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'We had been let down by email at the last minute by our Chicago holiday exchange partners. The only consolation, that their change in circumstances was a joyful one - a baby had suddenly become available for them to adopt, which meant they could not travel. Both being freelancers, my partner and I rarely synchronise for time off together, so we were determined to get away with the two children. We sent out a last minute internet SOS. Did anyone, anywhere want to swap with us at a few weeks notice? Very rarely, human beings show the type of kindness and trust that restores one's faith in humankind. This is just that kind of story.

Two people called Ron and Joan answered. They didn't want to swap as they were about to travel to Mexico but we could use their California home for a week while they were away. We politely responded, thanking them profusely, but California from London is a long way to travel, so if we were successful in hooking up another week close by, we'd take up their generous offer. Before we had a chance to even start looking, they'd hit us back with another message. They would be glad to move out of their home for an extra week and live in their trailer, so that we could have a holiday.

We couldn't believe this was for real, so we made it clear that unless during simultaneous exchange, we would never be able to pay them back. Also, during a mutual exchange, both parties have as much to lose as the other. In this case though, there was no such insurance for these wonderful people, so we also asked what proof of identification they required from us, thinking they would probably need blood samples and all! They replied that people who travel and people who have children are generally decent people, so they needed to know nothing, not even full names or address. Ron even offered to pick us up at San Francisco airport, an hour away from their home and that was just the beginning of a magical, heartwarming journey.

In the back of Ron's car, having travelled for the best part of 24 hours and with my 'babies' under each arm, I left it to my partner to hold the conversation. It was pitch black outside and I had no idea where we were headed, as it hadn't occurred to us to ask them for an address either. After a while we felt ourselves crossing an extremely bumpy and rickety small bridge and the dense darkness outside told us that we were in the middle of countryside. Fear began to rise - mothers instinct - when it suddenly dawned on me that I knew absolutely nothing of where we were or who we were with. But too late now.

Finally, we pulled up in the darkness and the car door opened to the kindly face of an elderly lady. She took my own face in her hands and planted a kiss on my forehead before ushering us all into the house. Still unsure of who these remarkable people were and what their motive for such kindness could be, I was rumbled. Will our entire family end up under the stairs or are these two lonely pensioners looking for companionship? My heart dipped when Joan proceeded to show us around the house and to the dining table where she had prepared home made lasagne and placed a lovely bottle of red wine. That's all we needed, a couple of cranks who wanted to share our family holiday with us and I am so exhausted that I can hardly stay awake. But before the thought had taken shape, Joan gave each weary child a hug and exited her own home. Just like that. Gone in the night and us, having settled the children in their cosy bedroom, complete with comforting night light, swaying about on their amazing waterbed and trying to absorb it all.

Next morning, we woke to the most spectacular scenery, beautiful beyond our wildest dreams. Their home is a ranch in the middle of a vast redwood forest. The landscape is unbelievable and wild deer roam around outside. At the appointed time, Uncle Ken, a retired ranger, knocked for us and gave us our own private tour of the magic forest, bringing to life the nature and history of the surroundings. 15 of us even stood inside the trunk of one of the giant neck breakers, once hired out as a hotel room. Many sun kissed, fun filled days in the hot tub in the company of the redwoods and excursions to nearby San Francisco followed.

Ron and Joan however, didn't even stay on any of their own two acres of ground for fear of intruding on us and only came to collect us again to take us to a special family barbeque that was held in our honour. It was strange running into Ron one day in town where we had gone for breakfast, knowing that he was camping out of his own home for us. After they left for Mexico, Aunt Kathy once called us up to ask if we would like to accompany her and her grandson to an amusement park for free on her pass. What a ball!

The best bit is that Ron and Joan have now become lifelong friends to us. They visited us on a trip to London and then the friendship matured this summer when they joined us for four days when we exchanged to BC, Canada. Different generations, creeds, cultures and a world away. We could never have paid for such an experience that has left us also, a little kinder, a little more trusting and more willing to go out on a limb for others. After all, what goes around, comes around.' - Rianna Scipio, London

I am delighted to welcome the latest Home Base Holidays representative, Cathy Lawie-Phillips, from Auckland, New Zealand. Although the internet has enabled easy communication with enquirers and members from all corners of the world, some people, especially those new to the idea of home exchange, appreciate having a local contact in their own country who is able to answer their questions.

