Agreeing to a Home Exchange - What to Discuss??

Well, it's mid February and things are really starting to happen! Before I write about the things to discuss with potential home exchange partners I want to update the list of all the places we have had offers from since my last post on January 30. We are averaging about 1 offer every day or so and some of them are very tempting! Here's the list...

* Martinique in the French West Indies
* Normandy, France - a 16th century cider farm...sounds so amazing!
* Dorset, England
* Berkeley, California, USA - 3 offers here
* North Zealand, Denmark
* Geldermalsen, The Netherlands
* Paris, France
* Aix-en-Provence, France
* Strabane, Ireland

For some of the offers I receive, I reply to immediately to say that we are not interested. I think it's just good form to let someone know right away if you are not interested in an exchange. I quickly reply something along the lines of, "Thank you so much for your offer of home exchange but we are not able to travel to Europe this summer," or some such thing. No big explanations needed!

With others, I will reply to say that we are interested. When this happens I begin with a very short reply that covers just a few basic things.

1) The date range during which we are able to exchange.
2) The maximum amount of time for which we are able to exchange.
3) I let them know that we have a car available for exchange - of course, this is not required...it does make your exchange more attractive to some people though!
4) I remind them that our home is close to the beach, Los Angeles, and Disneyland.

I then ask them to reply to let me know if they are still interested and, if so, will the dates and the length of the exchange work for them.

If you get a reply back it's time to start an email discussion in earnest! This is where it starts to get very real and VERY fun! This is your chance to get to know this stranger who may end up being a friend and in whose home you may end up spending quite a bit of time!

My goal today is to make sure that the discussion you have is complete and leaves no stone unturned. Every exchange we have done has been successful because everything is thoroughly discussed beforehand and there are no surprises.

This is the point in the process where you will need to choose a home exchange partner and commit. Sometimes this happens part of the way through the discussion of details, sometimes it's at the beginning, and sometimes it's at the end. It all depends on the complexity of the exchange and how comfortable you are with each other.

A commitment to an exchange really means purchasing airfare. Yes...it's a little scary!  

You are laying out a lot of cash and you are trusting that the other party will follow through as well.

Before doing so I make a fairly formal announcement along the lines of, 

"We are ready to commit to an exchange with your family and come visit London! Is this something you are ready to do? I am looking at flights on June 16th arriving on June 17th and departing on August 5. Let us know if you are ready to commit to an exchange and we will book our tickets!" 

I always tell my home exchange partner when I will be buying the tickets and ask them to tell me when they will be buying theirs. As soon as I make the purchase I send them a copy of my flight information so they can see I have purchased it and I also ask them to send me theirs as well.

There are several general categories that you need to cover with a potential home exchange partner. I'm simply going to list them here along with some of the issues that typically arise.

The Houses

Both yours and theirs!

* Will there be a housekeeper or cleaning service during the exchange? If not, what are the expectations for having the homes cleaned during the stay and upon departure.
* Entry to the house - how will they get the keys to your house and how will you get the keys to theirs?
* Leaving the house - where should they leave the keys and where should you leave theirs?
* Is there an alarm system on their house or yours? If so, how is is disarmed and does it need to be armed whenever they house is not occupied?  How unfortunate it would be to set their house alarm off - not the best way to meet their neighbors!

Cars

If you're exchanging cars you want to ask if they have experience driving in your country or area. I typically find that most international home exchangers have quite a bit of experience driving in other countries. If someone is from a country where cars drive on the opposite side of the road, you will want to make sure they have experience driving on your side of the road!

If you are driving their car you will want to know what insurance arrangements they have to cover you. Several times, I have been asked to supply my driving record, which I am happy to do!

Here are some other things to discuss...

* How will you get their car? Will they leave it at their home and you will take a taxi to get there? Will they leave it in long-term parking with the key hidden? Will they park it in a serviced garage where it can be retrieved at the airport? You will also need to make arrangements for them to get access to your car.

