‘Dating houses saved me £20,000 on holidays’

Inviting a stranger to stay in your home may seem like the opposite of a relaxing vacation, but for some travelers a home exchange is worth the leap of faith.

“It’s just like dating houses,” Liz Barlow told me.

At the age of 70, the semi-retired management consultant has flipped 31 homes and estimates he has saved more than £20,000 by staying in other people’s homes for free.

She and her 72-year-old husband, Evan Greenway, first set out to flip their home in 2015 — but not without hesitation.

Liz clearly remembers thinking: “Is someone going to trash my house? Steal my things?

“Starting is a great thing, until you finish it.”

Their first swap took the couple to an isolated bungalow in Australia before a trip to South Africa, where they stayed in a cliff-top house filled with quirky wooden furniture.

But it’s a house nestled in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness that Liz, from North Yorkshire, still dreams about.

“It was amazing to sit on the deck and look at the trees,” she says.

“The two weeks we had it were brutally hot.

“We went to the local state fair, rodeo and, on my birthday, we went to hang out with the reindeer – it was awesome.”

For Liz and Evan, swapping houses means immersing themselves in someone else’s lifestyle, something that can come with some unusual requests.

Liz recalls, “When we stayed in Alaska, (the owner of the house) told us what she wanted us to save if there was an earthquake.”

“It wasn’t her family photos, it wasn’t her jewelry, it was her quilt.”

The idea of ​​a home exchange dates back to the 1950s, when teachers began looking for options to travel cheaply during their summer vacations, but for most people it was the 2006 rom-com The Holiday that made it popular. Brought to the attention of.

It was the story of Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet switching homes for the festive season that inspired Rebecca Pyatt to take the leap while teaching in the Seychelles in 2017.

“It gives you a taste of not just going on holiday, but also experiencing other people’s lives and culture,” says the 35-year-old.

“You can go to hotels in Paris and Rome but it’s a bit artificial and you won’t really experience what it’s like to live there.”

Rebecca managed to capture some of the magic of Hollywood herself when she and her friends stayed in the same house used by the cast while shooting the James Bond film Specter in Mexico.

“It was a huge house, right on the beach and it had an infinity pool and its own chef,” says Rebecca, who lives in Honley, West Yorkshire.

“It was incredible. The master bedroom was absolutely huge and had a balcony and an open-plan bathroom, you could look out over the sea.”

Unlike Airbnb, she says the process to actually start swapping is much slower, with creating a profile taking a lot of time.

“You’ll get more offers when you stay on the platform longer,” she says.

“You can’t book just because someone has availability, everyone has the right to say no.”

Although she hasn’t had any negative experiences, Rebecca says there’s always the risk of a last-minute exchange falling through.

Websites like HomeExchange often provide members with a replacement exchange or assistance with alternative housing if things don’t go according to plan.

Like many other travel firms, the company has seen business grow since the end of pandemic restrictions and now has 200,000 active members globally, 5,600 of which are UK-based.

Public relations manager Jessica Poilucci said: “When travel came back we saw more and more people turning to home swaps.

“The cost of living crisis and inflation made travel unattainable, and we saw a shift from Instagram-focused travel to people wanting to experience places like a local, home swapping offered an ideal solution.”

For people like Liz and Rebecca, domestic exchanges are based on mutual trust and “a belief in the goodness of people.”

Rebecca says she is not worried about theft or damage because “the benefits outweigh the risks”.

“The amount of money we save is probably more than what we would have spent on repairs,” she says.

“There is nothing particularly sentimental about me, it is all materialistic, it can be replaced when it breaks.”

However, Charlotte Hindle, who runs travel media firm North East South West with journalist Simon Calder, says domestic exchanges are her “idea of ​​a nightmare”.

“It’s really hard to invite someone into your home,” she says.

“I find it much better in the context of Airbnb, it’s a separate room or property that you can control and it doesn’t have your personal things in it.”

To make the process easier and safer, she advises people to take stock of items within the home and consider insurance policies and risks.

“You don’t want to be in a situation where you’re accused of taking something,” she says.

“If you don’t know people, you have to look at all the checks and balances in terms of security.

“When was their boiler last serviced? Or when was their Electrics Portable Equipment Tested (PAT) done?

“If it’s just your private home you can leave these things out sometimes.”

According to photographer Kate Abbey, unlike booking a hotel room with just a few clicks, home exchanges can be quite laborious.

“It involves a lot of work, like a lot more extra cleaning than you would normally do,” says Kate, who lives in Pateley Bridge, near Ripon.

“When you go on vacation you can just close your door and leave your bed wide open.”

But the 53-year-old woman says that compared to more traditional travel methods, home exchanges give her family the opportunity to get away from more exclusive vacation spots.

“Sometimes we go places we wouldn’t necessarily go because your choices are limited,” she says.

“We went to a valley in the North York Moors, not too far from where I live, and I’d never been there and I wouldn’t have chosen it, but it was so beautiful.”

Home swaps may not be for everyone, but for avid swappers like Kate, Rebecca and Liz, they offer the chance to go on holidays they wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford.

“We’ve seen grizzly bears fishing for salmon from a river in Alaska, we’ve seen beluga whales in Hudson Bay in Canada,” says Liz.

“We’ve had some great experiences.”

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