Vacation home swap
Save money on vacation lodging by finding another person to swap homes with, a short item in the USA Weekend insert from May 16-18 suggests. If you are comfortable swapping homes with a stranger, there are a few sites to check out.
HomeExchange.com boasts more than 20,000 listings but costs $100 a year to list your home. The site facilitates the exchange and will email you if a listing is added from your desired destination. Read the FAQs here.
Digsville.com bills itself as a member club and lets you contact listings for free. Joining is $45 a year, however. They have listings in 53 countries and a "mingle" page where you can browse swap listings.
Craigstlist.com is free and has many listings. Go to the page for your city then look under the housing section for "housing swap." The LA swap page has a listing for a two bedroom house in Bologna, Italy for the month of August. It also has a listing for someone looking to swap a WestLA apartment for shelter on Catalina this summer. Good luck with that one!
A NY Times story on house swap sites also lists International Vacation Home Exchange as an option. Know of another good home swap site? Let me know by leaving a comment and I'll check it out. Thanks!
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About The Bargain Hunter
Daily News staff writer Julia Scott loves to find bargains on everything from groceries to Gucci. Her tips will help keep your hard earned cash where it belongs - in your pocket.
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Know Your Trade is an unaffiliated home exchange directory. Every home exchange agency is rated and reviewed and searchable by various criteria such as cost and number of listings. It is the place to find out everything about home exchange!
If you are considering a home swap abroad, you often have more choice (i.e. you won't be competing with so many other Americans for the same offers) if you look for home exchange agencies based in the country you are interested in. Our own agency, Home Base Holidays, is based in London and has been operating since 1985 (and we now also provide a home exchange service for The Guardian, a UK national daily newspaper) so we have a great choice of attractive exchange offers in London and throughout the UK (as well as in many other countries). None are in circulation for more than two years (most one year) to ensure they are as up-to-date as possible.
I hope you will also check out my blog, Travel the Home Exchange Way, for more information.
Cheers
Julia, I am the founder of http://www.JewettStreet.com worldwide Home Exchange Network based in Germany. We have an active home exchange community with over 2000 members. The number of listings in America and Europe is fairly equal. Talking about a bargain, membership with JewettStreet is still FREE for a short period of time.
By the way, JewettStreet has received excellent reviews from Know Your Trade (see comment 1, above).
Best regards,
Julia, I am the founder of http://www.JewettStreet.com worldwide Home Exchange Network based in Germany. We have an active home exchange community with over 2000 members. The number of listings in America and Europe is fairly equal. Talking about a bargain, membership with JewettStreet is still FREE for a short period of time.
By the way, JewettStreet has received excellent reviews from Know Your Trade (see comment 1, above).
Best regards,
Use a reputable company.
Using a company such as http://www.homeforswap.com ensures that you make use of a friendly home exchange community. Through international home listings, member reviews, and tips, Homeforswap.com strives to make every home exchange fan feel prepared and comfortable in planning their vacation exchanges.
See my non-commercial home exchange blog at HomeExchanger.blogspot.com for tips to help you plan your home exchange vacation. HomeExchanger.blogspot.com is not affiliated with any home exchange club and is complete not-for-profit.