* At the end of the trade where should you leave the car? Parked at the house? In a garage at the airport?

Who Is Staying In Your Home?

It's important to clarify exactly who will be staying in your home. Just because their listing shows a picture of a cute family with a dad, mom, and two kids, they may want to bring other people on vacation with them.

This summer we had a mom and her teenage son stay at our home. About a month before the exchange they asked if their friends, another couple and their two kids, could come along. Luckily we have plenty of room and they had a great time! We have also had last minute additions to our exchanges and it's always worked out fine. This has only happened on 3 of our 13 exchanges and we always would have the option of saying no if we weren't comfortable with this.

Pets

Make sure to be clear about pets. Some people don't mind and may even love to care for your fur babies! Other people don't want the hassle. Again, you would hope that they would have read your listing and know if you have a pet or not but sometimes, they may not have!

I have a cat. Like most cats he is incredibly independent and really doesn't need anything besides food in a bowl twice a day. Outlining the pet care expectations is important.

We have cared for cats, dogs, and fish on our exchanges. Some were very low maintenance and others were a little more work! One dog had pre-prepared, gourmet food in the freezer that needed to be defrosted and fed to him. After that exchange we decided not to care for any more dogs. Archie was a cute labradoodle but a handful at the same time who should have had his own personal chef!

To Skype Or Not To Skype

Sometimes a potential home exchange partner will want to talk on the phone or Skype to discuss details. I always think it's rather fun to hear their voice and chat for a while! Sometimes it's just a call to get to know each other and other times it's to hammer out a list of details. Before getting on the phone or the laptop, make a list of items you want to discuss so the conversation moves and it constructive!

Most of the other details that need to be discussed will come up in the course of the subsequent discussions. 

Every home exchange is going to have details that are unique to the exchange situation and to the individual homes. If you exchange to southeast Asia you may need to discuss a live-in housekeeper and how that will work. Some homes are a bit difficult to find and you'll want very specific instructions for how to get there. You'll want to discuss who you can call if you have problems with the house or car. In a subsequent posting I'll give examples of some of the interesting details that I have come with our home exchange partners.

As you work out details and questions are asked, your home exchange will begin to take shape!

Next time I will discuss the part that is the most important...preparing your home for the actual exchange. There are so many things to think about and I will do my best to outline all of them.

Until then, good luck finding a home exchange partner in a fabulous location!!

Home Exchange Offers in January!

So January is the first month when most people start sending out home exchange offers. If this year is like years past, we will begin to get multiple offers per day from all over the world very soon. People from places we have listed as preferences on our home exchange page will be where most of them are from.

The fun ones though, are the offers from crazy places we have never considered going. Our best home exchange ever was 5 weeks in Thailand - and we had never even thought of that as a destination for our summer vacation before we received an offer of home exchange and decided to go for it! Other wild places we have received offers from include Namibia, coastal Turkey, Tenerife, India, Kenya, and Russia just to name a few. We wanted to go to all of them but, alas, reality limits the loveliness of dreams.....

This year though, for the month of January, here are the home exchange offers we have received...

The Hague, the Netherlands
Albi, France + their vacation cottage on the Mediterranean
Portland, Oregon, USA
Budapest, Hungary
Nantes, France
Antwerp, Belgium
Oxford, England - a thatched home!
Toulouges, France
Copenhagen, Denmark
Montpellier, France
Jagerspris, Denmark
Amsterdam, the Netherlands (2 offers here)
Strasbourg, France
Barcelona, Spain

...and it's only the end of January! The home exchange offer season still has many months to go.
Any one of these fantastic homes would be a great place to spend our family vacation this summer!

Want to find out how to have your own list of offers like this??
Then keep reading down the page.

I'll be posting the next entry within the next day or two.
The topic? How to narrow down your offers and what to discuss with potential home exchange partners before you agree to an actual exchange.

Stay tuned!

Home Exchange Is Full of Surprises!

Home exchange is always full of surprises!

The best surprise is when you walk into your new, temporary "home" for the first time.

There is nothing more fun than getting the keys to a house and exploring! I remember our very first home exchange in a small town in southwest France. The taxi driver who picked us up at the train station couldn't find the house at first and we couldn't imagine where it was tucked in on the little side street it was supposed to be on. When we finally narrowed it down to where it must be there was no visible front door; just a large garage door in a stucco wall bordered on one side by a large stone building and on the other by a tall, very typical stone house with beautiful blue shutters and decorative steel balconies. The "house" we were to stay in looked like a walled fortress. I was not amused!

Finally we figured out that the steel front door was tucked into an alcove behind another stucco wall and the taxi driver left us standing with our bags and we just hoped that the key would fit!

It did but then we entered a pitch dark entry way that was about 3 feet by 3 feet square. Finally we opened a door and entered a long, very dark hallway that sloped downward and then upwards. I began to get a little worried. Up two steps at the end there was another closed door. Without anyplace else to go I turned the handle and, with a heavy sigh of relief and a pleased / happy bounce and squeal from my 7 year old son, we entered into a beautiful light and bright living room with lofty ceilings, massive fireplace, and huge windows looking out onto a large terrace with the grassy garden and large swimming pool below.

This was the thing that really got me hooked...even though you have seen many pictures and gotten acquainted with your home exchange partners before you leave, there are always fantastic surprises that await you at your home exchange destination!

Home Exchange...how to introduce yourself to potential home exchange partners!

Home exchange offers since last blog post: 7

Strasbourg, France

Amsterdam, the Netherlands (2 offers here)

Copenhagen, Denmark (2 offers here)

Montpellier, France

Toulouges, France

Now that you have taken the time to create your home exchange listing you are ready to start searching the database of the home exchange website you chose to join. Many of these websites have reverse searches, making it easy to pinpoint potential home exchange partners who live in a place you would like to visit AND who want to come to your area. This is the best way to find people quickly without randomly searching through hundreds of listings hoping to find someone who wants to come to your city.

Once you find homes that you are interested in you can start sending out tempting queries to potential home exchange partners in hopes that someone will "bite" and you can begin a conversation that may lead to your dream vacation. 

So how do you create a query that will be informative, enticing, and attractive?

Communication is everything!

And, as with everything, first impressions are important!

Keep your initial query short and to the point. You want to share basic information that will quickly let a potential exchange partner know if an exchange might work for them as well!

Here are the 8 things you query should include:

1) The date range in which you wish to travel.
2) Your desired length of stay in their home.
3) The number of people in your group, their ages, and relationships.
4) Your location.
5) Basic information about your house.
6) Whether or not you have pets that need care or that will be absent from the house.
7) Whether or not you would like to consider a car exchange.
8) A few tempting tidbits about your home and area.

To give you an idea of how your initial query might be worded, here's my standard spiel from last summer.

**************************************************

"Hello from sunny southern California! 

Our family is looking for an exchange to Amsterdam any time between the dates of 

June 15 - August 10. 

We would like to stay in your home for 4 - 6 weeks so that we can visit family in Amsterdam and enjoy the city.

Our family includes Randall and Anita (the parents) and our 17 year old son, Skyler.

We take excellent care of our home and would care for yours as if it were our own!

Our house can comfortably sleep 5, is newly remodeled, and includes a fire pit in the backyard for relaxed summer evenings. 

Our cat, Butterscotch, needs to be fed but is otherwise very independent. 

Ideally we would like to swap cars.

Our home is located in a quiet neighborhood in (our town) California about 10 minutes from some of the best beaches in the area! We are 20 minutes from Disneyland, 30 minutes from Hollywood, and you can be in Las Vegas in 4 hours by car. Our friendly neighbors will welcome your kids to play and will probably invite you for a barbecue during your stay!

Please let us know whether or not you have interest! We look forward to hearing back from you.