Since first joining Home Base Holidays, Cathy and her husband Laurie, have had a number of home swaps (see Cathy's report on their first exchange, Christmas in Utah: New Zealanders' First Home Swap, in the Apr/May 2004 issue of Home Swappers). Indeed, as I write this, Cathy is on a three month exchange here in England (see article below). Cathy is a great ambassador for the home exchange way of travelling, often commenting on articles in the newsletter and sending suggestions. Her thoughts on various topics have been included both in issues of Home Swappers and in posts published on our home exchange blog. (Note: whenever you have comments or suggestions for home exchange related topics, do send them as, like Cathy, every time a quote is used, you will also get a little extra publicity for your next exchange offer!) Now I'll let Cathy introduce herself:

'Hi, I am Cathy Lawie-Phillips. I am New Zealand born but have lived in various countries. We are now back home in New Zealand semi retired and advocate house exchanging as a great way to enjoy the world, not just as tourists but as short term residents... In the last five years we have had a number of very successful house exchanges in various parts of the world, all of which have been great. Please contact me if you have any queries and I will do what I can to help. Happy travelling, Cathy'

The photo shows Cathy looking stress-free and relaxed while on a house exchange at Pals, Spain last year (with the Clarkes' - see their current exchange offer, HE15328).

Stop Press: Another Home Base Holidays representative, Miriam Cassar in Malta, has recently started presenting a weekly travel programme (for three months) on a local radio station. Miriam is bringing the message to Maltese listeners with a regular slot devoted to home exchange. For details and to access the live web Stream (in Maltese), check out the post on Travel the Home Exchange Way.

View the Lawie-Phillips' exchange offer in Mission Bay, Auckland, New Zealand, HE12437

My, doesn't time fly? I started the blog, Travel the Home Exchange Way, two years ago (7 September) as a way of testing out a, quite new then, (and easy) way of providing regular information related to home exchange to supplement that on the Home Base Holidays website and in this newsletter. If you haven't tried blogging yet, you probably wonder why so many people are into publishing them. The reason (for me anyway) is that writing and publishing is very satisfying - and writing short posts for instant publication is fun. Although it's probably the case that most blogs are still personal, there are also many business blogs now (interestingly, large businesses tend to lag behind small businesses in adopting new ideas like blogs for reaching customers).

A surprisingly large number of visitors find their way to Travel the Home Exchange Way, not always looking for home exchange (people do search on some very odd phrases but, if they take the time to check out the blog, hopefully some will become recruits to home exchange!)

I have written posts on many aspects of swapping homes - answers to questions sent by enquirers, problems reported by members, home exchange offers that are unique in some way, links to articles on home exchange, other websites/blogs of interest and on other issues that arise that are relevant to home exchange holidays. I'm sure I may be repeating some information in posts from time to time as many of the same questions about home exchange do crop up regularly.

I try to devote a little time each week to the blog, writing posts that are both relevant and regular (about three a week on average). I'd love to receive your feedback, whether in comments on particular posts on the blog or by email. Suggestions for posts on topics related to home exchange are always welcome.

As if we all didn't get enough unwanted junk email every day, Nicole, a very experienced

As if we all didn't get enough unwanted junk email every day, Nicole, a very experienced home exchanger and Home Base Holidays member, has drawn attention to a special sort of spam now propagated by a few home exchangers. Horrors! Members of the home exchange community are generally very thoughtful, kind and caring people - not at all the sort you would associate with the dreadful s**m word.

Nicole, the prolific author of an excellent personal blog about home exchange, has coined the term 'swap-spammer' to describe a minority of home exchangers who abuse the ease of communication that email enables. Living in New York City, Nicole has a desirable home for exchange and, no doubt, receives more than the average number of exchange offers. As a conscientious home swapper, she will spend much time responding to all offers whether of interest or not. But, here is the real crux of the problem, the few home exchangers Nicole has labelled 'swap-spammers':

'What always surprises me about the flood of swap offers I receive is when I reply that I am interested and never hear back from the exchanger. I keep my responses short, edited and professional, so I know they're not being turned off by my weird writing style. Rather, it is pretty obvious that these folks have blitzed fellow exchangers in my town with as many exchange offers as they can type. After sending out several dozen or, for all I know, a few hundred, emails, these swap-spammers wait to receive the best offer and ignore all other replies.'

Nicole has touched on a real problem for some. Home exchangers need to distinguish between being pro-active (contacting others with their exchange offer rather than waiting to be contacted - a good thing), sending an impersonal mass mailing to dozens of people without thought to their destinations/dates requests (a bad thing) and, worse, not replying when someone responds positively to their exchange offer (a definite no-no!) It is, of course, likely that more than one recipient of an exchange offer sent to several will express interest and it is only common courtesy to promptly acknowledge all such replies. However tempting it may be to try to hedge your bets by keeping some exchange possibilities 'on hold' until you're sure your first choice is definite, this is very unfair and will more than likely backfire. Anyone who doesn't receive a reply to a positive response to your exchange offer is unlikely to be interested if approached again later on.

