Love to travel? Try Trading Places
29 Jun 2017
Forget expensive hotels and instead swap your home for a summer trip abroad.
Text and photos by Sharon Cutler
If you love to travel but crave the comforts of home, a home exchange might be right up your alley. Along with the amenities of a home, an exchange lets you take more vacations because you don’t have to pay hotel and car-rental fees. A home exchange is when you trade your home with someone else’s. It’s usually coordinated through an established network that charges a nominal annual fee to connect you with members around the world. The concept has been around since the 1950s, when queries were mailed and responses could take weeks. By comparison, today’s exchanges are a breeze with connections made and contracts signed online.
There are countless home-exchange networks to choose from; just Google “home exchange” and take your pick. To start your journey, simply join a network, create a listing that showcases your property and location, and start dreaming about where you want to go. There are no limits. Search for homes that fuel your fantasy with the perfect locale and number of bedrooms and baths, and are available during your travel dates. Then email the network members to see if your plans mesh. Once you agree on an exchange, your adventure begins. But be aware: As your geographical boundaries expand, you may find yourself becoming obsessed with magical places you never knew existed!
Besides the opportunity to travel to extraordinary destinations, the advantages of a home exchange are many. You get a travel base that’s an actual home, with separate bedrooms for the kids, a fully equipped kitchen, a yard, a potential pet, and perhaps even a car.
And the best thing about a home exchange is it’s free. Well, not exactly. While no money changes hands during a home exchange, a certain amount of sweat equity is required to prepare your home for a swap. There’s the obvious, of course, like stashing valuables, wiping crumbs out of the silverware drawer, vacuuming dust bunnies under the beds, and clearing space in your closets and dressers.
But it’s the not-so-obvious behind-the-scene tasks that can make or break a swap experience. Here are tricks my family has learned that have helped pave the way for successful exchanges. Katie Costable, the U.S. representative for HomeLink International, also weighs in with her advice.