Randy, Anita and Skyler"

**************************************************

This short message is enough to let other parties know if the swap may work for them or not. 

I usually copy and paste this message into a word document that I keep on my desktop and use it whenever I find a promising house that I think might be a good exchange for us.

So what do I do once I get a response or a query?

Well, of course, that's up to you! I find that I get a response from about 60% of all the queries I send. About 70% of our actual home exchanges have come from people who query us.

When I send out a query, some respond with a flat out "no thank you". Others have additional questions that I answer as honestly as I can. Some are a fast and enthusiastic "YES!!". That's when it starts to get very interesting! Sometimes I will get multiple "yesses" at once and I need to quickly start conversations with each of them to weed out the ones that won't work for us or that just aren't very interesting.

In the end, between those who have queried us and those we have queried, we almost always have 10 - 15 excellent choices and can choose which one is the most spectacular with which to confirm a trade. 

Of the 7 queries I have in my inbox right now I can easily weed out several of them. One of them does not have an adequate bed for my 6'3" tall son. One of them wants to come for 4 weeks in August which will not work for us. Two are from Copenhagen which is not of interest to us. One is from Montpellier which although it is a beautiful city, we already did a 5 week exchange there several summers ago. 

So, as of today, I'm left with a gorgeous Amsterdam house right on a canal or a fairly standard house in Strasbourg, France, a place I've ALWAYS wanted to visit. Decisions, decisions....

It will all come down to preference in these two cases. Do I want to further explore Amsterdam and visit my husband's Dutch relatives OR do I want to go to a brand new place, eat croissants, and drink French wine, and improve my language skills??? 

Once you have several viable choices in your inbox, that's when you need to start getting into the details with each one of your potential trading partners.

My next post will be about prioritizing your potential trades and then negotiating the details of an exchange! It isn't difficult but there are certain things that you want to make perfectly clear before agreeing to an exchange and investing in airline tickets. There are questions to be asked and details to be hammered out. 

Stay tuned!

Home exchange...create a listing that will make your home stand out!

Home exchange offers since last post: 3

Locations: Italy, Copenhagen, Barcelona

If you are ready to take the dive and list your house on a home exchange website

NOW IS THE TIME!!

This is the time of year that people all over the world are starting to cruise home exchange listing websites, searching for the perfect place to spend their summer holiday! From now until mid-spring is when most home exchangers secure their trades for the coming summer. If you are going to get your house noticed you need to get it listed in a way that makes it stand out from the rest and you need to get it listed now! We are already getting inquiries for the summer - more and more will come in over the next four months. As the offers come in, I'll be posting them at the top of each blog post so that you can see the number we receive and the variety of choices we have every year! 

As an aside....and just to entice you into the world of home exchange...as I write this blog post I'm sitting in a lovely, large home in a popular ski resort town in California! The snow is falling, it's quiet, and it didn't cost us a penny. It's a home exchange. The couple we swapped with is in our house with their son and daughter-in-law and their two cute granddaughters. They prepared Christmas dinner in our home with relatives who live in our area and are having a wonderful time according to the email they just sent! We are also having a great time. Sunday we snowshoed, yesterday we skied, today we hiked around a beautiful frozen lake! Tomorrow, who knows?! Do you see why this form of travel is fantastic?? I hope I am convincing you to try it out...you won't be sorry and you'll never want to travel any other way again!

So...what is it that makes an attractive home exchange listing that will get you many views as well as many offers and, ultimately, an unforgettable vacation?  

There are four things to include in your listing

that will make your home the one that will catch the eye of a potential home exchange partner as they peruse the listings. 

1) Your photos

2) The description of your home

3) The description of your area and activities

4) The description of your family / home exchange group

Let's first talk about your photos. They are the #1 most important thing that will make your home and area attractive. 

The most important photo of the lot is the thumbnail. 

