Contracts between Exchange Partners

One of my earlier posts talked about animals. I neglected to mention then that some exchanges will come with "animals"-like it or not! In August 2009 this was our "pet" salamander living (mostly on the ceiling) in the house my daughter and I exchanged in St. Raphael, France. When I asked exchanger Elisabeth about him, she wanted to be sure I didn't kill him, not that I even thought about it. We were just not used to having a salamander overhead! 

Before I talk about contracts-since this is about Vacation Home Exchanges AND other travel issues after all, l wanted to fill you in on a future Vacation Home Exchanges I am trying to arrange. Next September I am planning to go to France, as I especially want to visit friends in Metz and Toulouse. And I do want to revisit Paris! The other night I sent out seven inquiries inviting people to come to Boston. I went into the Vacation Home Exchange website I joined four years ago, and I can sort by many categories. In this case I looked parties of two who would like to exchange in September. 

Michael responded that they might be able to exchange their home in Brittany near the coast with me. http://www.homeforexchange.com/ID=7302  He is an American who also owns homes in California and Canada. It would have to be a non-simultaneous swap, which would work for me.

I will call him on his Skye number after the holidays to discuss this more. I’ve never talked with a potential exchanger before, but this makes sense to me, especially since he speaks English. I know approximately where his house is in Brittany, and I also need to see what there is to see and do around there. They are located about 135 miles from the nearest airport, so I need to explore the logistics of getting there.

The process of arranging an exchange takes time, and this was just the first step!

Every Vacation Home Exchange website provides a “contract”. Each website suggests that the participants sign it. Everything I have read and heard about Vacation Home Exchanges contracts makes it sound like it is highly unlikely that a contract would ever hold up! So I do not find bother with the “contract”.  Once again, successful Vacation Home Exchanges ARE BASED ON TRUST!  Both parties are committed to a positive exchange experience. They will take care of your house, as you take care of theirs. Accidents happen; things do break. You need to work out the details in the case of any type of accident on a "case by case" basis. You do want to be sure that your “treasures” are put away, so they won’t break!

When I did an exchange with Angela last August in Rome, she asked me to let her know if something got broken-NOT to rush out and replace it, as there might be another solution!

The only time I tried to complete a contract with my exchange partner, we never actually completed it. I had a feeling, which was accurate, that there were issues there. There was a problem, but the contract would have been useless to help solve the problem.  

Some people who do include cars in the exchanges give each other $500(or any amount agreed upon prior to the exchange)  in the event of any trouble with the car. I'm not sure how this works in practice, but I have been told that it does work! When the ground rules are determined beforehand, both parties have agreed how they will handle problems with cars in an informal or more formal agreement or "contract". 

Thanks again for checking in here. My next blog will focus on computer usage while doing a Vacation Home Exchanges. And please, send me any comments or questions!

Ah, the Beaches You Will See-and Enjoy ….

Dog in Nice, France.(Note the rocks under the chaises!)

First of all, let me state unequivocally, I am the quintessential beach lover….rocky or sandy-gritty gray or golden sand. It is usually easy to relax at the beach, read my book, enjoy the company, and feel the sun warming me deliciously! The ocean totally won me over the summer before my sophomore year in college, when I waitressed at the Seaside House in Kennebunk Beach, Maine. We were in the dining room seven days a week three meals a day for very poor tips. But the great opportunity of heading down to the beach between meals was a very worthwhile trade-off, as I anguished over what I was going to do the next year. (I went back to the University of Massachusetts.) And ever since that summer and the many miles I walked the beach, I have been a card-carrying member of "Beach Lovers’ Anonymous"!    

Therefore, I have been delighted by the variety of beaches which I have visited while enjoying Vacation Home Exchanges! That being said, beaches are not my primary reason for visiting a particular place. Enjoying the beaches is secondary. Travelling 3000 miles and going to the beach is the frosting when I am in a foreign country. Last September I stayed in Badesi, Sardinia; all of Sardinia is known for spectacular beaches. However, they have amazing and unique archaeological locations as well! They also have some of the narrowest and curviest roads I’ve ever driven! So every other day I would go sight-seeing one day; on the alternate day I would drive three miles down to the beach to enjoy time reading and swimming! European beaches are different from American beaches I have ever seen. Usually there is a food stand right on the beach where patrons can order lunch and drinks. Many of them rent padded chaises, towels, and umbrellas for €15 or€20 for the day. Most Europeans seem not to care about using a beach chair; they just lie or sit on the beach on a towel.

You will find, if you do enjoy the beach, when you travel, that you will probably have a variety of beaches to choose from wherever you go.

In case, you missed these comments from previous blogs....

SASA98 said...
"When I did my Europe trip in '98, I ripped out pages as I was done with a country. I had a book for all of Europe; before I left, I'd torn out pages I knew I wouldn't need. As I went along, I tore out pages that had become irrelevant. That way, I had more room for that fabulous bath mat I got in Nice :)" 

"Sometimes, it (Back up plan) works out for the best and you end up going to places you never thought you would -- and it turns out, you love that new place!" 

Susan said:

"I think it's awfully smart of the cars to have a vest such as you are sporting! I'm going to add one to our emergency kit. Thanks for the car rental tips!"

In my next post I will talk about Vacation Home Exchanges contracts. 

Books-Books-Books!

How do books fit into a Vacation Home Exchanges? Most people like to read when they are on vacation! Probably as you are planning your trip, you will want to get one or two travel books, in addition to the information you find on-line.

Often I choose my travel books for practical reasons. If I am going to several countries, I do not want to be weighed down with two or three 500 page books-no matter how helpful they are! (If I will be taking Ryanair, my checked bag cannot exceed 15 kilograms; the only one carry-on cannot exceed 10 kilograms.)

DK books advertise that they are “The Guides that Show You What Other Guides Only Tell You”. So they do include lots of pictures and maps. They had a compact guidebook to Sardinia I used last fall, but many of their books are pretty hefty! They have a Top 10 guide to the many American and European cities that are very easy to follow. DK also has a new Back Roads series, if you are planning a driving trip. To date they have published Back Roads of France, as well for Italy, Spain, Ireland, and Great Britain.

I also like guidebooks published by Frommer and Fodor, which are very comprehensive and thorough.

Perhaps you have seen.the popular and personable travel guru Rick Steves on PBS. He has a variety of guidebooks about Europe in addition to the many tours,which are conducted all over Europe. However, his books are very selective; he only includes the places he likes. His housing choices are usually good and reasonably priced.

I like the detailed Michelin books, because they are quite compact at about 8 3/4”x 4 ½”x1/2”, even if they do have 500 +/- pages! The size makes them traveler-friendly and easy to drop into my backpack! And, of course, while I am mentioning Michelin, their maps are excellent and as detailed as their guidebooks!  

The Baedeker books are equally well regarded and cover most countries. The Lonely Planet series tends to be geared to college students and back-packers, but is also very thorough.

You may take some books with you to read when you are on vacation. It is not easy to get a very good selection of books in English when you are out of the country. You might find it worthwhile to invest in the Amazon Kindle or Barnes and Noble Nook to give you a huge variety of books to download. My daughter gave me a Kindle to take with me last summer, and it was a wonderful way to be sure I always had a good selection of books to choose from! Interestingly enough, two people I met on my trip both recommended Shadows of the Wind, which I downloaded and loved. I suspect I would have been hard-pressed to find it in English on that trip! (Somewhere I read that it takes longer to decide which cover you want for your ebook than the actual Kindle or Nook!)

 In addition, guidebooks will usually tell you about book stores which will have books in English. However, when I went to try to find the bookstore in Sassari recommended in my Sardinia guidebook, I arrived during the three hours that it was closed, so I was out of luck! 

Prior to recent trips I have started to read some of the many recommended books about the different countries.  I especially enjoyed Henry Miller's The Colossus of Maroussi before I went to Greece. The summer that I visited France and England I once again read Somerset Maugham's Of Human Bondage, which took place in those countries, as well as Germany. It was great fun to be visiting the same places and seeing the Louvre paintings which Maugham described!

And, as former English major, I love finding and visiting the homes of writers which I studied, such as John Keats' home near the Spanish Steps pictured here!

Thanks for taking the time read this blog today. I'd love to hear your questions or comments!

What About the Need for Backup Plans?

At the beginning of this blog, I stated that I think that Vacation Home Exchanges are based on trust, and I stand by that. Over time, you will build an interesting relationship with your new friend/home exchange partner. Joan and I had been emailing about our Vacation Home Exchange that would take me to Aguilas, Spain, for about eighteen months. (Picture is Aguilas from the Castle.) Shortly before Joan and her husband came to Boston (and had a great time visiting Boston as well as Maine and Vermont), she wrote, “We have been communicating since April last year now, I shall really miss your messages when all this is over.”

But I also think that you need to be flexible when you are travelling, since so many things are totally out of your control! “Is the train/bus/flight/boat on time?” “Will we make our connection to get to our destination?” “Is the flight overbooked?” “Is the grocery store open today since we have no food to eat?”  “Did I leave my bathing suit hanging on the hook in the bathroom in Badesi?”

Well, the list goes on, of course! So you do have to be creative and find the solution to the temporary little glitches along the way! But what if there is a major change in your plan? 

