, seal, deliver: To ensure that your exchange comes off without a hitch, you and your home-exchange partners should list all agreed-upon arrangements in a document. Then sign and send your copy to your partners, and ask that they return a signed copy. This procedure will help to avoid possible misunderstandings later.
