We have traveled almost exclusively via house swapping for the last decade. It’s amazing with children and has allowed us to be in a new location/culture with such ease and comfort. I highly recommend the HomeExchange platform. We’ve found that regular exchanging means we stay on top of maintenance and cleaning for our own home and we have fine tuned a visitor guidebook with recommendations and stuff to know about the house. Generally we even FaceTime or Skype with the family we’re exchanging with before the trip so we can “meet” and sort of walk through any little quirks about the properties. Finally, we also frequently exchange cars, bikes, equipment and doing all this has meant traveling the world and around our own region largely for free, just pay to get there!
This was so fun to read about! We did a home swap back in our mid 20s, with a couple in Paris that I found on Craigslist (yikes!) and it actually worked out really well! I never thought I could consider it with a kid, but maybe?
We have traveled almost exclusively via house swapping for the last decade. It’s amazing with children and has allowed us to be in a new location/culture with such ease and comfort. I highly recommend the HomeExchange platform. We’ve found that regular exchanging means we stay on top of maintenance and cleaning for our own home and we have fine tuned a visitor guidebook with recommendations and stuff to know about the house. Generally we even FaceTime or Skype with the family we’re exchanging with before the trip so we can “meet” and sort of walk through any little quirks about the properties. Finally, we also frequently exchange cars, bikes, equipment and doing all this has meant traveling the world and around our own region largely for free, just pay to get there!
This was so fun to read about! We did a home swap back in our mid 20s, with a couple in Paris that I found on Craigslist (yikes!) and it actually worked out really well! I never thought I could consider it with a kid, but maybe?
Did either of your have pets?
I am very excited by this idea and have some friends in mind!!
This was fascinating and so helpful! We’ve thought about doing this and will def refer back if we ever actually get it together to try.