House exchanges....

[thedame71]

Anyone ever done a house exchange for holidays?

Any good website recommendations or advice?

Ta!

CountessDrac has swapped before and seems up for it..!

We have done about 7 or 8 now, and think they are great.
Good points:

1. Don't have to take kid stuff with you
2. More space and freedom than staying in a hotel
3. Cheaper!
4. Interesting to stay in a residential area rather than a 'tourist' area.
5. Can potentially get to know some nice people
6. Go to and discover places you might not otherwise
7. Can self cater Bad points:
8. Some work before you go to sort your house out, and some work when you leave their house to make sure it is clean.
9. Self cater (depending on how you look at it).

The first couple that we did I really cleaned and tidied like
billy-o, but now it is general tidy, hoover, bathroom and new sheets.
We belong to 2 agencies - NCT homeswap which is UK based and about £50/year and Intervac, which is internationally based, and costs about £100/year. It pays for itself in the first swap that you do. You can arrange as many swaps as you like.
There is also another rated international company called Homelink which we did belong to, but found them to be slightly more oriented to retirees.
HTH