What if your exchange family has had a major health issue so they cannot do the exchange now or ever? What if the home turns out to be not what you had expected, so you do not want to stay there? Perhaps you cannot stay there due to something in the home that causes an allergic reaction. (Luisella explained ahead of time that she is allergic to feathers, so she wanted to be sure that none would be near her in the house)

So you will need to come up with a Backup Plan-and sometimes quickly! (In the case of allergies, you would want to be sure to add that to your list of questions before you have committed to your home exchange. Spell things out in your early emails so you would either decide not to exchange with that family, or they would be able to accommodate your needs.)

In most cases, you probably won’t know until the last minute that you will even need a Backup Plan! So here your flexibility helps you to solve the problem! Remember that your exchange partner has made this arrangement in good faith also, so if the problem is something that involves them, they will be as anxious as you to find a positive solution so that you both win!

If you need to quickly find another place to stay, it will-in all probability-require that you pay to stay somewhere! Since you’ve arranged the exchange to keep your expenses down, you might want to explore hostel options in the area. (Hostels are not just for young people! Families all over Europe use hostels, as a very workable, low-cost housing option!) There are also books about monasteries in France, Spain, and Italy which now provide lower cost and sometimes Spartan housing to travelers. Eileen Barish is the author of these books; the Italian book is called The Guide to Lodging in Italy’s Monasteries. When you are looking for other housing, you can check out www.tripadvisor.com, which has many hotels with good feedback to help you decide quickly where to go.

When we were in southern France several years, we decided to move out earlier than planned and used Rick Steve’s book as our guide for alternative housing. He usually has good hotel choices in central locations. Unfortunately our choice was not one of his better recommendations, but we had not checked www.tripadvisor.com!

Of the seven exchanges which I have done to date, this was the only time when I decided to leave early. I think you do want to “keep in the back of your mind”, as you are planning a Vacation Home Exchange, that you MAY need to do something not planned, so it is wise to keep in mind the need for back-up plans.

PS. I did not address any health-related things which might also call for a back-up plan, as I will address that later…..

AND PLEASE, send me any questions that you have about doing Vacation Home Exchanges! Thank you…

Automobiles in Your Vacation Home Exchange?

Your decision whether or not to include automobiles in your exchange is one you will want to think about as you consider doing a Vacation Home Exchange! Do you have a brand new car? How reliable is your car? In theory, I think that exchanging automobiles is an excellent idea, and a huge money saver.  Much of your decision about including cars in your exchange will depend on how your communication about the exchange "feels" and is proceeding. If, in your various emails, your exchange partner seems to use common sense, is “no nonsense”, and practical, exchanging cars might be a very good idea. But, if you have any questions about doing this, “when in doubt, don’t”!

As a part of your planning process, I’d suggest you draw up a list of questions about the entire process; this would be similar to the interviewing process (which it actually is!). So under the Automobile section, you would want to know such things as “What is the make and year of your car? How in your country do you maintain your car?  You could explain the prescribed car manufacturer’s schedule of maintenance, which they may not know or follow. What is the car inspection process where they live? Remember that most European cars do have a manual shift.

Some people will never want to include automobiles in their Vacation Home Exchange, of course. Then you will be exploring your car rental options. I have used www.AutoEurope.com when renting cars in Europe, since they are based in the US(Portland, ME).  So if I ever do have a problem I can deal with it in English. AutoEurope will also match prices. But you may ask your exchange partner about some local car rental companies, if you want do some comparison shopping.

Several years ago, automobiles were included in my exchange in southern France. I knew that I would be driving a ten year old car, which was fine. I had my car checked before I left, and found I needed new tires and new front brakes: my car was in top shape when I left. When we arrived, our exchange car was fine for around town driving. However, when we headed out to Arles and Avignon for five days, we learned that the tires were bald. Unfortunately we learned that after we had a blowout on the highway on a Saturday morning when everyone was heading to their vacation! (Every car in many European countries carry a vest such as I was wearing here while I tried to explain to the police where we were. there was a number on a nearby bridge, so he could spot us!)

I won’t bore you with the details of having the tire changed (expensive) or replacing the tire so we would have a spare tire(challenging in French!), but that has made me very leery of including cars in my exchange. I have heard since then that some people decide to give each other €500 in the event of problems such as this. (in the course of our many, many emails, I knew that my exchange partner was “difficult” and had “issues”, but I was committed and VERY excited about our exchange! I certainly never thought that I would have the sort of car problems which I did.) And by the way, my car was in good shape, except that I was left a $15 parking ticket.

IN theory, including automobiles in Vacation Home Exchanges is terrific! In practice, you will want to weigh your options, and do ask lots of questions! (I recently heard someone say they had exchanged 40-50 emails getting ready for her Vacation Home Exchange. I am sure that I’ve exchanged many more than that, as we’ve sorted out details as well as sightseeing information about the area.)

