Travel the Home Exchange Way

Home swap travel tip: promoting local attractions

If you live in a tourist area or a major city, you may think that potential home exchange partners will only be interested in how easy it is to get to well-known attractions from your home; of course, it is important to provide such information, and details of public transport, but don’t ignore those lesser known attractions closer to your home that you may take for granted or even not be aware of, for example, if you don’t have children living at home. Home swappers tend to be adventurous and open to exploring local neighbourhoods and will appreciate your suggestions which, of course, you can expand on when in direct contact during your home exchange arrangements.

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Anna and Jeremy, along with their toddler daughter and baby son, live in Herne Hill, a suburb in southeast London. They have included in the Home Base Holidays home swap offer a detailed and really inviting list of attractions in their area. See below the description of their local attractions. 

 

Within walking distance… 

• At the bottom of the road you’ll find Sunray Gardens, a peaceful public garden and play-park, with an artisan bakery and coffee shop nearby. The glorious Ruskin Park with wild flower garden, paddling pool and views across London is 10 minutes away on foot and you’ll pass the Grade II listed art-deco Carnegie Library en route. 
• Herne Hill, with its pedestrianised hub, is 8 minutes away on foot. You’ll find a flower shop, book shops, gift shops, artisan bakeries and restaurants amid live music from the street piano. The buzzing Sunday market sells a wide range of high quality food alongside vintage collections and designer craft.
• Herne Hill is directly opposite the magnificent Brockwell Park, South East London’s largest park, with orchard, rose garden, ponds, Lido, large children’s play area and cafes. There is a 600 year old oak tree and a fantastic view across London. 
• Dulwich Village is 15 minutes away on foot, home to the famous Dulwich Picture Gallery, serene Dulwich Park with its American Gardens, bike hire, boating lake and enticing café and ice-cream parlour. There’s also a historic pub in the village, plus more restaurants, cafes and gift shops to explore. 

Within 10 minutes by car or an easy bus ride away you’ll find…

Visit the fabulous overstuffed walrus in London's Horniman Museum

•  The unmissable Horniman Museum, with its natural history and musical instrument collection, gardens, butterfly house, aquarium and panoramic view across London (the famous over-stuffed walrus in the museum is shown in the photo).
• East Dulwich and Lordship Lane; home to a fantastic range of restaurants, including a pastificio selling to-die-for handmade pasta, a lively Saturday street market, plus cinema and boutiques.
• Brixton Village, you’ll find a maze of small, independent food outlets, selling authentic dumplings, pancakes, craft ales, Italian Cuisine, tapas and cocktails alongside unique galleries, clothes boutiques and gift shops. Brixton also has the elegant, refurbished cinema, the Ritzy.
• The South London Gallery in Camberwell, a famous contemporary art gallery, with café, bookshop and landscaped garden. 
• Sydenham Wood: one of London’s best kept secrets, a delightful mix of new and ancient woodland with remnants of Victorian gardens, home to more than 200 species of trees and plants as well as bats, birds and woodland mammals.
•  You`ll of course have all of all London available within easy reach - whilst there is much to enjoy within the immediate local area too.

>> View the family's home exchange offer in London 

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During the current uncertainty over worldwide travel due to Covid-19, with guidelines and restrictions likely to continue to fluctuate, some members understandably will not yet want to make firm travel commitments. However, it is a really good time to start contacting members to discuss possible home swaps, even if some members will not yet want to finalise dates.

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Planning a home swap holiday:

• Preparing for a home swap checklist 
• Top 10: things to do at the end of a home swap
• Cleaning tips for holiday home swaps during COVID-19
• Search the latest home exchange offers

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Join Home Base Holidays: start planning your travels for 2021 Whether you're looking for staycation ideas or planning ahead to overseas travel in 2021, by arranging a home exchange vacation through Home Base Holidays, you'll cut the cost of your getaways by up to 90%. View the latest home swap travel offers and join for free.

Home Swappers newsletter: home exchanges in 2021?

