Best wishes from everyone at Home Base Holidays. We hope you enjoy a wonderful festive season with friends & family... and start looking forward to fabulous home exchange holidays in 2025.
Home Swap Holidays for 2025
Start planning your home swap holidays for 2025. Enjoy fabulous budget friendly getaways.
Browse home exchange offers and start contacting members to plan your next holiday.
Swap homes and cut the cost of your holidays in 2025
Budget friendly holidays in 2025? By swapping homes rather than booking hotels or holiday rentals, you can enjoy a fabulous break at a fraction of the cost. The thing is, by arranging a home swap, your holiday accommodation is totally free! Therefore, it's not uncommon for Home Base Holidays members to cut their costs by over 90%. Search home swap offers
What is a home exchange holiday?
Home exchanging is where you agree to swap homes for the duration of the holiday with someone living in the destination you'd like to visit. So they stay in your home while you stay in their home - meaning you both enjoy free holiday accommodation. Home Base Holidays members arrange anything from a weekend breaks, 1-2-week holidays or even a 6+ month longer term home swaps.
Additional cost savings(cars, bikes, meals...)
Why stay in a cramped and expensive hotel room when you could enjoy the space and comforts of a real home. You'll also have use of a fully equipped kitchen and often laundry facilities. Preparing your own breakfasts or a packed lunch for a day out exploring is an excellent way to make additional savings.
Many home exchangers are also happy to swap cars for the duration of your stay. Some members will also offer their guests use of bikes and other sporting equipment (skis/snowboards, kayaks, etc) during the swap, giving you more flexibility, adventures, and even more cost savings!
How to arrange a home swap holiday?
The first step is to sign up to a home swap website such as Home Base Holidays. On signing up, you will add your listing (details about your home and where/when you want to travel). You can then browse properties and start contacting other members to arrange your home swap holiday.
Who are Home Base Holidays?
Home Base Holidays is one of the longest running home swap agencies with 40 years experience helping members arrange their holidays worldwide. You'll find thousands of home swap offers including country cottages, city apartments, even houseboats and yurts! Visit Home Base Holidays
"Thank you so much Nicola and David for making our first home swap holiday so smooth. We had such a lovely stay in your lovely, comfortable and spacious home. Excellent communication in advance and during the swap, plus lots of tips on things to do, local restaurants as well as maps to help us navigate once we arrived. The bottle of fizz and home made cheese scones you left were very yummy... that was a lovely touch! Thanks again."
Bell Lane House: Sally's beautiful cottage in Gloucestershire, England
It's always lovely to hear from Home Base Holidays members about their home swaps. Sally Hadley sent in this lovely feedback after just returning from a two month home exchange holiday to the north shore beach area of Sydney, Australia. Sally and her husband are very experienced home exchangers, enjoying their first swap in 1990, with three swaps already lined up for 2025.
Thinking about home swapping?Go for it... you won't regret it!
"Back in the day - as they say - when our children were young teenagers we ventured on our first swap to Santa Barbara in California. A lawyer’s house with all kinds of goodies. Cars were swapped; we had a blow out at 37degrees of heat in the desert – our kids still remember it. But all was fixed and we had a wonderful time visiting the Grand Canyon and Las Vegas. Since then we have had a month in Brittany (very relaxed and quiet), ventured to Grenada in the West Indies (very hot and beautiful) and to Australia twice (Brisbane and Sydney). In fact, we have just returned from two months in Sydney up on the northern beaches, high above trees overlooking the yachts on Pittwater and Scotland Island. We couldn’t believe our luck that a couple close in age to us (70s) would want to come to the UK in the winter. But they loved it – even the ice and snow. I think they forged more friendships in our small Cotswold village than we have in the two years we’ve lived here. We loved their house and we were so sad to leave. It was such a s fantastic base from which to visit our family and friends travelling up to the Sunshine Coast and down to Melbourne and Point Lonsdale over the Christmas period and New Year.
In addition to the big home swap holidays abroad, we have had lovely swaps closer to home here in the UK. We've swapped to Cornwall, Derbyshire, Kent and Cheshire... all of which have been amazing. No troubles, ever. We have returned each time to find the house immaculate and even lovely gifts left for us.
The key to successful swaps is certainly to have a friendly approach with lots of communication, and we always choose to exchange with like-minded people. We have found it excellent to talk on the telephone and to meet the other members if at all possible. We have been approached by people who we felt would not get on well in our cottage or where their offers did not appeal to us, and so we have declined gracefully so that they could contact other members. We have always known almost from the first message we received if it felt like a good match and that they would enjoy our cottage and location.
If you're thinking about home swapping, my advice is to go for it… you won’t regret it! We have loved our experiences and can’t wait for more - closer to home; Cumbria, Cornwall – already organised for 2025. Thank you Home Base Holidays… our best investment ever."
Sally Hadley
Sally's stone house in Gloucestershire
Bell Lane House was added to a much older house about 100 years ago. It is a lovely 3-bedroom stone built house with a garden overlooking the neighbouring church. It's in the centre of the small town of Minchinhampton, in the south west Cotswolds (the hilliest section). The ancient town is built on top of a ridge with wonderful views over the "golden valley", towards the river Severn and close to Stroud. An excellent location for walks in the beautiful countryside and there is a highly rated golf course nearby.
Home Base Holidays Helping provide travel tips and advice on arranging your home exchange holidays. Do get in touch if you have any questions about home swapping or if you are interested in contributing to the blog.
