Finding a home swap over the Christmas period

Q: I'm trying to find a suitable house exchange in England over the Christmas period, and wondered whether there was a 'short-cut' way of doing this with people who are also wanting to exchange then? – Joy, Sydney

A: You can search by exchange dates to find members in England looking for exchanges late December to early January. Click here to go to the search page. You will see that one of the search options in the left hand search bar is ‘Exchange dates’. Enter your date ranges into this box and then click the small magnifying glass icon to narrow down the search results.

Although using the date search option narrows the search results to homes most likely to suit your needs, it is always best to keep your searches as broad as possible so that you do not miss any potentially good swap matches (e.g. some members who may be happy to exchange over Christmas will have left their swap dates as ‘Open to offers’).  

It is a good idea to start your search early as it can sometimes take a little while to find an ideal match; however, keep checking regularly for new offers as many Home Base Holidays members won’t start looking for Christmas swaps until September or October.

Comments

[Lois, Home Base Holidays]

Many thanks for your useful comments Lauren. Being based in London, we find that many members in the UK arrange Christmas swaps with Australian and New Zealand members especially, very often as a way of being close to family members living abroad for the holiday period. Living in Sydney (a very popular exchange destination), Joy should have an excellent chance of arranging a suitable swap in England over Christmas and it's good that she's allowed plenty of time to find the perfect match.

[Lauren Kahn]

This is a tough one as 90% of exchanges occur during the Northern Hemisphere summer.

I have been exchanging since 1990 and did do one series of exchanges that included Christmas in Sydney. I had 3 home exchanges in the Blue Mountains, Canberra and Sydney. Some home hospitality in Tasmania was worked in and the trip was about 2 months. The trip was 2 years in the planning. Some of the Australians had multiple exchanges as well. No one was traveling with kids so we could all be flexible as everyone tried to accommodate everyone else. It was a lot of work to put the trip together.

Home exchange arrangements often have long lead times but there is no shortcut method to get a home exchange. I live in the Washington DC suburbs and, despite living in an attractive location, not everyone is interested in my location.

Good luck and happy exchanging.