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!

The suggestion of the week is Amsterdam, a very popular destination, but always a special city to visit.

Centre of amusement, fun and the Prohibited , it is very famous for its coffee shops and the never ending night life. It is defined the Northern Venice because of its many canals.

It is well known also for the many cultural activities, the ancient and modern architectures and its museums (for example the Van Gogh Museum, Rijksmuseum, Anna Frank House, just to cite some).
We find not only museums but also cinemas, theatres, photography, typically Dutch museums as, for instance, the Scheepvaart Museum or the l’Houseboat Museum.

Many museums then have a special section for children. If you are very keen on museums you can easily get a day or week pass: this will give a cheaper access to several museums.

© Pictures of Amsterdam courtesy of Amsterdam.info.

These are only a few suggestion about the beautiful Amsterdam: start immediately to plan your house swap in order to get extraordinary and cheap holidays. House swapping is the best way to know the town and to save some money without giving up a marvellous vacation.
You can find more information about Amsterdam in the following web sites:
http://www.lonelyplanet.com/the-netherlands/amsterdam
http://www.timeout.com/amsterdam

Do you know how much is the average price for a lunch or dinner at the restaurant?

We did a little research about the cost of eating out, since when we’re on holidays we usually like (or we’re obliged) to get out to eat: in fact very often the meals are not included in the hotel’s price.

Well, looking for the Italian restaurants prices it seems that an average price would be around 20 Euros, depending on the popularity of the city we’re in (Florence is much more expensive than Taranto for example); in UK the prices are higher: in London, the so called low cost restaurants, can give us a meal for 13 pounds, thought the average of normal restaurants in London is around 37.72 pounds… A quite big amount of money for a middle worker. In France, if we consider the popular Paris, the prices vary from 20 to 50 or more Euros. For sure there are a lot of Mc Donalds all around the world, but you can’t require from your stomach to relax on holidays eating always at Mc Donald. On holidays one needs also to eat well, with pleasure.

And if a lucky family can maybe afford eating out every day on holidays, the average current family can’t. At most, once or twice a week. Do your accounts: eating out every day in Italy, considering only dinner (therefore supposing not to be hungry at lunch!) would cost –for two people, for 7 days and taking into account an average price of 20 Euros- 280 €. If after that you wanted to have something for lunch too, the price would be quickly doubled…If you think of numerous families then…

Well, think that this cost potentially –in a home exchange- can be deleted. And if it’s true that, on one hand, cooking your own food sometimes can be tiring and boring, on the other hand, the money saving and the tranquillity or comfort you get from cooking and eating in a fully equipped kitchen is worth the effort. At least 280 Euros saved.

The cost of a shopping at the supermarket is much cheaper: with the same amount of money an entire family could eat abundantly and in a well balanced way for more than a week, without giving up sweets or tasty morsel.

How much can you save then house swapping? A lot: not only in accommodation, not only thanks to a possible car exchange, but also in food, since we can eat comfortably at home, without having to spend a lot of money for restaurants. It’s sure that sometimes it’s a pleasure going out to have dinner and being served: but what a home swap gives us is the possibility to choose what to do and to save some money in case we had the need or the desire to do that.

Welcome back and happy New Year to everybody!

To start well our New Year I’d like to share with you an anecdote.

During these holidays I found myself looking desperately for a hotel for my parents who, late with their vacation planning, wanted to go for a little trip.
Well, despite the crisis I couldn’t find any hotel with availability in the surrounding mountain areas. Not even one free room, if not at an unacceptable price. You can’t imagine how much I desired that my parents had planned a house swap on time.
They would have solved their New Year’s Day and began under the sign of originality, trust and money saving. They could have slept without any hurry to have breakfast in the morning or organised a nice dinner for New Year’s Eve with calm and without spending a lot of money in hotels or expensive dinners at the restaurant. They would have gone anyway on holidays in a new place, maybe a big city or a nice and green village in the mountains. At the same time, they shouldn’t have worried about leaving the house empty because someone (the house swappers) would have been there to take care of it.

But my parents, as many other people, didn’t know about the existence of home swapping (obviously now they know).
The fact is that it doesn’t seem real having the possibility to go on holidays, sleeping in a comfortable, real house without having to pay a rent. But it’s the way it is: you give me your house and I give you mine for a short time.
This is house swapping, the solution for our next vacation.

A suggestion therefore: plan in time your home exchange. It will take some time and effort thinking of everything early, but in the end the experience and the money saving will surely be worth.
You can visit our house swap ADVANTAGES SECTION if the concept was new to you.
Anyway, we will be here giving help and advice, sharing ideas and tips in order to get you the best home exchange holidays.