In pre-email days home exchangers would always give much thought to targetting those members most likely to be interested in their offers, often compiling thick packages of information that included an introductory letter, photos and local tourist brochures. As it was costly to produce and send bulky letters, especially by airmail, swap-spamming was unheard of.

As Nicole says: 'We all need to treat each other with respect for home exchange to work. Swap-spamming is disrespectful.' Read her full post on this topic (link below) and view her next exchange offer in New York. Nicole is particularly looking for a home swap in Italy over Christmas: 'Natale in New York? Se lei ha una casa per scambiare in Italia, una famiglia di New York amerebbe parlare con lei. Disponibile in dicembre, maggio, giugno, settembre o ottobre'. Members: log on to view her listing, HE18495, and contact her right away if you have a home in Italy to swap and are interested in her offer.

Please do get in touch if you have any comments to make about the topic of spam-spammers!

If you are a little confused about the order home exchange offers are shown in search If If you are a little confused about the order home exchange offers are shown in search results (or why) when you browse Home Base Holidays listings, I hope this will help (note: the links to search pages are site visitors links but members can log on and access the main and advanced search pages from their member areas to view full listings):

When members first join Home Base Holidays (or renew membership) their listings are included in the main database and also on a separate New Members list for one month (this list consists only of new and recently renewed listings, not listings that have just been changed a little).

The default setting (the order in which you first see listings when you do a search) is by the date a member joined or renewed, with the latest offers shown first. The reason we chose to display listings in this way is that it is the only fair way to ensure that all members are treated equally, i.e. every listing starts out as the first or near the first result in searches, and each slowly drops down the list as their membership period progresses and new members join/renew. Note: you can easily see how long any listing has been, and will continue to be, in circulation from the registration (join) and expiry dates shown in all full listings. No listings are older than two years (the majority under one year) as unrenewed listings are automatically hidden on the expiry date.

If we had chosen the default order for search results (or perhaps as the only way to display listings) as alphabetically by town/city name, and if you happen to live in a town starting with 'A', you would be very happy indeed as your listing would always be shown near the top of search results however long it had been in circulation. But, if your town name begins with 'W', no doubt you wouldn't be quite so pleased as your exchange offer would start off and stay near the bottom of the search results throughout your membership!

Once you have done a search by country, city, etc (and you can limit search results in a large number of ways by choosing various options on the Detailed Search page, also available as Refine Search from all search results pages), you can easily re- order the results. You will see a drop down list near the top of all search results pages, starting with the default, Sort by Membership Dates (when members joined or renewed). The other options are:

• Sort by Location (alphabetical by town/city name)
• Sort by Destination (countries, cities or areas requested)
• Sort by Dates (dates an exchange is wanted)
• Sort by Duration (length of exchange wanted)

The default setting for the number of listings shown per page is 10 but, with a second drop down list at the top of search results pages, you can change this to display from five to 50 listings per page.

I hope this isn't as clear as mud but, if it is, and you have any questions, or you have comments on how search results are displayed, please do contact Lois.

Newsletter Contributions: We are always pleased to hear from members and subscribers and to receive contributions for the newsletter and weblog - short reports on your exchange experiences, tips you feel would be useful to those new to the idea of home swapping and any questions you have on home exchange. Please include 'home exchange' in the subject line when contacting us as messages with no subjects (or dubious sounding subject lines!) or unexpected attachments may end up in our spam folder and deleted unread.

Reading this on the Website? Use the newsletter subscribe link to add your email address and receive the newsletter regularly. If already on the list but not receiving your copy by email, there can be a number of causes:

• Incorrect email address - send us your name and correct address
• Add our email address, homeexchange@btinternet.com, to your address book or 'white list' of accepted messages
• Check your spam/bulk folder before deleting - some 'real' messages can be put there by mistake

Be Alert: If you are a current member, and should ever receive an unsolicited (spam) message from an unknown agency which you think could only have got your name and email address from your Home Base Holidays listing, please forward it to us. The private member area on our website is for one-to-one exchange offers between members only, not for any other solicitations. It is important to be alert to potential scams on the internet (reputable businesses prominently display phone numbers and postal addresses on websites and never send spam!)

Copyright: All Home Swappers content is copyright and cannot be used in any form without written permission from Home Base Holidays. However, please feel free to forward the newsletter (in full) to friends and colleagues who may be interested in home exchange (use the Forward Email link below the newsletter).

Further Information: Check the archives to read past issues of Home Swappers Newsletter. Also, don't forget to visit the Travel the Home Exchange Way weblog for regular information and updates plus special exchange requests. To receive notices by email whenever a new post is added (generally no more than three a week), add your email address to the box above 'Get email updates' in the left hand column of Travel the Home Exchange Way.

Home Base Holidays, London, UK 1985-2006: 21st year providing a home exchange service worldwide