Most home exchange websites will have a "cover" photo for your home. Some exchange websites have small thumbnails while others have large thumbnails. This is the one thing that will draw people in to take a closer look. You should choose a photo that shows one of the best, if not the best aspect of your home. Do you have a pool, great kitchen, interesting architectural details? Maybe your home isn't anything to get excited about? Then focus on the things in your home's area that make it attractive. Are you near a beach, a major city, museums, amusement parks? Then feature one of those. There is always something that a potential home exchange partner may be looking for...make sure they find it in your listing! 

To give you an idea, here is the thumbnail I use for my home. It's a great feature of our house and was one of the reasons our exchange partners last summer said they looked further into our listing.

Wouldn't you like to relax here with a glass of wine on a summer evening?

The rest of your photos should fall into five categories:

- Wide exterior shots

- Detail exterior shots

- Wide interior shots

- Detail interior shots

- Shots of area attractions and entertainment

These are the photos that will tell the story of your home and area in pictures. They are important and you need to make sure that they portray an accurate and realistic picture of your home. A potential home exchange partner will want to see the spaces of your home to see if they will physically fit their travel group and include the things that are important to them in an exchange home. 

A few tips on the photos to make sure you include...

* Beds - show them! It is important to show people where they will sleep. For us, seeing the beds in a home is important because our son is 6'3" tall and can't sleep in a toddler bed. Some listings will say they have beds to sleep 4 but then two of them will be beds for small children! Won't work for us...

* The kitchen - some people want to cook and want a kitchen that will suit their needs. 

* Bathrooms - some people want a tub and to others that isn't important. 

* Public spaces - make sure these are clear and defined. If the travel group is large enough they may want more than one space to escape to at the end of the day. If you have a children's playroom or area make sure to feature it!

* Pets - super important! Some folks are very willing and happy to care for a pet. Others will have allergies and, once they see Fluffy, they may simply move on since they don't want to spend their vacation in the ER! Some people just don't want to care for a pet and will move on...

Here is an example of two pictures from my listing that show a wide shot and detail shot of my kitchen.

It shows the space of my kitchen (not large) as well as detail that shows my decorating style and the fact that it is clean!

Last tip...clean your house before you take your photos! I know this seems basic and obvious but I can't tell you how many listings I have seen where the house looks like there was a raging party the night before, the kids and their stuff have taken over the house, or it hasn't been cleaned, ever. NEXT!!

The next most important thing is the description of your home. Keep it concise yet descriptive enough that a potential home exchange partner will keep looking and not get mired down in too much detail. 

Here's the description of our home from our home exchange listing to give you an example.

***************************

"We own a single story home on a quiet street, in a friendly and safe neighborhood in (our town), California, just 10 minutes from some of the best beaches in southern California! 

Our home is casual, comfortable, and equipped with everything you need. We have 3 bedrooms. The master bedroom sleeps 2, the second bedroom sleeps 2, the third bedroom sleeps 1, plus a sleeper sofa in the office sleeps 2). Two full bathrooms. Fully equipped kitchen with Nespresso machine, coffee maker, professional mixer, double convection oven and lots of other cooking/baking toys. Wi-Fi throughout the house, TV with 1000+ channels, streaming tv and movies via Netflix and Amazon, 3 bikes, and great neighbors who will be happy to help you out and answer any questions you have. 

We have a fairly large backyard (by LA standards) with an outdoor dining area, swing, and fire pit for summer nights. Pick fruit from our trees!"

****************************

This, along with the pictures, gives a potential home exchange partner everything they need to know if your home may work for them. 

One thing you'll notice is that I avoid idioms or other expressions that may not be understood by someone from another country. I don't say things like "queen bed" - this would mean diddly-squat to someone from France or England where bed sizes are expressed in centimeter measurements. Instead, I tell how many people each bed sleeps. A term like "wi-fi" on the other hand is a universally understood term that you see everywhere. Think about this as you write your description. 

After someone looks at your photos and reads the description, hopefully you've peaked their interest and they will continue looking at other aspects of your listing. This is where the description of your area and all there is to do in it, becomes important. List everything. This is the longest section of my listing and goes into detail. 

