Home sweet home

We did our first ever home exchange over Christmas and New Year as a means of having a holiday that we would otherwise never have been able to afford. It was such a great experience that I am wondering why everyone doesn’t do it as a matter of course. Perhaps we just got lucky with our exchange partners but I have spoken to other people now who have had a similarly positive experience and are already planning their next exchange so it is obviously a scheme which is gaining in popularity.

The whole idea is such a clever and obvious concept; after all, why leave your house empty for two weeks and pay someone else to spend two weeks in their house – why not just find someone who lives in a place where you would like to go, who would like to visit the area you live and then swap houses, cars, pets, neighbours etc? We didn’t even exchange houses at the same time; there are plenty of people out there who exchange their holiday homes and so can be flexible as to dates and there is such a plethora of properties available for exchange now on the various house exchange sites, that it is quite likely that you will find the perfect match.

Obviously it helps to not be too precious about your house but, in the current belt-tightening times, it does just seem to make so much sense, especially if it is the difference between having a holiday or not. There seems to be plenty of demand too for houses in France and we get offers of exchanges all the time, so anyone who has a home or a holiday home out here is likely to have a really wide choice of properties and locations to choose from. And an extra bonus for us has been the wonderful feedback we got from our exchangers which has made us yet again realize in what a very beautiful and special place we live and made us appreciate our home all the more.