How to Get Even More Out of Your Home

We’ve been dreaming lately of getting more Europe in our lives, or anyplace really, and since we’re trying to spend less, we found a great way to do it. House swapping, or home sharing, is a way to save tons of money while visiting almost any place you want to go, domestically or internationally.  With home swapping, you don’t pay for accommodations, saving a huge expense of travel, and you get to experience the local culture like locals – a huge difference in experience that hotels can’t provide.

How it works:  you pay a fee to join a home-exchange service, and list your home.  You field requests for your home via email, and depending on when you’ll be away, schedule accordingly. You can arrange a swap with another member of the service to travel at the same time, or “bank” a non-simultaneous swap for travel sometime in the future.  There are also hospitality exchanges, where travelers visit their exchange partners while they are in their homes and vice versa, unlike swaps, where guests are on their own.  These types of exchanges can lead to new friendships as an added bonus.  Popular websites are www.homeexchange.com , and www.homelink.org .

There are ways to save money on travel that don’t involve swaps too – www.airbnb.com is a service that lists houses, condos, or even just rooms for rent, often for a fraction of what hotel costs would be. I hope reading this inspires you to look into it for your next vacation!