Tips for Planning a Home Exchange Vacation

Home Exchange

A How to Guide for Home Swapping

Home exchange sounds almost too good to be true to travel lovers: vacation in comfort, pay nothing for accommodation and know that your plants are being watered back home. Fortunately it’s not a mythical travel tale – thousands of people swap their homes every year for vacation, whether it’s for a weekend, a week or even a month, and enjoy staying in a real home and experiencing a new place just like a local. If you live in Australia, Holloway Storage could help you de-clutter your home ready for your guests.

Here are some more top tips for trying home exchange for your first time:

1. Surf the web for a home exchange website that suits your needs. There might be some that are like mortgage comparison sites. Some charge an annual membership fee, some are free; some are easy to navigate and others are confusing; some have most of their listings in North America while others are more diverse. See what suits your vacation ideal the best!

Home exchange tips

2. It’s important to take a bit of time to prepare a good profile of your home so that potential home exchange partners can see why they should swap with you. Write a detailed description of your home and your local area, and take some great photos of your home without clutter, adding a Home AV can increase how attractive your let is significantly. It’s also important to write a few honest lines about yourself/family, because home exchange is an exchange between people, not robots!

Home Exchange tips

3. Be proactive! Look around and contact home exchange listings that catch your eye. Consider some off-the-beaten track locations as you never know what kind of gem you will find. Don’t be scared to request fancy-looking houses – they might be looking for a cosy city apartment or country retreat just like yours! Home exchange really opens your eyes to new parts of the world that you may not have considered visiting.

Home exchange tips

4. Someone responded to your home exchange request! Now what? Well this is the part where you get to know your potential home exchange partners. Ask questions about their home and the dates they want to travel. Schedule a Skype or Google Hangout date so you can get to know each other more. Through communicating you’ll find out if they are like-minded people and whether their house is suitable. When you’re happy with all the details, confirm your home exchange with your home exchange partner.

Home Exchange tips

5. One thing to consider when discussing a home exchange is cultural differences and language barriers. Not everyone you will contact speaks your language fluently, so it’s a good idea to keep you email and verbal communications simple and clear.

home exchange tips

Even English speakers can misunderstand each other sometimes! For example, while in the US, you turn on the faucet to wash your hands, Australians and British turn on the tap. A comforter will keep you warm in bed in the US, while it is called a duvet in Britain or a doona in Australia. It is likely that you’ll discover many objects around the house are known by different names, even in English speaking countries!

To help prepare yourself for the cultural differences you will encounter while on exchange, it’s good to ask your home exchange partners some basic questions: What time do the grocery stores close? Is it common to tip at restaurants or in taxis, and how much? Can we drink the tap water?

6. Before you depart on your home exchange, prepare a house manual for your guests explaining how everything works and leave contact details for friends who can help out with questions. Also provide some tips on your local area, like whom to contact for electrical issues, waste management issues, etc., so your home exchange partner can feel at home – they’ll do the same for you. You could also suggest them to browse for keywords like “electrician in Point Cook” or the places nearby if the contacts you have given them fail. Also, don’t forget to inform your insurance company that you are doing a home exchange – most insurance companies know that the best way to keep your home safe is by people living in it, rather than leaving it empty.

Home exchange is an enriching experience – you enjoy an inexpensive vacation, but you also meet new people from all over the world. One of the most common stories you’ll hear from home exchangers is that their home exchange partners become lifelong friends.

Happy swapping!

2 COMMENTS

  1. I swap my flat in London last summer with a really nice german family living in the most elegant flat in Berlin. It was an amazing experience!

    • Home exchange is such a great way to travel! Your experience sounds wonderful. Hope you will try home exchange again soon!

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