We leave Marbella behind and we now head on to another lovely destination in the Spanish Costa del Sol, it is time now to invite you to visit and discover Malaga.

An important detail that you should keep in mind when you look for home exchange opportunities in this area, is that between Marbella and Malaga there are other smaller but equally sunny and enjoyable cities, like Fuengirola, Benalmadena or Torremolinos. Our Map Search could be the key tool to find a great place for your next holidays, or alternatively, use the Search filters: select Spain and then Malaga (Region) and choose from the list of cities at the bottom of the page (see image). 

If you want beach, sun and entertainment, you can’t go wrong with the 300 Km (~190 miles) coastline in the Costa del Sol, and the city of Malaga is the area’s main hub. A unique attraction is the Malaga Picasso Museum in the Andalusian Renaissance style Buenavista Palace. A must for art lovers and anyone who wants to take a peek at the genius’ work.

We wrote more about Malaga in a previous post

We do not write about this option very often, but students can become an important force in the swapping world. Mobility programs abide and there’s no better way to solve the accommodation problem than to swap houses with a student coming to your city (does not need to be to the same University).

We have the Study exchanges forum for people who specifically want to swap houses driven by academic related motives. Right now, there are mostly offers of people looking for an opportunity to improve their skills in a foreign language by experiencing it first hand, living as a local - one thing home exchange is perfect for. But, you can expand this and swap houses while you take a semester or a post-graduate program in another country. If you find the right partner you won’t have to sub-let your place, it will be taken care of, and you’ll have a home away from home without spending any extra money. It also works for teachers, professors and researchers!

Image: renjith krishnan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

We were going to continue with our suggestions for next Christmas in London today but we will leave it for the next post instead because we have an interesting tip to share with you to check out another feature available in HomeForHome that can help you find house swap partners or interesting destinations:

In our home page, we have an area in the right-hand side panel to show “Opinions on Home Exchanges” where there are usually two or three of our users’ comments about their last home swaps. But, if you want to see all the opinions, you can use the “See more opinions” link below these comments.

Every user that has accepted a home exchange proposal will be asked to share their opinion about the experience. Opinions and ratings are very important because they become part of the presentation letter of your exchange partner.

Since we do not want to leave you festival-free today, we have a reminder:

Oktoberfest 2011
What: A lot of fun!
Where: Munich, Germany.
When: Now, until October 3rd.

If you are near Munich, it could be worth a visit

Today we found something interesting that could be appealing to many of our readers now that we are about to change seasons. What if you could enjoy the sun in any season? Does this get your attention? Well, today, a user has posted an offer in several of the forum topics under the title “Enjoy the sun in any season“, and we thought it might just be a good thing to give it a gentle push by posting the details in our blog as well.

Ner is a user from Roquetas de Mar in Almeria (Spain), an area described as warm in the winter and hot in the summer. If you are wondering why would someone leave warm paradise to spend the winter elsewhere, well, Ner wants to stay for at least three months in an English speaking country to learn English, so if you have a home to exchange where Ner can practice English on a daily basis, don’t hesitate to get in touch. You could be spending part of the winter in an apartment near Playa Serena beach:

Image: one of Ner house’s photos in HomeForHome.

After taking a quick glance at the activity in our community forums during this past week, it is safe to say that it is still very active and a tool our swappers are using more and more each day to find home exchange opportunities, to make specific offers and also to share their experiences, both good and bad. Luckily, the count is in favor of the positive experiences, that outscore the negative ones by far.

It is also noticeable that English speaking users are less active that other house swappers, so we want to encourage you to get involved and participate, even if you are not looking for an exchange right now, if you build a strong net of contacts using the forum it will help you find trustworthy counterparts more easily in the future and will show people you are a serious possible partner. Plus, it is fun and it doesn’t take a lot of time. Give it a try!

Image: Public domain licence, taken from Wikimedia Commons.

A few days ago we were showing you how to hide your home from the search engine when you are not looking for new home exchange opportunities, but by no means this is what most of our users will do these days… Have you checked the Community forum lately? There is a lot of activity in the different topics, specially those about “Exchange Requests”, with new offers being published daily. Fourteen topics were started only yesterday and one of the got over 8000 hits! Wow!

Weekend exchanges, offers for July, August, and September, and swappers already trying to make plans for Christmas and New Year’s Day… Many keyboards are getting action these days, what about yours? Are you going to stay silent?

