(Editor’s note: This is not an endorsement for Home Exchange, and Dispatches receives no remuneration for this his post.)
By mid-2024, I realized that 2025 will be a year full of travelling for me. Wedding invites, trips with friends long overdue, family visits, and work trips all seemed to be scheduled for 2025.
Unlike many expats who write here, or the many expats they write about, I am actually not a big fan of travelling.
I am happy to do it when it is not frequent, but I really dislike it when it becomes a lifestyle.
This year so far has been full of travelling for me, with more travels scheduled for autumn and winter too.
Funding all these trips
How on earth would I fund all these travels? I asked myself. We can’t decline invites for the weddings of close friends (both weddings are in different countries). I also can’t just cancel my long-standing trip with a friend who finally managed to get a Schengen visa to come see me after so much bureaucracy and complications she went through. We had planned to travel through some parts of Italy together. There was also no way my husband and I would cancel visits to both of our families in the United Kingdom and Egypt.
Home Exchange saving us
That is when it occurred to me to sign up for Home Exchange. Last summer, some of our friends had invited us to stay with them in a massive apartment in Barcelona as they were spending their summer holiday there. When we offered to contribute to the cost of the apartment, they informed us that there was no cost at all — they got the apartment via Home Exchange.
Home Exchange allows you to stay in someone’s house while they stay at yours (and clearly neither party pays anything). It also allows for non-simultaneous exchange. For example, when we go visit my family in Egypt, someone can stay in our apartment in Lisbon for guest points. Later, we can offer those guest points to someone else who doesn’t want to do a direct exchange with us, but may have their apartment free for the period we are looking for.
Other perks
The only way we can do all these travels is to sign up for Home Exchange, we thought. Staying with our friends at the Home Exchange they had in Barcelona was really cool. The family that owned the place was very communicative with our friends.
Our friends, who live in Helsinki, had left the Barcelona family their car to use for getting around the suburbs of Helsinki. The Home Exchange platform regulates the process, verifies people’s identities, and compensates for any damages which may take place during the exchange. However, our Helsinki friends told us that they never had any bad experiences. Apparently, people who sign up to the HE platform are already sold on the idea. They are people who support sustainable travelling and tend to be generous.
HE allowed us to explore many destinations through a local’s spirit. The owner of the house hosting you usually shares tips and tricks to maximize an authentic experience of the city. They usually leave some of their favourite food products of the region and write up a personalized note for the guests. We actually ended up making friends with a sommelier who lives in Venice. She hosted us at her house, and we hosted her in Lisbon. Now, I have a friend to meet over dinner every time I am in Venice for work.
How does HE work?
I totally recommend creating a membership, especially for the first year, for other members to find you trustworthy too. It only costs 160 euros per year and offers you loads of guest points to get you going. You will make that money back after the first two days of your first Home Exchange. All you have to do is add information about your house, its value in guest points will be calculated, and voilà — you are ready to send and receive exchange requests. You can also read the many reviews which other guests leave for their hosts before choosing your host.
Houses from all corners of the world are available — from Canada to Australia, and from Indonesia to Greece. We ended up going to Venice, Bologna, Madrid, and the North of Portugal via HE. We also have two trips scheduled to London and Sardinia.
We ended up being able to make all travel plans without spending so much money. Accommodation is often the biggest expense of any trip. We also helped other couples or a small family visit Lisbon without the cost of Airbnbs. The best part is the sustainable aspect of all these travels.
There is no point in having many closed-up homes in Europe throughout the summer when they can help with someone else’s holiday or essential travel plans.
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See more from Sarah here in Dispatches’ archives.
Sarah Nagaty has a PhD in cultural studies, She’s lived in Portugal for six years.
As a student of cultural studies, Sarah is drawn to what connects people from different backgrounds to new cultures and places, how they relate to their new surroundings and what kind of activities they could engage with in their new hometowns.
