News

'Since re-joining Home Base Holidays just over a week ago we've tentatively arranged another exchange, our 4th, this time in Toronto, Canada, for the Fall in 2008.

We love the idea of exchanging homes, being able to relax in the comfort of someone's home whilst on holiday, instead of being cooped up in a hotel bedroom, there's no comparison! Also the cost savings allow us to travel more extensively, which is what we've always wanted to do, once we had the time.

Our first exchange, back in the Spring of 2001 to Queensland, Australia, continues to this day. We became so friendly with the next door neighbours, Robert and Cecily, during our four week stay and our friendship has blossomed over the years. We've spent time in their home on two subsequent occasions, whilst they've visited us here in York. Robert and Cecily also joined us in the West Indies in 2004 to watch the England cricketers in the Test Series there.

Tragically, Robert is no longer with us, having succumbed to cancer in April this year, but not before he and Cecily joined us in Perth, Western Australia, just before last Christmas, in another home exchange house. Knowing his circumstances, this time produced priceless memories for us, and being able to relax over a beer/glass of chardonnay at the end of the day and chat was very special. We intend seeing Cecily in Sept. 2008, if not before, so keeping our special friendship going.

Our exchange partners that first time, Jan and Colin, continue to keep in touch, in fact we've hosted their 17 year old Australian grand-daughter for five weeks, whilst she searched for her dream job here in England. She ended up on stage at Butlins in Minehead for nearly two years, until her Visa ran out. Oh how she would have loved to continue but for the regulations! We also keep track of another of their grandchildren, who is making his mark in the U20's football squad at the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra.

So you can see, there are other benefits to exchanging, other than the immediately obvious ones, lasting friendships being the most important in our case! We are confirmed exchangers.' Martin & Marion, village near York, England, HE17547

Editor's Note: On checking their listing last week, it looks like the couple have already filled up most of their 2008 calendar with home swaps. They are making the most of their membership and, as they have some free time during the first three months of 2008, are offering to chalet sit in order to spend some quality time on the ski slopes of Europe.

... Ta-da - Melissa, from Cedar Park, Texas. Well done, Melissa!

The last issue of Home Swappers Newsletter included a competition to encourage more subscribers and members to visit this blog to look for the answers to where three articles had recently been published about home exchange.

Most of the entrants were current Home Base Holidays members but Melissa, chosen at random from print-outs of all entries, was a newsletter subscriber. Fortunately, Melissa was delighted to win a one year's free home exchange listing and has already claimed her prize by adding her home exchange offer.

The three articles, with links to the posts where mentioned, and the correct answers (everyone who entered got these right - I must have made it too easy!) are:

• '6 Convincing Reasons To Try A Home Exchange' - Travel the Home Exchange Way (this was a bit of a trick question as the article was also published in part on another site, so other acceptable answers were Brave New Traveler and Home Base Holidays)
• 'Home Exchange Tips' - Transitions Abroad Magazine
• 'Britain: Exchanging Places in the Spirit of Harry Potter' - Family Travel Files

Melissa writes:

We are a homeschooling family of 7. Greg (dad) is a software developer who works from home, and Melissa (mom) keeps the kids out of his hair. We are a fairly laid back family with an open schedule looking to broaden our horizons. Greg is Australian (Sydney) and Melissa is originally from New York. Our children are respectful and well behaved. We have a 5 lb. yorkie that we would love to share our adventures with. We would prefer an exchange outside of a city, but with easy access to the city. We are open to offers from any country. Melissa speaks a bit of conversational Spanish, and we are all trying to learn some basic French.'

And the family's exchange offer (large house accommodates 11):

Lovely 3000 sq ft. home in the heart of the Hill Country. Ranked one of the 10 best cities in America for families. Can provide video, library, pool, tennis, and gym memberships.

Walk to park, pool, tennis, cricket pitch, soccer fields, market, basketball court, jogging path. 15 min. from the heart of Austin - the live music capital of the world. Museums, amusement parks, lakes, world class BBQ, Upscale & Outlet shopping, are all a short drive away. 3 hours to both Dallas and Houston.

The photo above is of Melissa and Greg's children, from left to right and back to front: Jeremy, Karina, Toby, Olivia, and Jacob.

I was approached a few weeks ago by Alexander, a PhD student from Strathclyde University, Glasgow, who needed answers to questions about home exchange for his doctorate. Home exchange has truly come of age now that it is the subject of a PhD thesis!

Alexander now needs volunteer home exchangers willing to record their experiences while taking part in a home swap. He writes:

'I am a PhD student in Hospitality Management and am writing a collection of articles about home exchange experiences. The goal of the articles is to describe and analyse the emergence of self organising forms of hospitality. The home exchange phenomenon has a particular sustainable and self organising nature.

In order to get information about the broad range of actual home exchange experiences, I am asking for volunteers to keep a diary of their experiences during a home exchange. The diaries will all be different, both in content, form and appearance due to personal preferences. Some diaries will take the form of written journals with pictures that cover activities on a day to day basis; others will be videos covering the main events of an exchange, or a blog on the Internet, or a podcast.

Moreover, as a scholar, I am interested in your (possible) prior experiences and expectations before the exchange you will be recording and your feedback after theexchange. I would like to have a chat with you by phone before and after the exchange.

The privacy of all participants is guaranteed. All the information will be held in the strictest confidence and treated as research data and not as material which could be shown in public. Names and images will not be published. This is in accordance with the code of ethics of the University of Strathclyde. The research period runs from October 2007 through August 2008. As an incentive and gratitude all participants will be entered in a draw to win one Apple Ipod. All participants will receive a copy of the articles.

Please feel free to contact me through Lois Sealey at Home Base Holidays (email linkbelow). My name is Alexander Grit and I am affiliated with the Strathclyde University in Glasgow at the Department of Hospitality and Tourism Management and my interest lies in sustainable and self organising forms of hospitality.'

Editor's Note: If you are interested in taking part in what must surely be the first academic study into home exchange please use the link below to send a message to me with 'For Alexander Grit' in the subject line. Your message will be forwarded to Alexander who will contact you with more details on taking part in the study.

No sooner had I received Alexander's request for help with his research on home exchange for his doctorate, including members willing to keep diaries of exchanges, then I had another message with the intriguing subject line, Home Exchange Academy Launch. The Internet has spawned a growth industry around home exchange but it took me by surprise that this still relatively small niche in the travel market might warrant an academy devoted to it! Could it be a bit like McDonald's Hamburger University? Would Academy graduates be granted professional home exchanger status, perhaps with gold stars beside their home exchange listings?

On reading further, it became clear that 'academy' was somewhat of a misnomer for what was actually an announcement of the publication of a new e-book about home exchange. There have been a number of books published about home exchange in the last few years. However, some are more a series of personal home exchange anecdotes, sometimes promoting a particular service, rather than comprehensive guides. Others, in an effort to be inclusive, include long lists of agencies. As new 'free' sites come and go at an alarming rate, this information is of little value and generally out-of-date as soon as published. So I was pleased to see, on a first skim through this 68 page e-book, that the author has avoided both extremes and, instead, addresses the most important issues for new home exchangers to consider in a succinct and easily readable format. Although she does have strong personal opinions on some subjects, she presents a sound case for her views while presenting various options so readers can make their own decisions (e.g. established agency vs free site, open vs private site, full agency contact details vs email only, join and expiry dates in listings vs no information on length of circulation). One very useful point the author addresses early on in the e- book is how to decipher search engine results when looking for information about home swapping, i.e. how to distinguish 'natural' or 'organic' search results (sites listed for relevancy) from 'sponsored links' (ads displayed above and to the right of natural search result listings, with the prominence of a position dependent on the amount paid for an ad).

I will go through all sections of Home Exchange Academy again and then write a review for the next newsletter. However, from past experience, Home Base Holidays members and Home Swappers subscribers make the very best reviewers. As such, the author of the book, 'Athena Rickby' (a pseudonym), has agreed to supply two free review copies of the e-book. To get different perspectives on the usefulness of the book, I would like one Home Base Holidays member who is already an experienced exchanger, and one newsletter subscriber or member who has not yet had an exchange, to review the book. Your review doesn't need to be more than three or four short paragraphs.

If you would like to receive a free copy of the e-book, please send me a message (link below) with the subject line, 'Book Review', by 10 October. Include your name and whether you have had a home exchange or not, in your message. I will pick one reviewer from each group and let you both know how to get your free copies. The reviews will be published on the blog and in the December/January issue of this newsletter.

Read more about Home Exchange Academy . The promotional copy is a little over-egged but look beyond this and there are extra benefits (unlimited free updates and a 100% guarantee) included with the book. The e-book can be ordered and easily downloaded for $19.99US (+ tax) from the same site.

Even if you aren't the lucky winner of one of the two free copies, if you buy a copy, I would love to have your feedback as this helps us decide whether a book or any other source of information about home exchange is useful to recommend more widely to members, site visitors and enquirers.

