'It (home exchange) puts you in a completely different mindset. Before we learned about exchanging homes, I remember going to London for 10 days and staying at a hotel. Even though it was the cheapest we could get, the price was pretty steep. We spent 10 days in a crowded room with our 2-year old son, and not even so much as a refrigerator to keep his milk in. We ran around like mad trying to get as much out of our money as possible, seeing everything, doing everything. By the end of the holiday we were zonked. The next time we were in London, we had a house to stay in. In the first few days, we just laid back and relaxed (which you really need to do after the frenzy of packing and preparing for the trip, not to mention the flight with 3 kids!) The kids had their own rooms, with plenty to do. We had a great time discovering the local neighborhood and shopping for food we liked. On days when we went into town, we were in no hurry to wake up early in the morning (there was no hotel breakfast that you would miss if you didn't get to the dining room in time). On rainy days, or when we were just tired from the previous day out, we just spend a relaxing day at home. After all, it wasn't costing us a fortune every day! When we got back after 3 weeks, we had seen lots of interesting things, had a great holiday with the kids, and were rested and relaxed.' Read the full article, 'Home Away From Home'.I seem to come across the best websites, blogs and articles for additional information on home exchange holidays purely by chance - serendipity! 'Home Away From Home' is an article written by an experienced home exchanger, Ruti Singer. Ruti's article, like the blog, home exchange travels, that I wrote about on Wednesday and the article, 'A house swap affords the comforts of home', written for kidscantravel.com, also emphasises the particular advantages of swapping homes when travelling with children: