Travel the Home Exchange Way blog

Would anyone want to visit my area on a home exchange?

Q: I would like to do a home swap, but I live in Preston, Lancashire, which I suspect is on few people's choice of places to stay, except as a base from which to visit other places.

Would anyone from mainland Europe want to stay for a week or more in an undistinguished English provincial city? - Jane, Preston

A: Although you may not find as many members interested in a home swap to a city that’s not so well known as, say, London, York or Edinburgh, as well as arranging exchanges for holidays, many members (often ex-pats) are looking for swaps in other areas to be near family and friends. Home exchange also appeals to many people who want to avoid tourist areas and experience a ‘real’ area.

When describing your exchange offer, include distances to well know attractions and cities as well as information on Preston (I found some very interesting information on Visit Preston and events planned this year by Preston Guild. Photo of Brockholes nature reserve). As there is limited public transport in your area, it would be useful if you are willing to consider swapping cars too.

The more open you can be on destinations you will consider for an exchange, the better your chances of finding a suitable swap. As well as holidays and visiting family, many UK members also arrange weekend swaps within the UK. Would this be of interest to you? Members who are proactive in contacting several others to suggest exchanges are often more successful at finding suitable swaps than those who live in popular destinations but who wait to be contacted.

We hope you will join Home Base Holidays very soon and start your home exchange adventure!

Is a holiday cottage suitable for a home exchange?

Q: I am very interested in joining your home exchange site. We have a one bedroom holiday cottage attached to our home. I let this commercially for six months of the year and it is very popular as we live in a tourist area. Would it still be suitable to put forward for a house exchange? Thank you, Angela

A: Yes, you can certainly list your holiday cottage for exchange (you will see a little red house with ‘2’ icon beside second homes in search results when you browse home exchange listings). In fact, as you wouldn’t be swapping your main home, this could give you extra flexibility to offer non-simultaneous exchanges as well as a direct home swap, i.e. if your exchange partners were able to offer you their home at a different time, you could be home while they are living in your cottage, to help with any questions they might have. Also, as long as home exchange is one of your options chosen, you can include the Rental Offered option too if this would be useful at times when you can’t consider an exchange but your cottage would be available for rental.

Home exchange arranged for the Olympics: Swapping Canada for England

'Our London exchange home looks a perfectly nice, clean place with parking and a wee garden, occupied by a family of three just like us, and so seemed a good "safe" choice (safe, as in, you know just what to expect). So if it is lacking in extraordinary views, fascinating historical associations, or long-steeped atmosphere, it will make up for in predictability, a premium commodity indeed when travelling. In short, it may not be haunted by the ghost of Virginia Woolf, but at least it's not haunted. Moreover, its location makes it easy to get by Underground to Stratford Tube station, for the main Olympic site, and this is a bonus too. We wouldn't have felt safe getting any of the four sets of tickets we've got without first being certain of our swap accommodations (You really do have to jump for those tickets very early when they are briefly made available in lots and by country online).

We always knew we wanted to do a home exchange, having dreamed of it for many years, since before it went online and the listings were in big thick catalogues we would borrow from retired colleagues (veteran exchangers) to browse through. So the swap bug has been in us a long while, but frankly since my health problems (with fatigue, pain and mobility issues due to MS) have made regular travel increasingly more daunting, the idea of home exchange has become even more appealing. The format promotes a slower pace and guarantees me a way to rest without holding my family back from whatever adventures they are up to. And without hearing cash register bells ca-ching-ing crazily in my head at the thought of all that money "wasted" on the hotel bed I'm resting in. So, I think home exchange allows you to be as well as do and see.

The Olympic trip idea has been in the works a long time as well. Joe already has two Games trips under his belt - Barcelona and Los Angeles.