AND PLEASE, send me any questions that you have about doing Vacation Home Exchanges! Thank you…

ATM and Money Matters

December 5, 2010

 On this gray Sunday morning, I’m sitting in Panera Bread in  Dedham, MA. I just met with Mo, who answered my Craigslist “ad” to help me with this blog. He is a young computer guy who is going back to school next semester and also sells real estate in Hyde Park. Now I will be able to add pictures! Plus Mo will be my “go to guy" for quick computer questions. He has several websites such as www.bucketbeats.com!

How you want to deal with money when you travel is really a personal decision! I take” X” amount of currency for the country I'm going to. I have US money changed at a local bank, and then I depend on ATMs as I travel to replenish my funds. All banks do not convert US cash to foreign, but Citizens Bank in the Boston area does this easily. Unless I go to a main bank, which has foreign currency in inventory, I need to order the amount that I want ahead of time.  Getting money when you travel is more of a challenge travelling outside of the US. I prefer to use cash rather than credit cards so there is less financial pain on re-entry! (You might want to check with your bank to see how much the transaction fee is, as it does vary from bank to bank. That is another reason why you want to avoid making lots of withdrawals.)  I only use credit cards for major purchases. Most credit cards charge 3% additional for the transaction in addition to the conversion. (Capital One is one card that does not have this additional charge.)  I have read in many places that using credit cards is “better” because you get the best rate, but I don’t agree with that.

Until I’ve made my first ATM withdrawal in a new location, I am a bit apprehensive. “What if I can’t get any money here? Then what?” As a result I usually travel with two cards so that if one doesn’t work, I use the other one. Outside of the US, you need to be sure that your PIN is four digits. As a last resort, I figure I would have to go into a bank and try to the manager to solve the problem of not having any cash! I also don’t wait until I am down to my last €…that would be way too stressful! Last summer when I traveled most ATMs would not  allow international withdrawals of more than €250.
When I was travelling in Italy and Spain last summer, the ATMs usually had language options, which was a very pleasant improvement! Some will have an additional fee for the withdrawal, but many do not have this. There was an additional ICBA fee of $2.54 to withdraw €250.

Many travel books do talk about money belts and hiding money. By this I mean, keep your money and credit cards in different places-bags, backpacks, etc. Again this is a personal decision. Certainly some places are safer than others! I was robbed at the airport when I arrived in Paris in 2005. It was totally my own fault! I was tired from the flight, and we were trying to buy tickets for the Metro, and , I wasn't paying attention. I made it way too easy for someone to reach into my backpack. The good news is that my credit cards were in a separate purse, so they only took €200. (It could have been worse,as I had already given Carol the €200 which I had had gotten for her!

There are many websites to help you follow the value of the dollar versus currency all over the world. I used  http://www.xe.com/ most often. (It says it is "The World's Favorite Currency Site"!) While it was more “fun” and more of a challenge in the pre-Euro days, I think that the Euro makes the money situation easier while travelling in Europe!

How Do YOU Want to Handle Animals in Your Exchange?

November 30, 2010

Well, because this blog is a “work in progress”, my format will continue with the letter “A”. And with a little bit of luck, I will find someone to help me design this blog so future readers will be able to refer back to the different topics which I have written about….

How do you want to handle pets in your search for a Vacation Home Exchange? wikianswers.com. said, “An estimated 63 percent of American households have a pet, according to the American Pet Products Manufacturers Association.” I could not easily get a similar number for other parts of the world, although everyone knows how the French love their dogs, as they are often seen in restaurants. And there were many cats all over Greece. I even think there was a family of stray cats at the apartment complex where I stayed in Rome last August. But I doubt there is any correlation between pet owners and those who would want to bring them on an exchange.
You will definitely have the option to say yes or no to “Pets OK” when you sign up for the website you select! It is just one more thing you will need to think about. Of all the inquiries I have had, I think only two people wanted to bring their pets. One woman assured me that her three small dogs were wonderful and would be no trouble to my house, but I opted out.

This is not an exchange story, but a part of my travel history that I want to share. Several years back I had the delightful opportunity to go to Paris for three weeks to “cat sit” for Joan’s wonderful Snagglepuss. He was not to leave the apartment, so I had some early worries about “What if he gets out?” Of course, he never did! He was the perfect housemate. Joan had left a very thorough booklet about his care, so I had everything I needed to be diligent in my responsibilities!

It seems to me that allowing pets that you do not know really adds an unknown dimension to this experience that I wouldn't want to throw into the mix.

Someone had suggested that you try out the Vacation Home Exchange process gradually. That is, arrange an exchange nearby to "try it out". This sounds like a good idea, although I just went to the UK for my first exchange...and that worked very well!

For some reason, I cannot add pictures to this blog. I hope it is a temporary glitch in the blog system, so I will be able to add some visuals!