An Appetite for Travel

House Exchanging Basics 



Our Paris apartment kitchen & dining area

After our recent trip to Paris, France, where we did a house exchange, we’ve been asked lots of questions by friends about our house exchange experiences, so thought the best way would be to blog about it.   We've been house-exchanging since 2007, when we joined Intervac, a web-based house exchange membership organization.  It has been around for 60 years this year; we chose it from among the many similar organizations because we were told it had the most non-U.S. members, and we are most interested in exchanges in other countries.  We have not been disappointed.

 

Simon and Jenny, left, with Joan, right, at our swim club.

Our first exchange was as a result of a proposal from Simon and Jenny Nicholson, long-time exchangers.  We learned later that their exchange with us was their nineteenth-they had been exchanging since their children were small and Intervac was a book of member listings published twice a year.  We learned so much from Simon and Jenny, and still keep in touch with them, as their son and his family live in the Philadelphia area.   

After our “city mouse, country mouse” exchange with Simon and Jenny, who live in a beautiful country house in Worcestershire, we completed exchanges in Montreal, Florence, Lisbon, Lyon, Krakow, Munich and most recently, Paris.  We have also offered hospitality to Intervac folks who want to visit Philadelphia although we were not able to do an exchange with them.  We have hosted new friends from Hungary, the Netherlands and New Zealand, as well as Washington, DC and New York City! 



Some of our exchanges have been “simultaneous”, meaning that we are in their house while they are in ours.  Others have been “non-simultaneous.”  In those cases, we have sometimes been away on another vacation while guests have been in our house, and later we have visited their home as guests, or stayed in a second home that they offer to exchange.  We have found that many exchangers do not exchange their primary home, as we do, but have a second home in a popular vacation area which they offer for exchange. 

In Lyon at the home of Michel and Sylviane, who stayed with us in Philadelphia the year before.
 

We have most enjoyed the non-simultaneous exchanges, as then we get a chance to meet our guests.  Now we try to schedule our trips so that we can meet our guests as they arrive in Philadelphia,  show them around our neighborhood and share a meal with them at home, even just for a few hours before we depart.  Only twice did we never meet our exchangers, and they were our least favorite exchanges.



Dane giving Lurdes Fernando and their daughter from Lisbon a walking tour of Philadelphia
 

Frederique at Giverny

Our fondest memories have been when we have been able to spend time with our new friends in their cities.  After having Lurdes and Fernando and their children stay in our apartment in Philadelphia, we enjoyed their vacation home outside Lisbon.  One day they were so kind as to spend an entire day driving us around the countryside to see areas that we would not have been able to see with public transportation. 

When we were recently in Paris, we were delighted to have two wonderful days with Frederique, who stayed in our apartment with her children last summer for a week.  The walking tour she gave us of her neighborhood was wonderful and the day she drove us to Giverny was extra memorable.

 

One big question people ask us is whether we feel our home is safe when strangers are staying in it.  At first we thought of getting locking filing cabinets for our valuable papers and financial records, but inertia ruled, and we just leave things as we have them for our exchanges, and nothing has ever happened.  As we say, after all, we are in their home.  We even leave our art and antiques out for our guests to enjoy.  The worst that has happened has been a broken measuring cup, which was replaced by our thoughtful guests.   

We closed the door and didn't use Helene's bedroom in Paris.

Because many know that we have a big apartment with all the modern conveniences, friends ask us if we always exchange with another big property.  In fact, since it’s just the two of us, we prefer a nice small apartment, so that we don’t have too much space to spread out or to clean before we leave.  We have never worried about the exchange being “same for same.”  When we do have a “home away” that is bigger than we need, we just close the doors to the extra rooms.  

I mentioned cleaning the exchange home before we leave. We always try to leave the home we are exchanging in the same condition which we found on arrival and we have always found our exchangers leave our house in spotless condition.  The only thing we have ever found is a few groceries in our cabinets and refrigerators that we didn’t buy!  We usually spend just a few hours of our last day cleaning and freshening up, which is the least we can do as thanks for our exchange.  In addition, if we have used up any supplies, we try to replace them.

Which reminds me to mention that we always leave a grocery supply for our exchangers, including breakfast fixings for the first few days, fresh fruit, maybe some pasta and sauce, and local specialties and treats, as well as a nice bottle of wine and some local beers for them to enjoy?  The most generous supplies we encountered were during our exchange in Krakow, Poland, when we had so many lovely treats that we hardly had to shop at all during our stay there.  It inspired us to be equally generous and to provide local treats. 

