Over a year ago a friend of mine sharesd about a platform called Home Exchange, and how she was traveling the world with her family, staying in places for free! I was intrigued and decided to sign up!
Fast forward and we’ve now been on Home Exchange for over a year and it’s 100% changed the way we travel! We are currently in France right now and have stayed in 2 different homes and have paid zero dollars!
I KNOW…it’s so wild!
And the homes we are staying in are GORGEOUS! I sometimes have to pinch myself that we are not paying a single penny for accommodations!
I wanted to take some time and answer some basic questions about the platform to give you an idea of how it works in case you are interested!!
1) Is this like the movie The Holiday where you swap homes?
Yes and no! There are multiple ways to use Home Exchange. The first way IS to do a reciprocal swap where you both go stay at each other’s home at the same time. The second way is to do a non-reciprocal swap where you swap homes, but not during the same dates. The third way to use it (which is what we’ve mostly done) is to use Guestpoints. You earn Guestpoints by signing up and also by opening your home. So a few times last year when we were on vacation, we opened our home for people to stay there while we were gone. We earned a lot of guestpoints and then used those to book these houses in France! Think of it like an Airbnb but with no money involved!!
2) Do you feel weird opening your home to others?
Not at all! We’ve been Airbnbing our home for years, so this actually feels like a step up. The people using Home Exchange (in our experience) are really amazing. A lot of them are retired professionals traveling or visiting their family. We had a young family stay in our home and they mailed us a gift afterwards and told us how much their kids enjoyed all our kids toys. It honestly feels like a family!!
3) Do you pick up valuables?
We usually keep one room of our house locked and then just put all our valuables (ie: laptops, checkbook, etc) in there! But we are fairly thrifty and aside from electronics don’t own much that we’d want to lock up haha!
4) Is it hard to find exchanges/use guestpoints?
Yes and no. It takes a lot of messaging to find the perfect home. I probably messaged about 10 people to find a place to stay in France, and 2 of them were yes’s! But honestly it’s fun to do!
5) Do you receive a lot of requests for your home?
I have actually been shocked by the number of people who have wanted to stay in our home. We probably get atleast 1-2 per month. It ranges from people who have family in our town, to others who just want a get-away and like our home. I try to accommodate people when I can, but there is never any pressure to say yes.
Also, I always like to tell people that we do NOT live in a tourist town. So don’t discount yourself out if you don’t live anywhere on the tourist loop! You never know who might want to come visit your town!!
6) Does the website cost money?
Yes, there is an annual fee you pay which I believe is $170. This may sound like a lot but actually it’s a really good thing/ good deal. First, it’s good to have a buy in because that means no random Joe Shmoe is going to get on and try to mooch off people’s homes. Secondly, $170 is an average cost of a hotel, so theoretically, by paying for 1 night of accommodations and then getting the rest for free is phenomenal!!
Do you have any other questions?? Send them my way!!
If you’re interested in signing up, I’d be so grateful if you wanted to use my link below! We both get extra Guestpoints this way!!!
