Why Do A Vacation Home Exchange?

November 25, 2010
A Vacation Home Exchange is a fascinating way to bring additional adventure to your travel experience! It usually will take you from six months to a year to work out all the details, but ultimately you will trade homes with an individual or a family for an agreed upon time period! You not only have the wonderful opportunity of feeling like you live there-because you do-, but you also will save money on hotel rooms or rental homes.

Four years ago I did my first Vacation Home Exchange. A couple from Cheltenham, England, wanted to come to the Boston area to visit their son who was working in Cambridge, which is about ten miles away from my home. They contacted me, and I was hooked!
In this blog I want to share my experiences and help those travelers who are interested in learning more about Vacation Home Exchanges. To date I have done seven swaps. In addition to the aforementioned UK swap, I’ve been to Puerto Rico, Carlsbad, CA, St. Raphael, France http://triptosaint-raphael.blogspot.com, Rome, Sardinia, and Aguilas, Spain http://dt2010trips.blogspot.com

Vacation Home Exchanges are first and foremost based on a mutual trust! You will be in their home usually when they are in yours. (It is possible to do a non-simultaneous swap too, which I will discuss next posting.) During the planning stages, you will get to know your exchange people very well! You will be surprised how well you get to know them even through email, actually usually through email. IF you have any doubts or concerns about the person with whom you are communicating in terms of what they say or how they respond, RUN, don’t walk to terminate your conversations about your potential Vacation Home Exchange! (And I will discuss more about his later also.)