Understandably, many people will not yet feel ready to make firm travel commitments. However, it's a good time to start new conversations with Home Base Holidays members so that you can begin penciling in your home exchange travel plans for 2021.

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• Check out the latest issue of the Home Swappers travel newsletter

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In this issue of the Home Swappers newsletter:

• Featured home swaps: traditional cottage on the Isle of Barra, Scotland | Apartment in Chamonix, France with fabulous views of Mont Blanc
• Arrange a 'working' home exchange getaway
• We're here to help: get in touch if you've had to cancel or postpone your home swap plans
• Check out our cleaning guidelines for home swapping during Covid-19
• Latest home swap holiday offers for 2021 

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Join Home Base Holidays: start planning your travels for 2021 Whether you're looking for staycation ideas or planning ahead to overseas travel in 2021, by arranging a home exchange vacation through Home Base Holidays, you'll cut the cost of your getaways by up to 90%. View the latest home swap travel offers and join for free.

Cabin fever from working from home? Try a home swap

Working from home? Arrange a home exchange for a change of scenery

If you are one of the thousands of people who have been working from home, you may already have a case of cabin fever from staring at the same four walls day after day. If this sounds like you, and you are in desperate need of a change of scenery but still must continue to work (yes, working from home is definitely not an easy option!), you might want to consider arranging a 'working' home swap holiday. You don’t need to fly off to far-flung destinations (and possibly can’t yet anyway) but by arranging a staycation home exchange you could potentially continue to work while enjoy a much needed break. 

For example: Maybe you live in a London flat (and, like many people, possibly combining remote working with home schooling); home exchangers with country or seaside homes may desperately need a safe base in London, perhaps grandparents eager to catch up with grown-up children and grandchildren they’ve been separated from for months. Perfect match!

 

Understandably, for weeks during the height of the pandemic, most peoples' thoughts were not on home swapping or, indeed, travel of any kind. Many Home Base Holidays members had to postpone their home swap plans or put arranging new swaps on hold. However, as the UK and many other countries have cautiously began to step out of lockdown, many of us are at last able to get back to some form of normality. This has, much to our delight, resulted in, first a trickle, and now a steady flow, of new and renewing Home Base Holidays members.

As experienced home exchangers know, to give yourself the best chance of arranging a suitable swap, you should ideally allow yourself plenty of time (you will want to get to know potential exchange partners before agreeing to go ahead with a swap). Therefore, even if you aren’t planning to travel until later this year or maybe not until 2021, it really is a good idea to add your home swap offer now so that you can contact other members to start making your travel plans!

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Shown below are some of the latest holiday home swap offers added to Home Base Holidays.

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Join Home Base Holidays: start home swapping Looking for a much needed break? Arrange a home swap and enjoy free holiday accommodation. View the latest home swap offers then sign up to Home Base Holidays.

Q&A: looking for a wheelchair accessible home swap

Finding wheelchair accessible home swap accommodation

Q: I have an apartment in Prague and am looking to spend 1-2 months in an English speaking country from March/April 2021. However, I use an electric wheelchair and so it's important that I find accommodation that is suitable. I'm interested in arranging a home swap but will I find accommodation that meet my requirements?

A: Thanks for getting in touch and great to hear you’re interested in arranging a home exchange holiday. We have home exchange offers in over 90 countries but, being based in London, we have a particularly good selection of offers here in the UK. We also have quite a number of offers in other English-speaking countries such as Australia, New Zealand, Canada and USA.

On signing up to Home Base Holidays, members select if their home has wheelchair accessibility. If you go to the home exchange search page, you will see a small wheelchair icon next to any listings where the member has indicated that their home has disabled access/facilities. You can narrow down your search using the “Additional options” filters and select the “Disabled access / facilities” option (see image below). 

In terms of the length of your home exchange, there are many members looking for longer exchanges or 1-2 months. Again, use the filters on the home swap search page to narrow down your search to members looking for swaps of 1-2 months (some members leave their swap duration as 'Open to offers' and so it's good to also preform searches leaving the swap duration option empty). 

