As with many types of cuisine, you can try home recipes and various restuarants that claim to offer the genuine dishes… But without actually being there, in the local zone, there’s nothing quite like the real McCoy.

This is particularly true of the marisco from the Galician coast. Sea-food lovers will know that to get the full sensation of mouth-watering, juicy fresh plates of sea-food, you really need to go to the local area. Galician marisco has such a world-wide reputation that it’s almost a cliche to mention it.

Octupus, seasoned in paprika and sprinkled with olive oil can truly make your mouth think that it’s died and gone to heaven. Or, try the shrimp and squid, fried and served in its natural ink, alongside a whole wealth of shell-fish dishes.

Of course, there are also the fresh-water fish like salmon, baby eels, trout and sea-trout. All of which can be complemented by one of the many delicious Galician cheeses. To be washed down, of course, with one of the velvety Galician made wines, for example on of the three most famous kinds of Rias Baixas, Ribeiro or Valdeorras. Why not propose a home exchange with a home on the Galician coast and decide for yourself?

Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet have done it. In the film The Holiday they are both single women desperately in need of a change in climate. To get this climate change, you simply sign up online and go and stay in someone else’s home, whilst they’re in yours.

In The Holiday, as neither Cameron nor Kate’s characters go particularly prepared, they each get to know a new charming man, fall in love with him and end their vacation with a new relationship.

Are you also single and fed up things? Maybe you feel that you need a bit of a break somewhere, because either at home or at work you feel like you’re banging your head against a brick wall. Then leave it to home exchange, and take advantage of a new environment. You can go to a new place, live like the locals, meet new interesting people, and maybe even meet a new partner! Even if it doesn’t come to love, you can definitely make some new friends

So, what do you say? Could it change your life, bring winds of change into your life, or simply help you get to know new places? Home exchange is a great way to take a cheap vacation. Give it a try.

If you’re going abroad for more than a few weeks, it might be worth buying a foreign sim card and putting it into your hand-set. It all depends on what sort of vacation you’re planning on taking, and how much you think you’ll be contacting people both within that country and abroad.

If you do a home exchange within Europe then it may be a good idea to look at your cell tariff to see how much the difference will be. If you are doing an extended home exchange then it is definitely a way that could save you money on your phone use.

In order to find out what the best tariffs, you can do an internet seach as most major mobile phone companies have websites where you can even buy the card online.

With some companies, such as Vodafone, in cetain countries if you buy a pay-as-you-go sim card, you get €10 of free phone credit. This means that the card itself costs next to nothing.

If you have teenagers who are likely to be going off on their own, but you’d like to have a safe-guard against them getting lost, then mobile phones are an excellent way of ensuring that no one gets horribly lost or into a sticky situation with language barriers etc.

Whether you think you would definitely like to purchase a phone card abroad, or if it’s just a passing thought, then don’t forget to ask your exchange partner for advice on the best deals and cheapest tariffs.

Home exchange can mean a variety of things.

It can mean flat exchange. House exchange. Mansion exchange. Hut exchange. Or even, boat exchange!

If you’re fortunate enough to own a boat, you can offer it up for home exchange and that way increase your chances of receiving home exchange proposals from people all around the world.

Also, if you are thinking of taking a trip in your boat, but you would also liked to spend some of the holiday on land, you could always arrange a home exchange in a town that has a port where you could rest your boat. Tuscany would be a wonderful example of a city where you might like to make a stop.

Home exchange is not simply restricted to typical conceptions of what a “home” is. You can be as creative as you like, and if it’s a home to you then it’s good enough to get a profile on the website and see if people are interested in exchanging.

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!

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.

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.