The buzz on global warming has been louder louder for the past years. With different environmental issues connected to it, people now are more concerned to go green. Air pollution is one of the major factors for global warming. The emission of carbon monoxide in the atmosphere is a serious threat to our health and Mother Nature’s. So what could we do to help lessen the pollution?

We should go green! Fellow home exchangers, why not try riding a bike while on vacation in the city or countryside you are about to have an exchange instead of renting a car? Wouldn’t that be a good idea? This way, you could save on car rentals and petrol. We all know that there’s a financial crunch going on, so cutting on the rental expenses would be a big help. Biking is also good for your health, you could burn as much as 550 calories for an hour of riding a bike. (That’s equivalent to an hour of freestyle swimming laps!)  Not only that, taking a bike ride around the city is a fun and cheap way of enjoying your stay on a new place. Cities such as Berlin, Vienna, Amsterdam and Paris are very friendly places to go on bike riding.

Now there are available bike rentals for taking tours around the city. Yes, it does cost some damage to your wallets… so how can you have it for free? It’s pretty simple. Ask your home exchange  partner if you could borrow their bike (if they have one) for the time being. Asking permission to borrow wouldn’t hurt. You might want to ask your home exchange partner in advance if they have a bike you could use so that you don’t have to bring your own bike or even rent. Just remember to take good care of your home exchange partner’s stuff to continue good relationships with them. You might want to leave a little surprise, like a bike accessory, to your home exchange partner to thank him/her for letting you use their bike. Enjoy your ride!

This is a curious story about a three homes exchange, sent to me by Sandra.

Three flats, three cities, three persons involved in the exchange, three different jobs.

Sandra from Milan had to move to Barcelona for 3 months for a project related to thr fashion world. Stefan, from Berlin, had to go to Milan to set up an exhibition for a friend who won a pictorial competition. Laia, Spanish property developer, had to go to Berlin for the big estate agency she worked for in order to study the Berlin real estate market and to start up some business.
By chance, they all were looking for a flat during the same period.
Sandra has been quite enterprising and open-minded. She searched, amongst all the home exchange portal users, the ones who lived in Barcelona: she contacted everyone explaining her needs. Between these users, a girl from Barcelona suggested to Sandra to contact Stefan, a friend from Berlin who needed to go to Milan for work during the same months. The implicit idea was of creating a home exchange in a chain, that is implying three different persons with interrelated needs:

If Stefan had stayed at Sandra’s he could have given his house to someone from Barcelona who needed to stay in Berlin over the same period. This way Sandra could find a place in Barcelona for herself.
They wrote a post in the community and after a couple of days they found Laia, a catalan girl who luckily complete the home exchange triangle. She had excatly to move to Berlin for three months!
Thanks to initiative and luck “les jeux sont faits”! It surely hasn’t been the easiest and quickest way, but a little effort and time to search are necessary for every home exchange, even more if the exchange implies 3 houses and not 2, as it usually happens.
Well, to cut it short…In the end Sandra, Stefan and Laia could home swap under the sign of respect, trust, (occupational) necessity and money-saving.
They changed nation in order to work during some time abroad and they moved to a new, fully furnished, real house, full of books and CDs and without paying a penny for the rent! Furthermore, they had someone who took care of their own house while they were away.

They are happily back now, in their original houses and the three of them have already planned to meet: this time for a real home exchange vacation, not for work!

With some initiative, the will to do it and a little organisation ability, the house swap is not only a means to go cheaply on holidays, but also a good way to arrange short or longer working trips.