Try a home exchange for your next vacay
Home-swapping websites can remove the guesswork
Home exchanges may be the oldest trend in lodging. Older, even, than the modern hotel. They’re also the newest thing, to hear some travelers talk about it.
Paula Eldridge is among them. She and her husband, Tom, are retirees on a limited budget, so they can’t always afford the thousands of dollars a week it would cost for a hotel or a home rental. So they decided to swap their home in Rockport, Mass., for accommodations at their desired destination a few years ago, and they never looked back.
“We stay in our exchange family’s home and drive their car with no exchange of money, so a three-week vacation can be accomplished at a very reasonable cost,” says Eldridge, a former high school biology teacher. “The only large expense is the airfare.”
The Eldridges have traveled all over the map, including a restored vicarage in Devon, England, a vacation home in the Swiss Alps, and a three-story townhouse in Amsterdam. Accommodations like that would have cost tens of thousands of dollars, but their price was zero.
Home exchanges — or HEx, as the exchange community sometimes calls it — may be an ancient thing (think about it — where did people stay before hotels?) but home swapping has picked up a few 21st-century tricks. And it might be something worth considering for your upcoming summer vacation.
Much of the recent growth in the home exchange sector is coming from people that Ben Wosskow, the managing director of Love Home Swap (LoveHomeSwap.com), a home exchange service, calls “pluralists.” They’re travelers who consider hotels, home rentals or exchanges, depending on the kind of trip.
“This blended way of traveling will become an ever-increasing trend within the travel space around the world over the next 12 months,” he predicts.
Sites like Wosskow’s do much more than facilitate a simple swap. They offer several options for exchanges, including a points system that allows you to use credits anywhere in the network. Love Home Swap also helps you screen other potential home exchangers and hosts an active community of other homeswappers. An annual membership starts at $240.
Another popular swapping site, HomeExchange.com, works in a similar way. Its $150 annual membership even includes a guarantee that if you don’t do an exchange in your first year, you get a second year free. And you have to love the name of its customer-service department — “happiness support.” Couldn’t we all use a little bit more of that?
Jim Pickell, the former president of HomeExchange.com, is a poster boy for the home-swapping community. He’s personally traded homes more than 20 times, and his daughter, Madison, was even born in a home exchange.
For him, a home exchange is about more than accommodations; you also join a community that allows you to make new friends and discover places you wouldn’t ordinarily visit. Yes, there’s the appeal of a “free” stay, but it’s also an adventure. That’s something no resort can offer.
The decision to trade your home with someone else comes down to one thing: How much money you can save. For Jennifer Bocchi, a dental hygienist from Reno, swapping her Lake Tahoe vacation home and her car with a family from Chicago through Love Home Swap saved her more than $8,000.
“We did not have to pay a nightly rate for a hotel, or rent a car, and we had a full kitchen to be able to cook more and not have to eat out all the time,” she says. “The people who stayed in our place in Tahoe were thrilled with our place as well, and we have already said we would both swap again with one another.”
That’s the thing about home exchanges. Unlike hotels or vacation rentals, they’re often deeply personal affairs. I’ve spoken with many travelers who don’t use any platform at all, relying on Craigslist and their due diligence to find the best exchange partners.
And why wouldn’t you research the heck out of it? After all, there’s a stranger staying in your home. And maybe even driving your car. As Eldridge, the frequent swapper, warns, “It’s not for everyone.”
Three questions you should ask before you swap your home:
1. Is your home worth exchanging? It’s easy to swap a house or apartment in a desirable location like Lake Tahoe or Rockport, but you may find it a bit more challenging if you live in an anonymous small town or city.
2. Do you want someone else staying in your house? They will be using your bed, linens, everything. Are you comfortable with that?
3. Have you done your due diligence? If you’re on a platform like Love Home Swap or HomeExchange.com, you can leave some of the vetting to the company. But if you’re on Craigslist or getting a referral from a friend, you’ll need to take a harder look at the exchange request.
Christopher Elliott is a consumer advocate. Contact him at chris@elliott.org or visit elliott.org.
Unlike hotels or vacation rentals, home exchanges are often deeply personal affairs.