The founder of HomeExchange.com, Ed Kushins, was featured, along with his company in an article from the Los Angeles Times of April 29, 2012. The story discussed how Ed started the business and how it was transformed by the Internet. Ed is a friend and we have talked extensively about house swapping. He is an excellent manager and entrepreneur. HomeExchange.com has the most house exchange listings of any agency. Their members appear on average to be slightly more affluent and have larger and grander homes than those found on other leading agencies. They have been responsible for six of our family’s sixteen home exchanges, including two that were among our best ever. The photo shows the view from one of our HomeExchange.com trades in Provence.

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The Wall Street Journal of April 9, 2012 had a well written article on house swapping, Open Your Home to Strangers – And See the World, by Jim Gray. It appeared in a special section on retirement. You can read the article and associated comments online. Mr. Gray and his wife started trading their home after retirement. They have exchanged 32 times since 2006, usually for 3 to 4 weeks each. They have visited Europe, Hong Kong, Australia, Nicaragua, and Grenada. They make many classic points about home exchange:

1) Location matters. They consider their home town of San Diego, California as a second tier destination. I think it is a prime destination that allows them many choices.

2) They are flexible. They prefer to trade with couples and prefer not to trade their car. But if they want a home or location enough they will waive these requirements.

3) It is an important and much appreciated part of their retirement life style. They average five months on exchange a year.

4) They are serious and thorough about researching and negotiating potential exchanges. Mr. Gray says it takes 20 e-mails and the occasional phone call for the average exchange.

5) They encounter exchange partners with lower cleanliness standards that their own. Their response is to clean up their temporary home to their standards. They prepare themselves for returning home to a condo that will be dirty from their point of view.

The largest problem for the Gray family were the cancellation of 7 agreed exchanges. Our family has never had a cancellation. Mr. Gray says that medical problems can unexpectedly arise with older exchange partners. I can relate—my wife had emergency surgery that put her out of action for a month. Mr. Gray’s summary is right on: “These problems are minimal compared with the experience we have enjoyed living in almost three dozen homes.”

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Youth exchange allows students to visit other countries and experience another family, language, and culture. Often these visits are reciprocal—you send your child to another family for a few weeks or months, and then they return your kid with one of their own. A leader is Rotary International, which has programs for an academic year or a few weeks. I was in charge of youth exchange for Rotary District 5220 and endorse these programs. My daughter completed youth exchanges with Japan, Mexico, and Spain, two via Rotary, one was a Sister City program.

There are connections between home exchange and youth exchange besides families that appreciate other countries and cultures. The agencies that invented home exchange, Homelink and Intervac, have youth exchange as one of their options. Home exchange vacations allow families to experience another culture and make friends. This can lead to youth exchange. We traded our son with house swap friends in Paris who had a daughter. A British home exchange family had a son who was especially sociable. He’s been back to see us and other friends in California twice. My son got even by spending a month with his family traveling in the UK.

Is it possible to go to a website and find a youth exchange, much as you would a home exchange? While Homelink and Intervac offer this service, their systems are not focused on the needs of youth exchange. For example at Homelink, less than 4% of their listings are for youth exchange. Two websites, Lingoo and Language for Exchange offer a marketplace for youth exchange. Their focus is on helping students learn other languages. They know the best way to learn a second language is by living in a family that speaks that language. Lingoo and Language for Exchange appear to be good websites, though they both suffer from the fact that demand for youth exchanges in English speaking countries is much greater than demand from English speaking countries.

My French partner at Home Exchange University, Didier Leclerc, is active in youth exchange with his own children. He and I have decided to set up a website to facilitate youth and student exchange. World Family Exchange is under construction; please help us improve by giving it a try.

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We loved spending the month of June 2011 in Berlin on a house swap. Our kids, who often found vacations limiting or boring, were happy in Germany’s vibrant capital. Our youngest child is thinking about living in Berlin for a few years. As we considered various destinations for this summer’s home exchange vacation we noticed many attractive properties in Germany, a country that we came to appreciate last year. We have never exchanged for the same city in back to back years; we are breaking that rule for Berlin. We will be there for three weeks in July 2012.

We will be in the southwestern part of the city, Zehlendorf District, near the 3,000 hectare Grunewald forest, which borders the Havel River and includes the Krumme Lake, which sounds better in German than in English. Our row house has a pretty garden; it is shown in the photo. It will be easier to drive and park on the outside of the city, though we will use public transit most of the time. It is a five minute walk to the nearest subway station, then 20 minutes to the center. The exchange family is of similar stature, which means their bicycles should fit us well.
It will be great to visit old haunts and explore new places in one of our favorite cities. Back yard barbecues with old and new friends will also be on the agenda. Something old, something new. Wunderbar!

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Most tourists visit Berlin in the normal way. One advantage of home exchange is you get to know your partners and their friends and neighbors. Our home was in what had been East Berlin. Our hosts grew up in East Germany. We spent time with their friends. Their stories add an individual perspective to the broad sweep of history.

Berlin is an exhibition of Germany’s 20th century experience. 25% of the city was destroyed by World War II. During the Cold War the city was divided by the Berlin Wall, which was the ugly poster child for the Iron Curtain. The Communist regime destroyed large parts of the city, to build the wall and to construct their socialist utopia. The newest buildings showcase reunited Berlin’s role as Capital of Europe’s largest and most important country.

Neighborhoods in Western Berlin tend to be posh and tidy: their Eastern equivalents are grittier and uneven, though benefitting from a process of constant improvement and reconstruction. Western Berlin is reminiscent of many European cities, leafy streets with four and five story buildings, shops on the ground floor, apartments above. There are neighborhoods like this in the Eastern part of the city but there are also huge sections bearing testimony to socialist urban design, tall apartment blocks surrounded by green lawns and parking lots. You can walk or cycle along Karl Marx Allee, a showpiece street for East Germany with massive modern buildings, slightly classical, the style known as wedding cake architecture. The Moscow restaurant still sports an Aeroflot Airlines sign.