I list as much as I can think of in three sections...

1) Things to do in my immediate community

2) Things to do within a day's drive of my home

3) Things to do away for the weekend.

Some of our exchange partners stay very close to home. They want to go to the beach and eat good food. Others have kids and want to keep them entertained. A few of them take our car (yes, we often exchange cars...more on that in a later posting - you don't have to though!) and go away for the weekend to the desert, the mountains, or other cities in California. Make sure that there is something for everyone in this part of your listing!

Finally, the last piece of making a potential home exchange partner feel comfortable with you is to tell them a little about yourself. Most listing websites have a space specifically for this purpose. If the one you choose doesn't, then find a place to insert it. You can share as much or as little as you like. At the very least you should share your first name, your profession, as well as a bit about your hobbies and interests. Share how many people are in your travel party and their ages. Some listings you will read include a lot of detail but it really isn't necessary. As you communicate via email with those on your home exchange short list, you'll get to know more about them as it's necessary. 

As you prepare to create your listing take some time to read others and use what you like to make yours stand out.

In my next post I'll be talking about 

communication with potential home exchange partners.  

What questions should you ask? 

What should you look for in the listing of someone who has sent you a query?

What details should be discussed so that everything is clearly understood and there are no surprises?

Once an exchange is agreed to how do you work out the details with someone who may be a world away?

All this and more in my next post...stay tuned!

Home Exchange...how do I start??

"Can I really exchange my home? It really isn't anything special."

The answer is resoundingly, "Yes!". Many people think that they have to have a stunning model home in order to exchange homes. Truly, you don't need a perfect house.  Here's a picture of my (Christmasy) family room...it's nice but not luxurious or spectacular in any sense of the word...I have a fairly typical, suburban, American home.

When people look to exchange homes they are looking for several things.
1) A home that will comfortably accommodate the size of their family or travel group. 
2) A location that fits the kind of vacation they are looking for.
3) A place they can retreat to at the end of a long day where they can feel at home and relax.
4) Specific amenities in the home that fit the needs of their group. This may include a swimming pool, proximity to a specific leisure activity, or a really great kitchen if they want to cook. Some people have more requirements than others!

When we first started exchanging in 2007, we had remodeled just a few areas of our 4 bed/2 bath circa 1953 home in a suburb of Los Angeles. One bathroom was done but the other was in original condition. We had done all of the flooring and remodeled the kitchen but the windows and doors were still original. Just be sure to be honest about your home in your listing. The description of your home should be detailed and clear and the photos you post should include anything that is not perfect such as a half-remodeled bath or the fact that one bedroom will be locked and unavailable. Since our home is in southern California we don't have central heat or air conditioning. This is clearly stated on our listing so that those won't be expected! Most everything in the house has since been remodeled or improved but, as with most homes, there are always imperfections that I'm clear about! (I'll write a piece on how to create your listing for maximum impact and disclosure in an upcoming post.)

When you start browsing the listings on one of the many home exchange sites online you'll soon see that there is a huge variety of homes available. You will see everything from small apartments to chateaux, suburban homes to architectural masterpieces on the beach! You can also find unique homes such as houseboats, thatched houses on the African savanna, and homes in the remote reaches of Australia. Some homes are neat and orderly and in others there are clearly small children living in the house and their stuff is everywhere! Some people keep neat kitchens and others are more cluttered. Some houses have lots of character and others are quite plain. Some of the houses we have stayed in have been in perfect condition. Others had elements about them that were less than ideal. Each home is going to be different so you need to decide what is important to you in an exchange home.

