Hospitality and home exchange programs

By Filipe Morato Gomes

Are you ready for a home exchange experience? Can you imagine staying for free at somebody else's house? Can you imagine somebody giving you the keys of his/her apartment two minutes after you first met? What about hosting people you never saw before at your place? Welcome to the wonderful world of worldwide hospitality and house swap.

ABOUT HOME EXCHANGE

Some long-time travellers say that, generally speaking, no matter the country you're travelling in, you usually spend the same amount of money for a night in a guesthouse than for the three daily meals. I'm not sure about that statement but one thing I guess is that most travellers spend a significant percentage of their backpacker's daily budget while sleeping. Hotels, hostels and guesthouses do get a big amount of backpacking-travel money. But it doesn't have to be that way.

Take a look at how home exchange (also known as house swap) work and get to know some networks of enthusiastic travellers that could host you for free.

HOSPITALITY

Some friends of mine find very weird the fact that there are people out there hosting travellers for free without requesting anything in return. They also think, for example, that I'm crazy every time I tell them that somebody is staying at my place and - guess what? - I don't even know my guest(s).

First of all, let me tell you three short stories that happened to me recently. It's all about trust and goodwill, as you will see.

A
I flew to Amsterdam and arrived at the small apartment of a Dutch student, member of an organization called Hospitality Club. He opened the door, I entered the apartment and two minutes after we met, he said: “Filipe, I'm very busy this week... college, working, you know... we probably won't see each other often. Here's the key, make yourself at home”. And he left.

B
Some months latter I hosted a Latvian family at my place. “Today is a very special day in Latvia, do you mind if we cook a traditional meal we're used to eat in this occasion?”, they asked one day. "Please do", I said. And they cooked something I had never tried before, contributing to a very interesting hosting experience.

C
During my round the world trip I contacted two members of Hospitality Club from Moscow, Russia. Both said I could stay with them. I first stayed at Sasha's home for a couple of days. She was an amazing host but she had to go somewhere during the weekend and, for some reason related to her parents, I couldn't stay in the house alone. So she called Irina, the other member I had contacted before and Irina confirmed I could stay at her place for the rest of the days I was planning to stay in Moscow. But Irina's house was very small. Actually, she was sharing the small apartment with other couple so she had just a tiny room for herself. “Here's your room”, she said, pointing to her single bed. “But... but... what about you?”, I asked. “Don´t worry, you will stay here and I´ll sleep in a friend´s house”. She was offering me her room. She was offering me her house. And she didn´t take a “no” as an answer.

There are some good non-profit organizations on the internet. I would point you just two of them: Globalfreeloaders and Hospitality Club. Both of them are networks of travellers willing to help other travellers by hosting them at their places, showing them around or just meet them for a beer or a night out.

I must say I'm a member of both organizations but I've been using Hospitality Club often. They aren't exactly what you can call a home exchange program because, in fact, you don't exchange homes with anybody. You stay at people's houses while they are actually there (most of the times). Is this a bad thing? Of course not! You get to know local lifestyles, you make new friends and, of course, you save money.

HOME EXCHANGE (HOUSE SWAP)

Home exchange programs are something completely different. By using a home exchange program, you actually exchange homes for a certain period of time, meaning that you go to somebody else's place while, at the same time, the owners of that place come to live at your home. It usually works in periods of two to four weeks, because people generally use home exchange opportunities during their holidays.

Although I have never tried it myself, I think home exchange programs are a wonderful idea providing you're able to plan well in advance the dates you'll be in a certain place and providing you find somebody interested in visiting your town/country during the same period of time. Oh yeah, and you have to have a house to swap, by the way.

If you prefer to have more flexibility while travelling or you're still living with your parents or sharing the house with friends, choose networks like Hospitality Club instead.

One last not so good thing about home exchange websites. You usually have to pay an annual fee to list your property online. Of course that doesn't guarantee you that people on the other side are honest because, once again, no matter how sophisticated the online systems are, in the end, it's all about trusting people. Did I tell you that the system doesn't show other people that you are trustful either? But you are, aren't you?

ARE YOU READY?

So, are you ready for a house swap? You'll find relevant links to home stays and home exchange related websites on the travel links | hospitality and home exchange section. Give home swap a try!

 

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