Recently I had a travel conference to attend in Las Vegas, and everyone attending was looking for a great deal on hotels. These are people who know travel, so they were all going to find the best lodging opportunities balancing cost with premium experiences. Naturally I immediately started searching for a home exchange.
Las Vegas from above
Searching for a house swap between San Francisco and Las Vegas isn’t particularly difficult. It’s close enough that a weekend away is very realistic on both end. I sent out some inquiries and quickly got back a few replies from folks interested in spending a long weekend in San Francisco. Two of the responses seemed like very good candidates, and so I selected the one that was significantly closer to my conference events to move forward. Unfortunately, after a week of silence and a few pestering emails from me trying to nail down the exchange, I heard back from the woman telling me that her husband had changed his mind. So I went back to the other person who seemed serious. Fortunately for me they were still interested.
The pool in our home exchange community
Although further from the strip and other places I planned to go in Vegas, this house was a luxurious 4 bedrooms and in a very nice planned community with a pool. I figured the hassle of driving to and from the conference would be more than offset by free housing. And even better, the home owner told me I was welcome to offer the other bedrooms to a few other couples I knew who would be in town for the same conference. Free lodging for six people is better than free lodging for two! And prices on rental cars kept dropping until it was just $100 for 4 days for a car split across four people.
The bathroom (one of three) had a sitting area!
I think this was the first time the Vegas couple had done a home exchange. But communication was very good, and I felt confident about all the details well in advance. Everything went smoothly, although there was a bit of a hassle every time we passed through the gates to the community as they checked to make sure our names were on the guest list. Secure, but time consuming. Due to the distance from the strip, we were also strongly incented to eat breakfast (and a few days lunch) in the house, which was no doubt much cheaper and healthier than the alternative. In the end, a very successful home exchange.