Travel the Home Exchange Way blog

'Stay abroad for free': Swap shop

A quote from a recent article, 'Stay abroad for free', on MSN UK Travel:

'Couch surfing is trendy, but more traditional house swaps are also growing in popularity, in part because of the credit crunch.

"Swapping homes is a great money saver and, in these difficult economic times, this is becoming increasingly important," says Lois Sealey, of Home Base Holidays, a site where home exchangers advertise their accommodation.

Home exchange is pretty self-explanatory, a mutual exchange of homes for an agreed period. And like couch surfing, it’s great for those who want to look beyond the poolside bar and tourist bazaar.

"The most commonly cited reason for taking part in home swaps is the desire to get to know a real neighbourhood and local people – shopping at local markets, taking part in community activities and discovering hidden gem attractions," says Sealey.'

Read the full article for further suggestions for saving money on holiday.

Listen to 'Swapping homes!', BBC Radio North Yorkshire

Home exchange was featured last Thursday morning on BBC Radio North Yorkshire and I am including links to the recording of the programme below. Martin and Marion, Home Base Holidays members and experienced exchangers, discussed their home swapping experiences while showing the interviewer around their bungalow near York.

The home exchange feature was broadcast and recorded in two parts - the first is 5.40 minutes long and the second, 7.17 minutes. Do listen to both as this is a very good introduction to home swapping:

Download Home Exchange audio part 1.wav

Download Home Exchange audio part 2.wav

I was also interviewed for the programme, mainly to answer questions on possible problems that can occur when swapping homes (very rare), along with New York exchanger, Nicole, who publishes a popular personal blog, Home Exchange Travels. Nicole provided a list of the modest costs involved in her family's most recent home exchange. Her iteminised list of expenses gives a very good idea of the cost savings that can be made when swapping homes over more conventional holidays - an increasingly important consideration for many travellers during a time of recession.

As well as the radio feature on home exchange, read the accompanying story, 'Swapping homes!', on BBC Radio North Yorkshire site; a quote:

'Martin and Marion .... are a retired couple from Dunnington near York. They've done five home exchanges, visiting places like New Zealand, Australia, America and Canada. They began in 2000, by registering their bungalow on a home exchange website, within days they'd lined up a swap with another retired couple from Brisbane in Australia. A happy holiday followed and both couples, and their neighbours, are still in touch.

Marion explained just what the benefits of home swapping are; "Meeting people is part of it, really getting to know an area well, experiencing a new community. We've made some great friends through home swapping."'

North Yorkshire has much of interest to attract home exchangers, including the wonderful historic city of York. Do check out Martin and Marion's (in photo) attractive exchange offer in Dunnington, a good base for visiting York and beyond, HE17547.

Security Measures at Home and When on Exchange

Our local police sergeant sends a weekly newsletter, PG Link, to residents of the London suburb of Palmers Green, giving reports of recent crimes and general information on policing in the area. Although our suburb is a relatively low-crime area, the sergeant is clearly exasperated when reporting some crimes, particularly house burglaries that could have either been prevented or the chances of becoming victims of crime minimised if the owners had taken some simple precautions. One such, is leaving a home in complete darkness. Now, when days are becoming shorter, it's very important to think about this when you will be out during the day and not returning home until after dark and, if you are swapping homes at this time of year, that your home exchange guests are aware of any security procedures that need to be followed. Burglar alarms can be especially puzzling if you're not used to them so do leave very clear instructions on how to operate yours if you have one installed in your home. Make sure you are also aware of any security measures you must take while a guest in your home exchange partners' home.

This is a reminder of a simple security measure given in the 22 September issue of PG Link:

'Today is officially the first day of autumn, I’m afraid to say it’s going to be dark at night and cold weather from now on! On that point, now is the time to get out your timer switches, check that they are still working and put them to use. Having a switch in use both upstairs and downstairs would be ideal. When interviewing burglary suspects and asking them why they chose a particular house they all said that they knew no one would be in as all the lights were out. Now people, it isn’t rocket science to make the burglar's job a lot harder by simply getting your lights to go on when you’re out of the house. It is a cheap and efficient crime prevention tool that we should all be using!'

'A Beginner’s Guide to Keeping Chickens': Learning New Skills on a Home Exchange!