Depending on where you home is located, you may or may not end up exchanging with homes that are comparable to yours. Many, many people want to come to southern California and, since our home is close to the beach and quite centrally located for sightseeing, we frequently get the "better" end of the deal. We've exchanged for a ski chalet in Switzerland with views that were beyond anything we expected, a very large home in Thailand with a full-time housekeeper and two swimming pools, a multi-level house outside of Prague with an indoor pool and sauna, and we rattled around a 7 bedroom house in France on the outskirts of Paris complete with a wood-beamed attic that was tricked out as a teenage hangout room with home theater. Other houses have been much more humble but we have never traded "down" into something that wasn't at least as good as our own home. Even if you're not in an extremely desirable location you can still be picky about the kind of home you are willing to exchange with. Maybe it will be smaller but you can still look for properties that are well-appointed and suit your specific needs.

The indoor pool in the house near Prague...a very nice amenity! 

"OK...so I'm ready to give this a try. How do I get started?"

This is where you need to do your homework since there are many exchange listing websites available on the internet. Here is a sampling of just a few of the bigger ones.

HomeExchange.com
LoveHomeSwap.com
3rdHome.com (luxury listings only)
HomeBase-hols.com
HomeLink-usa.org
HomeForExchange.com.

The first thing you need to decide is on which one of these you want to list your home. Some of them have a fee for joining while others are free. Some of them require references while others do not. One actually has to approve your house before they will list it! Some limit the number of pictures you can post while others will let you post as many as you wish. Several have an area to not only post a listing of your house but also to create a detailed profile of who you are so that potential home exchange partners can get a sense of you, your family, and if you might be a good fit for an exchange.

Personally, I have always used HomeExchange.com. They are the largest listing service by far with over 65,000+ listings as of this blog posting. Full disclosure - I did a talk for HomeExchange.com out in LA two years ago and the owner, Ed Kushins, was nice enough to extend my membership until 2018 as thanks for my participation. That aside, I just like how many listings there are on this site and the fact that I get many offers of exchange every year via my listing. It's also well-designed and easy to navigate once you become familiar with it. At first I was listed on 4 different sites but got few offers from the other three. So I let those memberships lapse and have only used this one. Your experience may be different...I'm just sharing what I have found to be true in my own experience.

Take time to look at each one to see which you are most comfortable with. Some of the sites are more intuitive than others when it comes to building your listing. To me, it's important to be able to see clear pictures and descriptions of the listings, have a separate section for a profile of the people I am considering an exchange with, and have the ability to communicate easily with potential exchange partners.

In my next post I'll be discussing how to create your home exchange listing so that you get lots of interest in your home.

Home Exchange...every wondered how to travel this way??

So the winter holidays are here and with the spare time that often comes with them come thoughts of the coming summer and where to go…at least that’s what I do when the frenzy of shopping and relatives is over. Where do I want to go next summer? What part of the world do I want to explore? Do I want a pool? Beach? Mountains? City? That’s when I begin my search…the perfect people to trade houses with. And that’s when I begin to hear from others with the same thought. They are also looking for an ideal location to spend their summer and my location may be just what they are looking for!

If you like to travel you’ve probably heard of home exchange. Swapping homes with people. Trading lives. Stepping into a country as more than just a tourist. Living in a community and getting to understand a place more than you would if you stayed in a hotel. Experiencing a place not just as a visitor but living in a neighborhood, shopping for groceries, interacting with the neighbors, taking out the trash - a more immersive experience to be sure!

The first question I am always asked when people find out I exchange homes is, “Aren’t you worried about your stuff?”. Well, not really. Strangers are living in my home but I’m also living in theirs! It’s a matter of trust. In 13 exchanges over 7 years that trust has never been betrayed or even mildly challenged. Our home is always returned to us in the same condition as we left it, if not sometimes a little better!

As I continue to write, I’ll be covering topics such as how to find an exchange, pets, logistics, communication to avoid surprises, preparing your home, car exchange (or not?!) and how to help your home exchange partner get the most out of their time in your home. If you are wondering anything specific, feel free to ask! I love helping people travel this way and think it’s a piece of the sharing economy that improves understanding and enjoyment of the world on the part of both parties.

I hope you enjoy reading what I share!