Watch life go by sipping wine in a bar in a medieval European street

Tennessee local news has come up with a great concept for something that sounds like very avoidable boredom. “Stay-cations”.

The inhabitants of East-Tennessee, because of the credit-crunch, are taking vacations across town, rather than across country or continent. The local business owners have said that the increased interest in local tourism by the local inhabitants has lead to a spurt in business.  People still need to keep their kids entertained, even if they have near-on empty pockets.

This is where the concept of home swap is screeeeaming out to you. If you’re not averse to taking a few days out in the summer with your kids, to go for ice-cream or to a gallery, then you could do this for absolutely no cost with home exchange, apart from the travel expenses.

Rather than stay in your local area and go to the sites and parks that you’ve already been to hundreds of times, you could do a free home exchange and have a brilliant time not spending any money.

Let’s not forget that we live in the era of cheap flights and budget airlines, and these low-cost travel opportunities are soon to be offering cross-atlantic flights.

So when it comes to “stay-cations”, you just don’t have to! Go and spend your preciously saved summer pennies in a different part of the world or country, where you can really enjoy the parks and cafes and galleries on a real holiday, at an exceptionally low cost without any accommodation costs!

Just a quick reminder to everyone about an important tool that you have on the website.

You don’t have to trawl through every person in the area where you want to go, sending out exchange proposals left, right and centre.  We have a special function on the search section which means that you can search for people in a specific area, who are also visited in visiting YOUR area.

In order to access this tool, what you need to do is click on the “Search” tab at the top of the page. Then, as you fill in the details of where you would like to visit on the left hand side of the page, you will find a tick-box. This says “that are interested in my area”. If you click on this box, then all the search results will be of people who both a) have a home in the area in which you would like to visit, and b) are interested in coming to your area.

It makes home exchange a great deal easier this way! Just a quick reminder to all of you in case you had forgotten, and to alert new users of this important website tool!

We’ve received a few emails from people who are finding difficulty in changing the details of their homes on the website.

It’s an easy process, but you have to bear in mind that you have a profile as a USER and then you have the profiles of your HOMES. So, if you want to change the photos of your home, the videos, the dates of availability, or any of the details about your home (e.g.:  facilities, activities, exchange preferences…) then you need to do the following:

Firstly, you need to click on “My account” in the top right hand corner of the page.

Once you have done that, you will be taken to the My Account page, which is divided into two sections. “My account” at the top, then underneath that the “My homes” section. In the “My homes” section you have a selection of tabs such as “Edit, availability, photos” etc, and it is from here that you can upload more photos, change the availability on the calendar, change the details on “How do you get to your house” etc.

To change your user photo, your screen name, the languages you speak and your countries of preference, you need to click on “My Account”, and then on “Edit profile.”

Depending on which country you come from, television and film abroad can be riotous.

Alternatively, they can leave you flabberghasted, wondering, “Do people actually watch this stuff?” I often wonder how anyone can enjoy a TV film when there is a commercial break that lasts up to 25 minutes half way through. 25 minutes!!!

But one of the brilliant things about being abroad, from a lanugage perspective, is that you have such ample opportunity to listen and practise the foreign tongue.

You can relax at home in the house of your exchange partner, with a deliciously home-cooked dinner, bursting with freshly picked out local ingredients… and the simple exercise of watching TV at home will be transformed into a new cultural experience.

In the same vein, if you’re a lover of cinema, there are plenty of international picture houses across Europe. You can treat yourself to a genuine romantic cinema experience in a foreign country, in a foreign world.

Another great idea is going to a film festival during the summer. If you’re a cinema fan, there is no greater pleasure than sipping a chilled beer on your deck-chair, surrounded by palm trees gently swaying in the night-time breeze, absorbing to your heart’s content 7 varieties of short films from all across the world.

Films and television are a couple of the many media through which you can practise and learn a new language. All made that little bit easier through home exchange.

In the few days just before setting off for your home exchange, there are some areas that you need to think about preparing for the incoming family. As a big part of home exchange is based upon reciprocity, it’s important to think ahead about how you would like to be treated, and then try to provide that for your exchange partner.

In an exchange, one of the most central aspects is offering a clean home. So before you set off, think not only about leaving your home tidy, but also well cleaned. Little details like cleaning the oven and the microwave really make the world of difference.

If you are precious about your towels, then take a few minutes to consider how many people will be staying, and then find enough towels - that you don’t mind other people using - for them all to have.