One of the most important things we learned from Jenny and Simon at our first exchange was to produce a “house book” with information about our home, neighbors and local sights.  We include information about our locks, keys and doorbell system, parking, busses and taxis, trash collection schedule, heat and air conditioning systems, plumbing and electrical issue, our kitchen appliances, laundry, linens and housekeeping supplies, watering house plants, the building alarm system, telephones, computer, and televisions.  We leave emergency telephone numbers for a 24-hour pharmacy, our plumber, electrician, locksmith, security service, garage door service, heat/air conditioning service, and our neighbors.  We also give information on nearby ATM machines, the post office, grocery stores, liquor stores and our favorite neighborhood restaurants.  Another huge notebook includes brochures and maps of our city and region and the popular sights.   

I mentioned parking.  Only once, with Simon and Jenny, did we exchange cars.  Since then, we have given up our car since we live in the center of the city and do not regularly need one.  We recommend our exchangers rent a car for a day or two if they want to do excursions outside of Philadelphia, and we do the same on our visits to their areas, which works out just fine.   



Mr. Spats photo by our Munich exchangers.

One of the reasons we were initially attracted to house exchanging was because we had two cats; it was so nice to have someone to be in our home to take care of our cats.  We have taken care of Simon & Jenny’s cat, and another time during our Montreal exchange.  But we found that some exchangers were not enthusiastic about having to take care of our cats, which caused some last-minute problems.  Now, although we are sorry to say that both of our cats have died, we have found house-exchanging simpler without having to worry about pet care, although it can certainly be arranged as part of an exchange.

 

In fact, Intervac has lots of helpful information on itswebsite, including sample Exchange Agreements, which we have found helpful to have each party to an exchange fill out.  There are also car exchange templates, tips for new Intervac members and checklists for successful exchanges including how to prepare for guests and what to do at an exchange home before your return home.  

 

One of the most important things, we have found, to agree on beforehand, is how to get keys to each other.  Usually, we try to meet our exchangers in person so we can do a key handoff.  We always tell our neighbors in our building that we will be having house exchange guests, so in case they have a problem, they know they can knock on any door for assistance.  Having a local contact is so helpful; we usually try to have a neighbor who speaks the language of our guests invite them over for a visit, which our exchangers have really appreciated.  In fact, one time, our neighbor stopped by to see how they were doing to discover that one of our air-conditioning systems wasn’t working.  He was able to call the service people and have it repaired right away for our houseguests who didn’t speak English well; they were most grateful, as were we when we returned. 

Another thing we have found is that exchangers really appreciate having a computer to use.  We have set up our computer so that guests can use it without accessing our personal files.  They can also hook up to our wireless system easily and use their own computer, which we prefer to do when we are in their house, as we have found that keyboards can be very different in other countries, making communication slow!

Our next exchange, you ask?  This fall we are going to Sardinia for a week to stay with Rosa, who stayed with us for two weeks one summer recently.  From there we are going to Rome to stay with at Lorenzo’s family pied-a-terre in Rome; they live on a farm outside of Rome and offer their small city apartment for exchange.  They stayed in our apartment last summer while we were away visiting our daughter in Chicago.  And while we are gone for 3 weeks, a couple from Wellington, New Zealand, are going to be staying in our apartment—we will stay with them in January, 2014.  You can see sometimes it is complicated arranging exchanges-thank heavens for email!  

Only twice have we initiated an exchange, once when we wanted to go to Montreal over the New Year, and once when we wanted to visit Florence.  Our other exchanges have been as a result of proposals we have received from people who want to come to Philadelphia.  We evaluate each offer for destination and time of year. We like to travel in the fall, winter and spring, but we get many exchanges offers from families who want to visit in the summertime, of course, which we usually decline as we like to stay home in the summer and enjoy our neighborhood swim club.  Sometimes we just can’t make an exchange work because we already have travel plans, since we plan about 6 to 9 months in advance.  We were dismayed to have to turn down an exchange on a beach resort in Thailand, for example.    

And how does it compare, cost-wise, to a regular vacation?  It’s a real savings!  I just finished paying the bills for our Paris trip, which cost about $5,000 for eighteen days, or about $140 per person per day.  The major expense, over $2,000, was our airfare to Paris.  The next major expense was restaurant meals, at just over $1,700.  We didn’t splurge on meals, but we had at least one lovely restaurant meal each day.  The most expensive was $138 for two including aperitifs, wine with dinner, and three courses.  In Paris!  We also spent money on groceries, as we had a small breakfast each morning in our apartment before we started our day, and then a snack of cheeses, bread, pate and sometimes soup back at our apartment in the evening.  Our only other expenses were museum admissions and tickets for musical events, and train, bus and taxi fares.   

These costs compare favorably to a house exchange trip we took to Munich and Krakow, with 4 days in a penisone in Prague in the middle, which also came out to about $5,000, because although we had some hotel bills, we used miles for our tickets to Europe.  As you can see the fact that we because we do house exchange, we don’t have a hotel bill for our trips, which means a significant savings!   

We’d be happy to answer any questions you have about our house exchange experiences.  We encourage you to try it!