The view from my Bangkok home exchange
In total this year I attempted 11 house swaps, and ended up successfully completing 10. (You can read about the one failure with the Bali link below.) This year my home exchanges were all points based. My stays ranged from one night to eight nights. And I hosted people in my empty home (and once while I was home) for stays that ranged from one night to one week.
Here’s a list of my 2017 house swaps in chronological order:
- A lovely night at a hosted home exchange in London.
- While visiting Japan and staying in hotels (there aren’t many home exchange hosts in that country yet), I hosted a couple from Vancouver for a week.
- I had arranged a 2 night house swap in Bali, but the hosts forgot about me. This was the one failed swap. Fortunately it wasn’t a big deal to work around.
- While away on a work trip I hosted a guest from Palm Springs.
- In Bangkok I had a lovely 8 night stay in a very large flat overlooking the river. While there I earned a HomeExchange.com balloon by hosting a Parisian couple in my empty home.
- I enjoyed a repeat of the hosted home swap earlier in the year in London where I needed a place to stay for just one night. Though this time I had the house to myself.
- I stayed in a tiny but central and entirely adequate flat in Paris for 2 nights.
- In Brussels a friend and I enjoyed a lovely apartment right in the center of the city for a few nights.
- I hosted a house swap guest for a night while I was home.
- And finally, I will enjoy free lodging in a home exchange for a few nights over the xmas the holidays.
This year, as with last year, I’ve moved away from simultaneous home exchanges. This is partly due to the places I’m visiting and the specificity of my travel plans. And it’s partly due to the fact that I often like to move from destination to destination while traveling. Short stays aren’t conducive to simultaneous swaps. So the points-based systems work well for me. I currently have nothing scheduled for next year due to some uncertainty with personal plans, but hopefully I will start scheduling house swaps for 2018 soon.
