My friends Chrissie and Hector have barely been home five minutes after holidaying in Spain for several months. And today they are packing their bags ready for their next jaunt in Australia. They are going to swap their home with a couple in Brisbane for six 
months. Oh, 
and they get a pool and car thrown in with the deal too.
This is something they do regularly, they have spent three long trips in America based in other people’s homes, and a couple more Down Under, and reckon it saves them between £7-£9,000.
They say they have never come unstuck, that they wouldn’t worry about the odd breakage offset against what they are saving. Their house in Cambridge is in a pretty desirable location too.
They use Home Exchange, which has beautiful properties all over the world, like the one in the pic. As Hector has retired, they can head off wherever they fancy at a minimal cost. They are real free spirits. They also integrate in the local community, even joining poetry groups and Toastmasters.
Of course, they give their house a good spring clean every time they swap, but find it’s well worth the effort.
Would you feel comfortable living in someone else’s home for six months? What if you didn’t like their home, or vice versa? I do know of one local couple who went off to LA for the summer, but their American counterparts refused to stay in their home and booked themselves into a hotel for the duration of their stay.
I wasn’t sure about this at first, but I can certainly see the advantages. Like this home in St Kitts which has a view to die for. The thing is, would they fancy my house too……
St kitt is very nice, backward and peacful. Bery different from Antigua and some other other islands.
Its enough to make you weep as I look out the window into the grey gloom- must phone in laws about trip to Burmuda
Hi Ellee,
Glad to see you spreading the word about home exchange! The know that you (like me) live in the UK, and generally, the world is your oyster if you are interested in swapping homes as the UK is a popular destination request. I have run a home exchange service, Home Base Holidays, from London for 22 years – do check out the listings! http://www.homebase-hols.com and, for any of your readers interested in finding out more about home exchange, I write regular posts for my blog on all aspects of swapping homes, http://homeexchangetravel.blogs.com
Ellee,
Just to let you and your readers know that we have just launched a new site called Know Your Trade, Home Exchange Made Easy, dedicated to explaining, supporting, and advancing the home exchange community. . We review and rate all home exchange clubs. We are not affiliated with any home swap organization and are totally free. Know Your Trade is the one- stop resource to learn all about home exchange.
Know Your Trade
Wow count me in Ellee. Should be able to do a decent swap with my house 🙂
…Would you feel comfortable living in someone else’s home for six months?…
No. But that’s just me.
If anyone if crazy enough to want to live in Birmingham, England instead of a sunny paradise, I’ll swap.
Dear Ellee,
Thank you for writing about Home Exchange.
In his song “Lay Lady Lay” Bob Dylan changed the phrase of a very old proverb: “You can have your cake and eat it, too.” This is exactly the way I feel about Home Exchange. Anything is possible. Like our last summer swap in Fiesole, nestled in the hills east of Florence. We stayed at a 400-year-old farmhouse in the midst of a beautiful olive grove overlooking Florence. Our kids loved it. For their games, they used what was there: stones, lavender twigs, lizards (I am afraid!). (Our older daughter also liked Medusa in the Uffizi Gallery, all that blood.) We loved the discussions with the son of the owner who stayed in another part of the house (it was very spacious.) Over a marvelous Tuscan meal with him and his very intellectual friends we learned about Italian life and culture today. What our exchange partner, a philosopher, traded his paradise for? A nice flat on Lake Starnberg. Ever heard of it?
What might not seem very attractive to you is maybe just perfect for somebody else! Go for that St Kitts home!
By the way, I have just started my own Home Exchange Network. Have a look at: http://www.jewettstreet.com.
Happy Home Exchanges!
Ursula
Hehehehe, just don’t come over in Cricket season, you’ll be disapponinted!! 😉
Geoff, Definitely a pool for you, especially as you will be throwing in your sauna and hot tub – essential requisites in this cold, damp winter.
New exchangers have lots of questions about the process. I publish the only non-commercial blog solely dedicated to home exchange at http://homeexchanger.blogspot.com/ Check it out and let me know if I can help you join our terrific community.
Here is an email I have just had from Chrissie Down Under – wish I could jump on a plane straight away and join them:
Hi Elllee,
Here is the latest from the travellers down under.
We have really settled into our exchange home here in Buderim. It is really lovely. So big you could fit our home into it at least 4 times. We have 2 large balconies on each floor which over look the forest and beyond to the Sunshine coast. We also have a lovely garden with a pool so really feel we have won the exchange this time round. It feels like a different world here as from about 5.0am the parrots, and other birds of paradise start to wake up and sing. It is like living in an avery an unbelieveable noise they all make! Needless to say we are wide a wake by then so tend to get up early. I have started to go to the local park at 6.0am to do Tai Chi, I must be going mad or this out door life style has got me! Hector has got involved in playing Crouquet and is doing very well. We have started to get involved in the local community events in Buderim and the surrounding area. Have been to several Dine Out events with people we have meet. Also, supporting the local theatre that have put on some fantastic plays. On the first night of any new performance they have free drinks and nibbles first, so we book early!!! We have also found some very good music clubs not too far from us. They seem to have some very talented performers here, Hector believes to a very high standard. Every one is very friendly and appears very interested in our life style of home exchanges. We are building up a list of interested exchangers for the future.
Mandy, Hector,s daughter in Brisbane, has come to visit us and believes we have landed in paradise. We are only 10 minutes from some fantastic beaches on the Sunshine Coast some built up for holidaymakers but also miles and miles of deserted unspolit beaches and cliff walks. We should be very fit after all these outdoor activities. The weather up to now has been very hot and sticky but in Feb it is the rainy season and it has really poured down several inches each day, (they call it showers!) but I am telling you it really pisses down! still very humid but we are not complaining as we have the best tempatures in their autum to come. The only problem is, we have to empty the pool every few days so it does not overflow, poor you I hear you mutter !!! Our plans are to start some touring around especially into the mountains of Queensland so will keep you informed of our latest adventures in the future.
Hector and I fully appriciate how lucky we are to be able to do all this travelling, if we had just one wish it would be to transport all our family and friends over here to experience it with us. I have one friend who is coming to visit us at Easter, but the door is always open to others.
I just remembered we have also been to the Toastmasters Club in Buderim.
Some differences to how we do things and they are far more layed back in their approach but very freiendly and welcoming.
After all my ramblings, How are things with you and your family? What interesting things are you getting up to. How is your speeches at the Cambridge club going?
Please keep in touch.
Love
Chrissie & Hector
xxxx
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