10 tips and advantages of Home Exchange for traveling

An option that you may not have considered when it came to plan your vacation trip is  home exchange.

This is an increasingly popular formula, which allows you to exchange your home with other people who reside in the destination where you want to travel.

This way you will live in their residence during the same dates that they live in yours, each one enjoying their own vacation.

With the home exchange You can completely save the cost of accommodation, in addition to enjoying your vacation with the comfort of residing in a fully equipped house.

But not only can you exchange your place of residence, but you can also extend the agreement to exchange cars, or exchange a house for a car with a caravan, a motorhome, a yacht, etc...

Nap house exchange formula creates distrust, there is also another variant which is the so-called hospitality exchange.

In this case, the agreement is to host some people in your home during their trip to your city.

In return, they will welcome you when you travel to their place of residence, a formula that encourages establishing a relationship of friendship.

How to exchange houses

For carry out house exchange, you have to register on one of the websites that offer this service, for which they charge a fee annually, which is the only expense you will have.

The most prominent company in this system of accommodation for travel and vacations It is the North American company HomeExchange, founded in California in 1992, and which recently acquired the Spanish homeexchange.com.

This website offers you more than 400.000 exchange offers in almost 190 countries around the world.

The destinations where there are more offers They are the United States, Canada, Australia, Spain, France, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Ireland, Italy and the Netherlands.

Personally I have not done any home exchange, but I do have a friend who has been doing it regularly, not only for their summer vacation trips, but also for weekends and other festive times of the year.

After speaking with them to find out the advantages and disadvantages of this accommodation formula and as a summary of their experiences, below I am going to give you 10 useful tips when considering the house exchange for your vacation trips.

Tips for exchanging your house

1.- Different way of traveling

House exchange is a different formula from traveling, as it allows you to “vivir” the real atmosphere of the city and country you visit.

You usually meet and interact with relatives or neighbors of the people with whom you exchange your house. And you live as if it were your home.

2.- Distrust?

The main reluctance that produces the exchange of houses is the distrust given the fact that some unknown reside for a time in your house.

But as those who regularly use this formula tell me, there is a general tendency to take great care of the house in which you live, knowing that they will do the same with your house.

Furthermore, contrary to what you may think, those who use this system tend to be professionals and people with a medium-high cultural level.

3.- Ideal for families with children

La house exchange formula It is especially ideal for families with small children, so that when exchanging the house with a family in similar circumstances, you have the ideal equipment to be able to live comfortably with the children.

4.- Cost savings

Without a doubt, a great advantage of house exchange It is the important cost savings that you achieve by not having to pay for hotels and, if you wish, by being able to cook and eat at home.

And this savings is greater if it is a family.

5.- Which company to choose

To carry out the exchange of houses, on the Internet you will find numerous companies that offer you this service.

Regardless of the price differences, the important thing when choosing the company is that it offers you a very wide range of houses in as many cities and countries as possible, and in this regard I have been advised HomeExchange.

When you get to the website, you will first go through the old homeexchange.com, and at the top right you have the button Unirse which will take you to the new website HomeExchange in Spanish.

Keep in mind that you have to register for annual periods (although there are offers for shorter periods) and it is important to have a wide variety of options, since the fee per year is not cheap, although it is also the only cost.

7.- How to register on the home exchange website

When you register in the exchange platform, you have published as much relevant information about your house as possible.

Likewise, you must indicate your ideal dates to do the exchange and the countries with which you would like to exchange.

You must also indicate whether you allow children in your home, as well as pets and smokers.

And also if you are willing to exchange the use of a car (this is not usually so common...)

6.- How to choose which house to exchange

The time has come for select houses where you would like to stay.

Regardless of the exchange offers you may receive, you must send several requests. Based on the different contacts and responses, you are already selecting the people and the house that you think is most suitable.

To finalize and close the agreement, it may be good to make a phone call or a video call with Skype or Whatsapp.

In general, it is advisable to agree on the exchange well in advance.

And if it is for the summer holidays, and you want, for example, to travel to Germany...don't try it in May, because the Germans, and in general the majority of Europeans, are very, very far-sighted.

7.- How to prepare your house for visitors

The ideal is that when visitors arrive at your house (you will surely be arriving at theirs...), they can be received by a relative or a neighbor friend who shows them the house and explains the operation of basic equipment (kitchen, television...).

If this cannot be the case, you must leave written (in English, if they are foreigners) the basic operating instructions for said equipment.

According to the experience of my friends, don't be surprised if when you arrive at a house you find some welcome gift (flowers, a small gift...) or even a meal already prepared.

8.- Will your house be in good condition?

Typically, when you return home you will barely notice that someone has been living there.

From the experiences they tell me, there is usually nothing damaged, although you are never completely safe from some incident.

Additionally, as a host, the service HomeExchange It includes insurance coverage for possible damage to your home or theft during your guest's stay.

9.- Exchanges not only for summer holidays

House exchanges are open to many variants, such as doing it for a weekend, or leaving your house for a certain period in which you are traveling in another city, and some time later you go to the house of the people with whom you live. that you have exchanged.

There is also the formula for exchanging hospitality: first you receive the people you exchange with, who live in your house for a few days with you, and then you go to their house (or vice versa...)

10.- Get to know each other…and become friends

This last formula of hospitality allows you to meet the people with whom you exchange the house, and you can even become friends.

There are people who exchange their homes in two different cities in Spain and meet for a coffee halfway on their road trips.

House Exchange Price

El registration price in HomeExchange (2019) is 130 euros for the entire year.

You will have a 14-day trial period, and if this formula does not convince you, before this period is completed you can unsubscribe without being charged anything.

During the year you pay you can do as many home exchanges as you want, and if during the first year you don't end up doing a home exchange, the second year is free.

Finally, I hope this information is useful to you and you will tell us your own experience.