"It is not just about saving money. Home exchanging provides the sort of magical and enchanting experiences that wouldn’t happen on other types of holiday; falling off to sleep in an amphitheatre of hills echoing to an orchestra of crickets and the tinkle of cowbells; swimming in a mountain lake; picking wild raspberries for breakfast; returning from a country walk to snuggle up to an Aga and a mug of tea; being invited into a farm in the middle of nowhere to buy goat’s cheese direct from the farmer. And our repertoire of essential life skills has increased into the bargain; I now know to operate a robot to keep a swimming-pool clean; I learnt to surf (and how to treat a weaver-fish sting); we have learnt the rudiments of how to feed and care for pigs and piglets and I also spent a whole holiday’s worth of bath times surprisingly engrossed in ‘A Beginner’s Guide to Keeping Chickens’!

The thrill of the unexpected has to be one the most rewarding aspects and I always relish the excitement of opening the front door of our host’s home for the first time. However we always take the trouble to get to know our co-exchangers as much as we can through emails and phone conversations so that both parties are clear what to expect. I find this process and anticipation all part of the enjoyment of the holiday and on two occasions the experience was enhanced when we met up with our co-exchangers at a midway point to meet for lunch. On our most recent exchange we looked after a three acre small-holding of chickens, pigs and a very handsome cat. The children loved collecting windfall apples from the orchard to feed to the pigs and collecting eggs and we spent two very happy weeks living a completely different lifestyle that previously, we had only dreamed of. So far, our only regret has been that we didn’t discover home-exchanging ten years ago!" - Sebastian, Home Base Holidays member HE18816

Sebastian and family live in a large, Victorian, seaside family house set in a lovely location overlooking Swanage Bay (in Dorset, England) with views to the Isle of Wight. See the family's very attractive home exchange offer.

'My House Is Your House': the Wall Street Journal

I was delighted to read the article on home exchange on the Wall Street Journal website yesterday. This was a profile Q&A article based on a lengthy email correspondence between Leslie, a freelance writer from California, and myself that took place a few weeks ago (when I had just broken a wrist and was typing one-handed!). The article on home swapping is a featured travel story published in a section of the Journal, Encore: A Guide to Retirement Planning and Living (on the website, it's under Personal Finance - Retirement Planning).

The strap line sums it up,

'With the cost of travel skyrocketing, home exchanges are attracting more vacationers'.

Although, as I said in the interview, most home exchangers cite the opportunities that swapping homes offers to experience real neighbourhoods and different cultures as the main reasons they enjoy this form of travel, the economic slow-down and need for many to cut down on expenses will no doubt make home exchange an even more attractive proposition. As this may include many readers considering home exchange for the first time, with often initial, understandable reservations about having 'strangers' living in their homes, I hope the Q&A, and the separate, 'Going Swapping: A Step-by-Step Guide' in the article will be a useful introduction and entice more of you to consider home swaps as a great way to continue to enjoy travelling while cutting out a major expense - hotel or rental accommodation. And if you have any questions, please do get in touch or leave a comment below.

I take part in many interviews every year for articles about home exchange but this was one of the best and definitely the most fun! It was a real pleasure to work with Leslie who took so much trouble to research the topic thoroughly and to write a comprehensive (and accurate!) article for Encore.

Australia is a BIG Country: Research the Location Before a Home Exchange

When I first moved to England many years ago from my home in southern Ontario, I was occasionally taken aback when asked a question along the lines of, 'My cousin Bob Jones moved to Canada. He lives in Vancouver. Do you know him?'

As the Brits are great travellers, indeed many I meet have seen more of Canada than I have, and generally have a good knowledge of geography, I thought the days of assuming you could easily see all of a large country like Australia on a short trip were long gone. Not so says experienced home exchangers, Maureen and Gerry, who live on the Gold Coast. Maureen supplied the map above which she says she sends to all potential European home exchange partners so they have a realistic idea of distances before committing to an exchange. Maureen wrote:

'We find heaps of folk have no idea how BIG Australia is and seem to think they can breakfast in Perth, have lunch at the Opera House in Sydney, snorkel the Barrier Reef in the afternoon and have dinner at Ayres Rock!

Many ask to swap with us on the Gold Coast thinking they can pop in after dinner to family in Townsville or Melbourne as if it is just "up the road".

It's a great, friendly and safe country to visit and most folk return to see more.'

Check out Maureen and Gerry's attractive exchange offer:

'Our house is situated on Queensland's Gold Coast, magnificant beaches & tourist attractions. Excellent golf courses & the sun shines all the time - warm weather guaranteed any time of year.' See full details and more photos, HE14532.

The moral of Maureen's story is the importance of taking the time to research a location thoroughly before an exchange so you can plan what you can do realistically. I have a confession here - I assumed that because England looked so titchy on a world map before I moved here that I could whizz round it in a couple of days. How wrong I was. Size can be deceptive. I have lived here now for 40 years and have barely scratched the surface of all the interesting places to visit and things to do.