Do not let the language be a problem, remember that there are online translation tools, like Google Translate, that can help you get an idea of what the other user is trying to say and you can check a person’s profile to see if they understand English to write them a direct message. Dive in!

Almost ending July, many of our users have exchanged houses during the summer time or are about to do so. It is by far the most active time of the year and you have probably been part of it, either sending or receiving home exchange requests or just contacting other users to see if they are interested in exchanging home with you. What happens when you already “booked” the swap you were looking for? There are many options you can use to tell other users your home is no longer available: 1) change the availability calendar, 2) add  a note to your profile and/or home description, and 3) hide your home.

We have discussed the first two options before (see here), but the third one is rather new. There is an option to hide your home from HomeForHome’s search engine so that other users will not be able to find it and therefore you will not receive unwanted requests.

To hide your home, click on the “Hide” link located in the toolbar below the home title (see image). A message will pop up asking you to accept or cancel the action. This message says: “Are you sure you want to hide your home from the search engine? The home will temporarily cease to appear in the search engine results until you indicate otherwise…”

Now you know. HomeForHome keeps adding new features so you can enjoy house swapping.

Yesterday, after telling you about Laura’s home swap offer we said we had another open topic already picked out to share with you, it is very different from Laura’s and many miles away because it is an offer to visit the United States this Summer. Here are the details:

Come to the American west, summer 2011 - This is the title of the offer posted by Sally and Chris, a couple with 3 sons looking to exchange their home in Laramie, Wyoming. What do they want? They say they are open to all offers and if you check their destination preferences you will find a very long list. Their offer is perfect for outdoor lovers, because their location is excellent for mountain/road cycling, hiking, fishing, & rock climbing and they are willing to share their camping equipment and bicycles, as well as their car and their camping caravan trailer (wow!). We invite you to check the list under “Points of interest” because you will be surprised with everything Laramie has to offer. Their availability calendar says the house is available from May 28th to August 14th so you better contact them soon!

When an opportunity like this one knocks on your door, it is a good idea to give it at least a moment to analyse if it is the right offer for you or not. If it is not the offer you have been waiting for you would have only lost a few minutes but if it meets your expectations you would have gained many minutes of joy in your next home swap.

Image: graur codrin / FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

Hi! It seems many people are looking for house swaps, yes! Our Community Forum is as active as ever, in the past week only we had over 80 active topics in the Exchange Requests section. In there you can find almost any kind of offer from one week stays to two year stays! It is just amazing. We welcome this activity burst and we hope it keeps going for a long time.  It is not time to be shy, it is time to hit those keys and chat with other swappers

Have you been participating too? What are you waiting for? Here is one offer we found that has no reply yet (we can not believe this offer has no replies and it has been in the forum for over a week!) with the links so you can check it really quick and if you are interested (if you are in London, I think you will be interested):

Seaside in Italy for London - If I had a house in London I would definitely be replying to Laura who is offering her seaside flat in Cantabria from June to September in exchange for a one week stay in London between July 12th and August 20th. She also says the home exchange can be simultaneous or non-simultaneous. It seems like a very good offer. Check out her home and profile and contact her before someone else “books” her flat! She needs space for a family of four and will be travelling with two children. Seems like the perfect offer for a Londoner family.

We have another very interesting home exchange proposal in cue for tomorrow, so if you are looking, we are too!

Image: photostock / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The Summer is near for people in Europe and North America. Only one month separates us from the longed for season. Kids are counting the days left til their vacations (and so are school teachers) and many HomeForHome users have completed their homework. We can easily see this by browsing through the homes listed in HomeForHome. Many house swaps have been arranged for the coming months.

What are you waiting for? If you have not started your “marketing” plan to find a house swap for this Summer, you still have time and if you have not had any luck yet, do not throw the towel! There is probably someone looking for what your house has to offer. Here are some quick tips:

- Login regularly to check for updates. This time of the year can be very busy, depending on where you are and where you want to go, of course, so any new interesting message should be answered as soon as possible to increase the chance you are the first to reply if another house swapper has been sending messages to people in your area.

- Remember the FORUM. It is not there just for fun and to talk about things that interest us, it is an important area to be used as a tool to find and post specific house swap offers.

- Before you send a message or a request, make sure to check the availability calendar or any notes the other user may have added to his/her house description or personal profile to indicate their current interests. This will help you avoid wasting time sending offers to homes that are already taken or users not interested in your area.

We hope these notes help you find a great swap for this Summer.

Image: Taken from Wikimedia Commons on 2011/05/22.