House swap your way to a free holiday

YOU really can holiday for free — or nearly free — if you’re willing to be a bit flexible. My favourite way is house-swapping. I’ve been doing it for years.

I’ve exchanged my home with other people’s in various countries in order to get a free holiday somewhere fun. It’s great because all you have to pay for is your travel and your food while you’re there. With some swaps (notably with Americans) you even get to use their car — or their boat!

I’ve even made friends by houseswapping, particularly my friend carolyn in Boston, in the U.S., who I swap with every year, and the lovely Bruce and Marie-Ellen in Paris, who have become such good friends that we regularly chat on the phone.

I’ve also stayed in touch with Anna in croatia, whose parents swapped homes with me when she was a student in London. I’ve also done some lovely swaps with a woman in Barcelona who has a flat near the Sagrada Familia.

But you don’t have to travel abroad. Friends of mine did several swaps in the UK when their son was little through discussions started on the National childbirth Trust forum — both families left behind their baby paraphenalia for each other so they had less to take with them (and of course, for UK trips you don’t have to pay for flights either).

I originally found all my swaps through a website called Home exchange.com, which costs £146 a year to join. Other house-swapping sites include the UK-based LoveHomeSwap. com, which charges from £7.60 to £11 per month and Homelink.org, which costs £115 for a year or £250 for three years. Once you’ve paid the joining fee, everything else is free.

BUT you do need to be careful. You are, after all, opening your home up to a stranger, so many regular house-swappers make sure they swap with people who already have a lot of good references from other families and lock away anything valuable.

It’s also helpful to have a phone call or, better, a video call before swapping, just to get to know each other better.

The websites mentioned above don’t have built-in insurance for swaps, so it’s a good idea to talk to your home insurer before you swap to make sure you’re covered while the other family is in your home, or if you need to take out extra cover. You need to be flexible too, as you may have to move your holiday dates to fit in with the family you’re swapping with.

When I was looking for someone to swap with in Boston, I approached a few different people and carolyn came back to me saying that she would be happy to swap but couldn’t do the exact time I was asking for. however, she had a spare room so she offered that for me to stay in for my dates and then she would use my flat later in the year.

That worked for me. I stayed in her spare room, we got on really well, and when she came over later in the year I just booked another holiday elsewhere for that time so she had the whole flat to herself.

Not everyone can be that flexible, of course, so it doesn’t work for every holiday. And not everyone is entirely comfortable about having a stranger in their home. But to those who worry about someone rifling through their sock drawer, I tend to assume that people who swap homes are, like me, not interested in other people’s socks. They’re out on the town living it large instead! Even if you really want to go away to a hotel or a resort, rather than stay in someone else’s home, you can effectively get it for free by renting out your home while you’re away, either through word- ofmouth with friends or by advertising on Airbnb.com — or OneFineStay.com if you have a posh place.

My friend Tira is doing that with her flat when she is swimming in Italy for three weeks in August. She put a call out to friends to bring in people to rent her place while she is away and she has managed to rent it out for two of the weeks she is on holiday. That’s covering most of her holiday expenses.

If you don’t have your own home to offer for a swap or to rent out, it’s worth looking at Couchsurfing. With couchsurfing.com you can travel around the world sleeping for one or two nights at a time on someone’s couch or in their spare room for free. In return you will offer the same to travellers coming to your area.

Admittedly it tends to be more attractive to Gen Zers and Millennials than to older travellers but if you’re adventurous and open to new experiences it can be a fun option.

It doesn’t cost to join Couchsurfing. but to get the most out of it, it’s a good idea to attend some of their events and meet couchsurfers to find out more.