You could also think about occassional problems that you might have in your home. For example, if you live somewhere where you have to suffer the intermittent power-cut, think about leaving out some torches or candles for the incoming guests. Alternatively, if you have noisy neighbours, you could suggest to the guests that they bring earplugs with them.

To make our home exchanges the best that they can be (which is pretty darn great!) then allow yourself some time to think about the small touches that could raise the quality of your partners’ stay from good to excellent.

This idea, in turn, will give your own holidays that extra touch of wholesomeness. It’s what home exchange is all about.

Depending on the time of retirement, sometimes it can be difficult to maintain the speed and activity of your social life. If you are amongst the first of your friends to retire, it can feel a little isolating.

Conversely, finding the pace and rhythm of life that suits you the best can often be trying. It can be question of getting around to doing those things that you never had time to do during your working life. Or it can involve enjoying your interests, pursuing leisure or educational pursuits.

Getting involved in new communities and making new friends who are at a similar stage of life is also important. As is travelling. As a home-exchanger, one of the fruits of the process is that you come across a rich variety of people from all walks of life. But as a retired person, it can also be a way of finding new friends within the retirement community, across the globe.

Not only will fellow retired exchangers have the same time flexibility as you, but they will also be able to take longer exchanges. This can easily result in a close and worth-while friendship.

It can also be a way to aid with other common retirement goals. Study of a foreign language, architecture, history, sports, writing, or photography for example. Overseas travel can aid all of these activities by providing ample space and opportunity to develop new skills, draw inspiration, and find new subject matter.

Friendship and personal development are very important concepts throughout the whole of life, but in retirement specifically. Home exchange is a great way to expand upon these within a friendly and worldwide community.

When we travel, we have to prioritise on what we pack into the suitcase. Days out on holidays are not the same as days out at home, where you have everything you need at your disposal.

For example, a day trip to a farm in your local area isn’t going to be as tricky to prepare for as when you do it in a foreign country. When considering the bare necessities as you fold and squeeze things into your suitcase, a giant pair of wellies for everyone in the family is perhaps not at the top of the agenda.

But when you’re doing the outdoor activities with the kids, the range of equipment you need can be extensive. If you go somewhere muddy, you need wellies, or at least sensible footwear. If you go for an actvity in the country, you need to wear macs. You may need umbrellas or you may need parasoles.

Another advantage of home exchange is that if you exchange with someone who has a similar life-style to yours, you can always strike up an agreement whereby you can exchange some of the heavier holiday necessities that can come in very handy.

If you maintain contact with your exchange partner a few times during the holiday, then even better. You can help each other out with advice as you go along discovering the area, and you can also ask for things that you might need and they can let you know if they mind or not!

All good, and all about communication.

When we think of all of the tremendously impressive architecture we have imprinting ourselves on our own selves on our natural environment, or the advances we have made in medicine over the centuries (transplants, genetic screening), it would seem that we are pretty smart. So… washing machines… shouldn’t be that perplexing.

Yet they are! And how!

There are some things in life that are sent to test us. Setting the video is one of those. Working out how to use a foreign washing machine is another.

So one of the things that we can do for our exchange partners, to make everything run a lot smoother (and not least to put our minds at rest about things getting broken) is to leave out some instructions of how the main house-hold gismos work. If you’re doing exchanges with people where there is no common language, then why not try a couple of diagrams? Biro sketches.

So what should we bear in mind for instructions, technology wise?

The washing machine.

The dishwasher.

The shower.

The heating.

The hot-water.

The television.

The VCR.

The radio.

The computer.

The internet/Wifi.

There may be more, depending on how technologically advanced your house is. But some things to bear in mind.

Something to remember about home exchanging is that it can also serve for your more extreme types of holiday. There are plenty of people who have houses in The Alps, for example, that could be perfect to stay in if you wanted to go on a skiing holiday.

Alternatively, a beach holidy doesn’t have to be held in some over-populated tourist resort. You could start looking for someone who has a nice, calm home by the beach to give you a much more authentic and relaxed holiday.

Home exchanges should be seen as a very adapatable and flexible kind of holiday. There is no one formula, no single mode of doing things. It’s a question of finding someone with whom your interests and dates are compatible, and then expanding on that and finding a rhythm and a style that suits you both. Most home exchangers, by virtue of the fact that they’re approachable and interested in home exchange and travel, will be open-minded and adaptable. So don’t be afraid to ask.