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.

It is undoubtedly a good idea to get to know your prospective home exchange partners before doing an exchange. In any well prepared,  decently planned home exchange, conversation prior to the vacation is a must.

Not only does it provide you with a great assistance in finding your way through a) the house, b) the district, and c) the city, but it can also arm you with a wealth of information about top tourist attractions, restaurant recommendations, upcoming concerts and shows etc. The most experienced, expert guide you could have for your vacation is sat there at the other end of the internet, just waiting for your message. So it makes a lot of sense on a practical level to have a fair amount of contact before you set off for your vacation.

On a personal level too, it makes an awful lot of sense to build up a rapport with your home exchangers. If there are things about your home that you are worried about, or that require special care, then establishing a sense of trust between the exchangers is the ideal way of approaching this. It’s good for everyone’s peace of mind to talk through the plans and get to know fellow exchangers so that you feel comfortable and relaxed by the time that your vacations come along.

So, how to set about doing this? Our website provides you with an internal messaging system which is easy to use, and which sends you notifications to your email inbox when you receive a new message. Alternatively you can swap email address, or telephone numbers. An excellent way of building up a solid, personal relationship with your exchange partners is to use Skype. International calls via phone lines can be costly. However, if you download Skype, all you need is a microphone, and you can make either free international calls, or international calls at a very cheap rate (depending on the area).

By all accounts, it’s worthwhile making the effort, and with email and Skype, the only cost is the time you spend.