That's right.... you can still have your vacation and not break the bank. I know the thought of taking a big trip sounds expensive and daunting, noting all the lay-offs and t general fragility of our economy right now. But fear no more....
Last January I wrote about how I posted my home on a home exchange website www.homeexchange.com. I got addicted to browsing the wonderful homes in far off lands...envisioning my family in each one of them. This summer we did it - we exchanged with two different families for a month long sojourn in France.
So now, one year later from that first home exchange posting, I will write about what I've learned and how you can have a great experience swapping homes. (See my last Jan posting for some photos of available homes. The pictures here are from our home exchange)
Pros:
---FREE - Can't beat that. Although, you have to factor in your time planning this; finding a house you like, finding a family who will exchange with you, working with the family on planning - sometimes around different time zones, and preparing your home for another person/family to stay there. That last item is something I didn't realize would take so long...normally when you take a trip, you just leave. But before we left we moved things to my mom's house that we didn't want out or around when people you've never met stay in your home. We also wanted it to be extra clean and comfortable, so we made extra efforts there also - repairing things..etc. I also got a cheap slipcover for our couch - so add that to the tab of the vacation.
--Get to connect with another family and learn what to do in their town from a local's perspective. Then - the best part - you get to live like a local. While in France we went grocery shopping... and ate in residential areas not haunted by tourists. My husband loves telling about the transformations:The first time we went shopping for food, we had no idea you had to weigh your fruit first, apply a sticker with the amount, and figure out the cost of the fruit separately before paying. By the end of our stay, we were dashing through the produce section as if we had been buying our pommes there for years.
--Toys....Kitchen....Laundry..Pool - all amenities that can come with your home. These are great if you have kids - we saved even more money by eating breakfast at home every morning...we didn't need to pack as much because we washed clothes...AND our Paris apartment came with a Wii!!! So we could have some quiet moments trying to figure out our days outings while the kids played their video games on the wii.
-You see attractions you wouldn't normally see. We stayed in Ste Maxime for the second part of our trip - a place I had never heard of - but it sounded appealing because, well it was the only Riviera home that was available and willing to exchange the dates we needed....and it is 10 minutes from St Tropez.
We got lucky - it is such a family-oriented village, with plenty of restaurants and a big market that came alive every night. Plus - the kids loved the boule courts right at the marina on the water. (bocce.) Had we found a place in sexier St Tropez, I would have taken it, but it would have been more expensive to eat in that ritzy town, and not as kid friendly. Restaurants open later there.
CONS:
--See the first "PRO" - more time consuming.
--The mystery: Everyone worries that you'll end up in a dump...or someone else will ruin your house. You have to open your mind to the fact that when you stay in a hotel, there have been thousands of people who have stayed there e before you, so get over the cootie factor. And you CAN screen pretty well as to is the people will take care of your home or not. Phone conversations are telling - of your gut tells you NO - listen. Not a thing was damaged at our house except a pool fence, which is a minor fix.
Photographs CANT tell everything - they can mislead. So ask for more photos if you feel you need to see more. Ask to see bathrooms and other things the owners may have excluded. NOTE: Photos also don't convey how clean a place is.... we arrived in the Riviera during a heat wave and the house had been closed up - it was damp and muggy inside...and kind of dusty. It seemed to be a family home and the cleaner hadn't cleaned up a lot of the kids' messes...Still - to me it was worth the day I spent cleaning. I was so happy to be there it didn't matter. Request a cleaning crew to clean before you arrive - even if you pay for it.
--No concierge or property manager to call: If there is a problem, and you are out of the country, it is a bit tricky. Chances are, you can't call the owners because of a time difference - or even if you aren't in a foreign country sometimes you can't reach the owners anyway. So who you gonna call??? We had a few problems - one with the pool - it was turning green. Apparently they don't use the same strong pool cleaning solvents in France, and during heat waves, algae takes over. I had to explain in my best college French that the pool is green. Thank goodness I brushed up with Rosetta Stone. Also -communicating with the cleaning lady was a bit rough... and we had some electricity outages, a fuse went out, and we couldn't reach the owners staying in our Calif. home.
--Toys....Kitchen...Laundry...pool. After you get over the"pros" of having these things, you then go through the frustration of trying to figure out how to work each item. Washing machines are different and don't have directions in English... Pool: see above...Kitchen: have to figure out where to take out trash, figure out what cleaning agents do what for the sinks, counters, etc. Little headaches but enough to make one miss home sweet. BTW - this is only applicable to foreign travel.
--No guarantee that the deal will go through. We had already booked our tickets... lined up two back to back exchanges, and our Paris apartment cancelled!! No explanation, nothing. It all worked out - my first choice apartment that wasn't available when I was first planning became available...and the www.homeexchange.comfolks jumped on it to try and help me with their France connections..but I was a grouchy stress case for two days trying to hide this fiasco from my husband who was skeptical of home exchanges!
Overall - we had a great time and I would do it again if I were travelling for a long period to maximize the value of it. I figure it saved us about $20,000.
You can also do this in America!! Keep your travel dollars here this summer to help the economy :)
Happy Travels.
