The Kindness of Home Exchangers

'I have come to appreciate that the process of home exchange is more than just about exchanging your home and how tidy you find it on your return. When you exchange homes you often experience a kindness and level of trust that so often feels in short supply in today's busy world. When else would you freely hand over the keys to your home, invite people you may never meet to sleep in your bed and use your car? As a family, we have stayed in many different types of homes and neighbourhoods and had experiences we would never have had if we not been on a home exchange. My children still talk about the open air cinema in Switzerland (the tickets were left as a gift), the ice cream they received from the kindly neighbour during the heatwave in France, the children who came to call when we stayed in Ireland, the invite we received from our exchange partners' friends in Canada to use their pool, the neighbours who called with fish from their fishing trip, etc.

Since exchanging my home I have come to realise that these acts of kindness and the diversity of experience offered are what's really important. I think home exchange is a great concept and I know that we could never imagine a better way of seeing and experiencing the world.' - Joanne, HE8441

See Joanne's Exchange Offer in Ceunant, Gwynedd, North Wales, HE8441

Read Joanne's full article in the June/July issue of Home Swappers Newsletter (and sign up to receive the bi-monthly newsletter).