Which brings us to the third bug, which is England. I've been, Joe hasn't yet, and he is convinced that I am drawn there because of a previous life as an English lady. So it seems, perhaps because of my background in English lit?  Anyhow, you don't need an excuse to spend time in the UK'. - Gloria Getty, Woodstock, Ont, Canada

Note: Gloria, Joe and daughter, Harper are exchanging their large 1894 Victorian home (in photo above), complete with turret, in Woodstock, Ontario for the Salter family's modern home in South Woodford, East London.

There's still time to arrange a home swap for the Olympics. See our special Olympics information page and sample home exchange offers.

Have you had a long term home exchange?

A journalist writing for the Property section of a British Sunday newspaper sends the following request:

'I am looking for help in finding a case study for an article I am writing. What I need, please, are two people/families who have swapped homes within the UK on a long term basis, i.e. for a year or more. If you have done this, I'd really like to talk to you (I'm hoping part of your reason may be that, though you wanted to move for whatever reason - job, family, change of scene - it was too hard to sell and buy homes and much easier to swap homes instead).

Please let us know if you have taken part in a long term home exchange within the UK (for whatever reason) and we'll pass your message to the journalist who will contact you directly.

US-UK 'Twin Towns' TV series: home swap participants offered free trip

Would you and your family like an all expenses paid trip overseas for a new prime time TV show? If so - "Twin Towns" wants YOU! A British TV company is looking for fun families from the UK and the USA who would like to 'swap lives' for one week with a family from their twin town or sister city. As well as swapping homes, the families will have the opportunity to experience each others' jobs, schools, culture, interests and the best of what their host city has to offer. 

If you and your family are available for one week between 16th April and 31st June and would like further details about this all expenses paid trip, please let us know (mark your message 'Twin Towns') and we'll pass it on to the producer. Note: there are around 160 Twin Towns and Sister Cities in the UK and USA from the obvious, Cambridge and Cambridge, to the not so obvious, Little Rock and Newcastle. Click here to see if you live in one from the list.

London - a foodie Heaven for a home swap (tips for the 2012 Olympics and beyond)

'We are very excited about the prospect of our first house swap.  We were slow on the dash for Olympic tickets so have decided instead to head out of London and have a break. The idea of finding ourselves in a fantastic location where we can get some insider information on where all the good places are ticks all our boxes and that we can do the same in return appeals to my social outlook on life. 

When we go away there is always one thing top of the agenda. Food. We love it - cooking it, eating it and even shopping for it. Running a business selling fresh truffles means that we've really got to know and love the foodie scene in London. Finding people all over the world who love their foodie scenes as much as their house just gets my mouth watering. 

My dream house swap will be as much about helping our guests enjoying the best food and coffee London has to offer as it will be about going to experience their part of paradise. 

While the Olympics are on, do not doubt there will be plenty of poor food on offer, the trick will be making sure you know where to get the good stuff.

I have three recommendations I suggest anyone to try:

1. Go to Leather Lane where you can find Prufrock and Department of Social Affairs, two coffee shops both alike in dignity serving up London's best coffee and great lunchtime eats. Prufrock is my morning coffee stop and something I might miss while I'm away...
2. Treat yourself to a gastronomic delight at Roganic, a pop-up restaurant in Marylebone headed up by Ben Spalding, a 24 year old Chef who you can expect to have a Michelin star very soon.  It's very reasonably priced at £80 for a 10 course taster menu and is where I've eaten my favourite dish ever (that is a high accolade).
3. Try to meet the locals by going to a supper club. There is a movement in London for foodies to turn their front rooms into restaurants. It's an underground movement, so do a search for "London supper clubs" and you'll see there are a lot of options there.

So if any foodies out there, living in breathtaking beauty would like to swap during the Olympics, just let me know!' - Hugo, London

Hugo, Emma and 3 and 1/2 year old Oscar live in a Victorian flat in an amazing location, a two minute walk from Greenwich Royal Park (Olympic venue for equestrian events and modern pentathlon). The photo above shows a view from the park. See their full home exchange offer.