Tourists can often be a tantalizing target for pick-pockets. As visitors in an area, you’re unlikely to know the safe areas from the not quite so safe areas. You’re going to be carrying a lot of valuable stuff about your person. You’re going to be relaxing and taking it easy, and so you won’t be concentrating quite so much. Also, if you’re in a different country, you may not be accustomed to the customs regarding personal space and contact, and so you might be less able to spot and avoid a potential pick-pocket.

So here are a few bits of advice to bear in mind, so that you won’t be running any unnecessary risks.

1) You could get a bum-bag, so as to keep all your valuables in a place where you’d definitely notice if someone tried to get at them. Alternatively, make sure that you never ever keep anything valuable in your back-pocket.

2) Try not to stand out conspicuously as a tourist. Avoid wearing a camera around your neck, holding a large map, wearing clothes that sharply stand out against the local attire. If you’re standing in a crowded area, speaking in English, then try to keep the volume down.

3) Buy yourself a phrase-book a good few weeks before you take your trip, and during this time try to learn some of the phrases that you will need, and - critically - their responses. You don’t need to be fluent, but you will blend in a lot better and won’t provoke any hostility if you at least make an effort to ask in shops and restuarants for what you want in the national language.

4) Before going on your exchange, make sure to ask your exchange partner for a list of the local emergency service numbers, and a list of the nearest hospital, dentist, police station, doctors etc.

5) If you’re planning to eat at a restaurant, ask your exchange partner for some recommendations. This will save you from accidentally landing upon a typically touristic restaurants that will over charge and exploit you.

By all means, if you want the best advice from someone who knows the area impeccably well, then there will be no one better to advise you than your exchange partner. Sometime tourists can be exploited, so it’s a good idea to get the low-down before you embark upon your trip.

If you’re wondering how best to describe your house in order to appeal to other users, here are a few handy tips.

1) Form.

When people look through the profile of your home, whether they realize it or not, they are not just looking for information about your home. They’re also looking for information about you as a person. So if you write everything in CAPSLOCK it might make it a little difficult to read. If the text is not punctuated very well (for example, with double commas, careless spelling, or incomplete sentences) might give the impression of carelessness or untidiness.

2) Style

The words you use can be very important.

Take these three examples:

Brick house located near cost, good view, short walk to sea, easy footpaths, kitchen has lino floor, green bedroom carpets, patio outside.

A beautiful brick house that you’ll absolutely fall in love with, with the sea on the doorstep. Huge space, and it has a mesmerizing kitchen lino, and emerald green curtains to die for. You’ll have the most amazing time of your life here.

An attractive brick house that has the beach within a comfortable walking distance. Inside the house is beautifully furnished and cosy, with plenty of space. There is a patio garden ideal for having breakfast, and a very calming ambience. We are very happy living here.

Of course, some of what you write depends on your personality. However, it is important to bear in mind that if you write using a monotonous tone, focusing on irrelevant details, then you will not be doing your home justice. On the other hand, beware of the “over-sell”. If you make the description too enthusiastic, people might feel less willing to trust it.

So it’s important to keep these two points in mind. Make your descriptions neat, tidy, with good spelling and grammar. Also, strike the right tone describing simply the benefits of your home, without doing a “hard-sale”.

If you’re thinking of doing a long home exchange, we recommend that you try to plan ahead as far as possible.

As bonny are the days of cheap-travel-when-you-book-early, this kind of advice is probably taken for read. But with home exchange there are other factors to consider besides the advantages of cheaper travel deals.

1) You widen your options. The longer you leave arranging your holiday, the smaller the group of available people there will be. If you get in there first, you’ll have more options.

2) If for any reason, the home exchange falls through, you’ll still have time to organize another one.

3) Organizing in advance gives you the opportunity to develop more of a relationship with your fellow exchange partners. You can get chatting on MSN or Googletalk and start to not only swap advice and recommendations of your respective local areas, but also to build up a rapport before you make the trip.

4) You can use the extra time to post a comment on the website and see what other users have to recommend about your chosen area. So you can even aument your own travel guide research with the real opinions and experiences of other users just like you! Just got to http://en.homeforhome.com and whack your idea out there!

5) You’ve got time to clean through the house bit by bit, so you don’t have to do a ginormous turn over of the entire property on the brink of doing all your packing.