Home exchange is a new vacation trend that can save you thousands of dollars. Read on to find out how it works and if it's for you.

Home Exchange - The Latest Trend in Vacation Saving

By Chris Robertson

Vacations are a wonderful - and necessary - way to relax, rejuvenate, and spend time with your family. Unfortunately, vacations are also costly - especially when it comes to accommodations. A week's stay in a hotel can easily cost close to $1,500. Add in a week of eating in restaurants, and that cost doubles. The bottom line is that those kinds of costs can keep you going to the same destination year after year, and prevent you from visiting exciting new places around the world. Home exchange is a new trend that is helping to change all that. How Do Home Exchanges Work?

Home exchange is just what it sounds like: you swap homes with another couple or another family for your vacation. The power of the Internet makes home exchanges an inexpensive way to find vacation accommodations. Suppose you live in Los Angeles and would like to visit Vancouver on your vacation. You simply find a home exchange website, list your home as being available for an exchange, and then find a home in Vancouver that is also listed, the owners of which would like to vacation in Los Angeles. You and the other homeowner work out the details of dates and times, and then swap homes for the time period you agree upon. Of course, the more flexible you are about locations and dates, the easier it will be to successfully conduct a home exchange.

What Are the Advantages of Home Exchanges?

The primary advantage of finding vacation homes through a home exchange is that you have no accommodations costs. Zero. Plus, you'll save considerable money on meals, since you'll have the option of cooking at your vacation home. In addition, there's no resentment factor: your home doesn't have to remain empty while you pay premium prices for a hotel room. You'll also have added security for your own home while you're on vacation, since someone will be staying there. Ultimately, people who regularly vacation with a home exchange find that they can visit exciting new place worldwide at a fraction of the normal price.

Desirable Vacation Homes

When listing your home on a home exchange website, it's important to show it in its best light as a desirable vacation home. You don't have to live in a mansion in order to have successful vacation home experiences; people exchange all types of homes. However, you'll receive more interest if you have several quality photos of the inside and outside of your home, and if you describe your home's features.

Ground Rules for a Home Exchange

Some homeowners are understandably hesitant about home exchanges, and have privacy concerns. That's why it's critical to find a home exchange website that won't reveal your name, address, phone, or email, and instead uses an online form that hides your personal information.

You should use that online form to your best advantage, however. When sending information to a prospective home exchange partner, you should include a description of your property and neighborhood, and outline who will be in your traveling party and when you would like to make the exchange. Before you seal the deal, you should speak with the other homeowner on the phone. Good home exchanges are built on mutual trust, so it's important that you both feel comfortable with the exchange.

If you're not quite ready for a home exchange, or just want a more conventional holiday, many home exchange sites also offer vacation rentals and property rentals. But give a home exchange a try - you'll most likely be pleased by the outcome.

Chris Robertson is an author of Majon International, one of the worlds MOST popular internet marketing companies on the web. Learn more about Home Exchange: The New Vacation or Majon's Travel directory

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Experience the life of someone in New York, Florida, California, Italy, France, Switzerland, Great Britain or many other destinations. Enjoy their home, lifestyle and car. Meet their friends. Visit their home town and country. You can do all these things and stay for free by exchanging homes.

For more than 50 years Americans have exchanged homes with families in the U.S. and abroad. Every year, approximately half a million (500,000) people swap homes for a week, a month or more. Anyone with a home available for an exchange and the willingness to find a good swap partner can participate in a home exchange.

Want To Stay Free When You Travel? Swap Home

By Marie Simon

For purposes of home exchanges, what is a home?

A home can be a single family home; condominium, rental apartment; yacht or sailboat; motor home; or houseboat.

How do you exchange homes?

Once you find out if you are a good home exchange candidate, you can begin the home exchange process. To do that you will have to decide: Where you want to go; who you want to travel with and when; how much money you can spend finding an exchange and on the trip; and what you are willing to offer prospective exchangers.

How do you find home exchangers?

You can place an ad in a newspaper of the city or country you want to visit; talk with other exchangers for referrals. A more efficient and faster way is to visit and join one or more home exchange organization websites.

Car Exchanges

Some exchangers include their cars in the home exchange agreement. That means they drive each other’s cars while they stay at each other’s homes. Top ten benefits of home exchanging

1. Staying free!
2. Living like the locals during your stay
3. Gaining an understanding of how people in other places live
4. Being able to stay in locations where there are no hotels or other accommodations
5. Meeting new people, making new friends
6. Your home is taken care of while you travel
7. Being able to sample local foods
8. More privacy
9. Save money by cooking your own meals
10. You have more space than at a hotel

Who exchanges homes?

All kinds of people exchange homes. There are teachers, journalists, doctors, archeologists, psychologists, realtors, homemakers, and many other occupations and professions represented among home exchangers. Many home exchangers are adults over 40 and retirees. There are offers of modest homes and luxurious estates. Home swappers tend to be educated, reliable, respectful of other’s things and interested in travel.

Whether you are planning a vacation to Hawaii, an extended leave in New York or a business trip to London, home exchanging could be what you are looking for. Before you let a stranger stay in your home and before you hop on a plane on your way to a home swap, there are some things you need to know. Make sure you ask lots of questions and know what you are doing before you agree to an exchange.

M.T. Simon is co-author of a popular how-to guide on home exchanging, The Home Exchange Guide (Poyeen Publishing, $19.95). For information on home swapping and a list of organizations visit http://www.freehomeawayfromhome.com

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