You should also visit the Tiergarten or Treptower Park, both of which have WW II memorials to the Soviet Army. You can cycle the path of the Berlin Wall, which is marked by a special row of paving stones in the city center. One large section of the wall, known as the Eastside Gallery, is painted with art work. My favorite panel has a sign “You are now entering the Japanese sector.” There are many museums to visit that document the communist era including:
The Berlin Wall Museum
DDR Museum
The Museum for German Parliamentary Democracy (In the Deutscher Dom, Gendarmenmarkt)

The East German Secret Police, the STASI, were notorious for their cruel efficiency. To get a feel for their work and life in East Berlin see the movie The Lives of Others or visit the Stasi Museum.

For an interesting conversation ask any East German about where they were the night the Berlin Wall fell.

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The US branch of the home exchange agency Homelink International is offering a Super Bowl special for new members. You can save $30 off the usual annual fee of $119. They don’t provide a date as to how long this special will last, the Super Bowl in on February 5, 2012. Homelink is one of the oldest house swapping agencies and is a particularly good choice if you are from the US and looking to travel in Europe as the percentage of US members compared to European members is low. Three out of our four most recently arranged European exchanges with our California home have been made with Homelink.

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By Didier Leclerc, translated and edited from the French original by John Mensinger

On the occasion of its 20th Anniversary, HomeExchange.com has organized a contest open to all, their members and non-members.

The prize is a dream trip to California. The happy winner will receive round trip air tickets to Los Angeles for seven days and six nights. The week will include wine tastings, surfing lessons, gourmet dinners, spa visits, live shows, and a tour of the stars of Hollywood.

To honor the concept of house swapping the winners will live in a beautiful neighborhood home, where they will live like Angelinos, which is one of the advantages of home exchange. They will receive other benefits.

You need to enter by April 15, 2012; the winner will be selected at random. Enter by visiting their Facebook page.

You can view Didier’s original post in French by clicking here.

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Homeexchange.com is once again offering a cheap trial membership of three months to anyone who is a member of another home exchange agency. The offer details vary depending upon which HomeExchange.com website you visit. The deal in the United States is $1 while in French, at Trocmaison it will cost you $6. Even at the higher price this is a great deal for three months. Look for the “Special offer to members of other home exchange clubs” link in the lower right hand corner of the home page. It isn’t clear how long this offer will be available.

Intervac’s United States affiliate is offering a discounted membership fee of $75 until January 10, 2012. You will save $25 from the normal $100 fee by putting NEWYEAR in the promotion code box of the payment page.

Intervac USA is also looking for people to promote their home exchange agency in the USA. These agents will get a commission for any memberships sold and a free renewal of their membership if they recruit five others. For more details send them an e-mail at info@intervacus.com

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This is the time in the western world when we think about Christmas, Hanukkah, and New Year. It’s a time to be with family and to reach out to old friends. Today we received Christmas Greetings from two families in England, both of which we met through home exchange, one in 2001, the other 2004. We stay in touch with most former swap partners; five of these families have seen us in California subsequent to our trade. We have visited six families in Europe from previous home exchange vacations. Roger and Liz have hosted us twice in Wales and given us lunch at their second home in France. We were pleased that they stayed with us a few days in May this year.

The weeks immediately before Christmas are not the time to be looking for a summer house swap. The week between Christmas and New Year is ideal for sending and receiving home exchange inquiries for the summer to come as is January.

We have booked back to back 3 week home exchange vacations for July to mid-August 2012. I will be talking more about that later. Didier and I wish you happy holidays and a prosperous New Year!

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Getting ready for a house swap is always hectic, our partners were remodeling their apartment and the kitchen was ready the day they departed on vacation. They didn’t have time to worry about the fact they left masses of food in the refrigerator.

We welcome this kind of problem, which we have seen before. Step one is to check out the expiration dates on the fresh food. We sorted and graded the milk and yogurt, consuming the oldest first. Ditto for the cheese and processed meat products; the Germans make thousands of different products from pork. For breakfast they may eat on individual wood cutting boards, practical for cutting cheese or meat and putting on a fresh roll.

One advantage of home exchange is new experiences. You can’t count on eating your partner’s breakfast, lunch, and dinner, but it is a great way to try new types of foods. Shredded meat from pigs’ trotters with pork fat isn’t something I would ever purchase. When it cried out to me from the depths of the fridge I had to try it on fresh bread. I couldn’t eat just one bite and after a few days that was one less item filling the refrigerator. Coffee flavored yogurt with 10% fat is way too rich to buy in California but went down well on holiday.

Our partners supported organic producers; we enjoyed it all, including the organic beer. They had thoughtfully bought a few loaves of dark and nutty bread from the neighborhood bakery for us. Dense and tasty and perhaps the inspiration for dwarven battle bread as found in the novels of Terry Pratchett.

Our rule in home exchange is to provide an empty and clean refrigerator to our guests. They are welcome to use any food or drink in our house, except for bottles of wines and spirits, which they can open in an emergency. They can eat potatoes, pasta, rice, sauces, spices, snacks, etc. We will do the same in their house. We will shop during our exchange and the goal at the end is to leave about the same level of food as was there when we arrived.

Our friends in Berlin were doing three back to back exchanges, a total of ten weeks; we were being courteous in eating everything so the next family wouldn’t be confronted with a living fridge teeming with flora and fauna. I had purchased two children’s car seats for our partners in California; they asked how much they owed us for them. I explained that we had done an exchange, the car seats for a generous supply of typical local foods. Home exchange is about more than just the house.

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