Note: Home Base Holidays members select which facilities options are applicable to their homes, including the disabled facilities option. The disabled facilities option will usually indicate that, at a minimum, there are no steps and the doors are wide enough in the home to accommodate a wheelchair. However, some homes will have many more (or other) facilities in place for a family member with particular special needs. If you have special requirements that are crucial to make an exchange home suitable, you will need to make these clear when first contacting members to suggest a swap, and then ensure all your needs will be met before agreeing to an exchange.

 

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Planning a home swap holiday:

• Join Home Base Holidays
• Search the latest home exchange offers
• Preparing for a home swap checklist 
• Top 10: things to do at the end of a home swap
• Cleaning tips for holiday home swaps during COVID-19

Winning photo: home swap photography competition

Thanks to everyone that sent in their fabulous photos in our recent home swap travel photography competition. We received so many lovely photos and trip reports, making it very hard to select a winner. However, Scottish Home Base Holidays member Alison, who sent in the above photo from her July 2020 family home exchange in Suffolk, was chosen as the winner of the Echo Dot.

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About the winning photo:

"This photo is from the home exchange that we are currently on. Today we visited Flatford Mill where Constable painted the famous Haywain - this is the view that we have now of Willy Lotts House. We would never have thought about visiting Suffolk but thanks to Home Base Holidays we are discovering new places." 

On winning the competition:

"What Fantastic news. The girls are thrilled! There was an Alexa at the house we home exchanged with when we took the photo. Such a coincidence!"

- Alison, Emily & Iona (Kelso, Scotland)

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Meet the member:   Alison's two bedroom home swap offer in Kelso, a historic town nestling in the heart of the Scottish Borders - a great place for walking and cycling and includes the Eildon Hills and Borders Abbey Way.

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Members' photos: a few of the fabulous home swap photos we received

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We'll publish the trip reports that accompany the above photos in an upcoming blog post. 

 

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Join Home Base Holidays: start home swapping Looking for a much needed break? Arrange a home swap and enjoy free holiday accommodation. View the latest home swap offers then sign up to Home Base Holidays to start your home swap adventures.

Offering variations on a home exchange vacation

If you live in a popular area you are unlikely to be short of home swap holiday offers. However, wherever you live, if you are able to keep your swap request options open (travel dates and destinations) then you will often open yourself up to some fabulous places you may not have previously considered.

In addition to travel dates and destinations, having flexibility in the type of swap you do can also increase your options. For example:

• Simultaneous swap: this is a traditional home swap where you and the other member swap homes at the same time 
• Non-simultaneous swap: this is where you swap homes at different times (this can be a good option for second/holiday home owners)
• Hospitality swap: stay in a spare bedroom or sofa bed of the members home while they are also living in the property 
• House sitting: rather than swapping, you simply agree to look after a members home while they're away (great for people seeking pet care, watering the garden and the added security of not leaving your home empty)

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Lisa & Cristiano's home is close to the beautiful city of Verona

Long-time Home Base Holidays members, Lisa and Cristiano, live in a village very close to Verona, include the information in their home exchange listing:

"We are now looking for a home swap for August 2020. Our double room (sleeps 2/3) ground floor independent flat is nearly always available for non-simultaneous swaps/rent-otherwise full simultaneous house swap during (Italian) school Christmas or summer holidays or non-sim/staggered swaps."

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Lisa and Cristiano's Italian home swap offer:

"We welcome guests to stay with us in our three-floor house in a quaint village located in the beautiful Illasi valley on the outskirts of the ancient city of Verona. For non-simultaneous swaps our ground floor flat is available all-year round with a very spacious wood-panelled room with its own terrace where you can enjoy a glass of local Soave (the enchanting walled town and castle of Soave is a fifteen minute drive away) or Valpolicella wine or have a bbq overlooking the green hillside and cherry groves."

• View their beautiful home swap offer in the Illasi valley, Italy

 

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Join Home Base Holidays: start home swapping Looking for a much needed break? Arrange a home swap and enjoy free holiday accommodation. View the latest home swap offers then sign up to Home Base Holidays to start your home swap adventures.