Recently, Ian, a Home Base Holidays member, sent this query:

'I notice that many members are now offering Internet access through computers based in their properties available for home exchange. Have any members reported problems doing this? I'm not sure what the legal situation would be if anyone (for example) downloaded illegal material using a member's computer.' Regards, Ian (see Ian's exchange offer in Chichester, England, HE19124).

Ian is certainly right - many members do offer (and expect to have available in an exchange home) use of a computer and Internet access. There is a tick box option on the membership form to indicate that this will be available to exchange partners. However, Ian has raised an interesting and important point which, to be honest, is one I hadn't thought of before as we hadn't had any reports from members of problems arising as a result of allowing use of their computers by home exchange guests.

I had posted Ian's question in a blog post, asking for comments, and received one rather disturbing response from a Home Base Holidays member:

'I just read your post re computer access for exchange families with interest. We noticed on our first exchange (2005) when we returned home there were several viruses on our computer. We had to take our computer to the computer shop (two days) to get the hard drive wiped clean. This was an inconvenience because we run a small business and being without the computer for two days was a problem. Also, the cost to get the computer cleaned was about $100.00. Our exchange family had put a password on their computer so it was off limits to us.

In July, when we did our second exchange to the UK, we simply put a password on the computer so that it would be off limits. We told our exchange family in advance that we were putting a password and asked them to do the same. We told them to call us if they had any questions as we have a very inexpensive long distance for calls to the UK. They were fine with this and we did speak on the phone several times over the two week period. I think if exchangers really want to use the Internet and email during a home exchange it is best to bring your own laptop or use a nearby Internet cafe.'

Editor's Note: If an updated automatically anti-virus programme is installed on a computer, along with the expectation that home exchange guests would take great care when accessing the Internet on a computer left available for their use, there shouldn't generally be problems. However, the member who responded to this post did have an anti-virus programme on her computer and still encountered serious problems. It would seem especially important, if you use a computer at home for business purposes, that you take her advice and password protect it, making exchange partners aware if there won't be a computer available for their use well in advance of exchange dates. And, in such cases, it does seem a good idea to suggest that your guests bring their own laptop if you have a wireless broadband connection that they could use to access the Internet while in your home.

Without looking into it further, I don't know what the legal position would be (and this is likely to vary depending on the country) if it was discovered that a home exchanger's computer had been used to download illegal material. Although the computer owner must ultimately be responsible for how it is used, it would seem easy enough to prove (through flight tickets, etc) that any illegal material found on a computer would have been downloaded during a period when the owner/their family was not at home. Although by the time an exchange takes place, most members will feel very comfortable with having their exchange partners use all their household equipment, including computers, this is still an important issue to consider.

There have recently been some major (albeit a mostly behind the scenes upgrade to the application site) changes to Home Base Holidays, including a neater design for search and listings pages, members' area, etc.

Now also, based on the knowledge supported by a recent TripAdvisor Survey that many people can't bear to be parted from their pets while on holiday, we have added a new option to the membership form, Pets Welcome. Look for the little dog icon beside summary listings in search results. Although there won't be a large number of members offering this until it has been available for longer, surprisingly, even after a week, a few new and renewing members had already included Pets Welcome in their exchange offers, a sign that this new option is likely to be very popular. Listings showing 'Pets Welcome' can also easily be selected by ticking this option on Advanced Search. So, if you are a current Home Base Holidays member and want to add this option to your listing, login and click Edit Listing. Tick the Pets Welcome option (take time to make any other changes needed) and click Save Changes.

Website Based Contact: Members - Look out for more changes in your member area very shortly. Although it has not been compulsory to include a telephone number or mailing address in your listing, and email addresses have not been visible to members for many years, for added security we are now moving completely to a site based contact system.

All contact with other members will be done from your member area, with first contact (exchange offer message) made using the contact form at the end of a listing as at present. As well as added security (your email address won't be disclosed to the contacting member until you reply to a message, and you decide when to share further contact information), your sent and received messages will also be stored in your member area, with all correspondence with each member stored separately. This will make it easy to keep track of members you have contacted (or who have contacted you) and responses.

Whenever there is a new message for you (either a reply to a message you sent, or a message from another member), you will receive a brief email to alert you to log on to your member area to read the new message. A few new message alerts may end up in junk folders by mistake and so it is very important to skim through all mail in your junk folder before deleting it. It's tedious I know but, until there are better filters that can sort all legitimate messages from the masses of unsolicited junk, there will be a few 'good' messages that need to be rescued from your junk folder and moved to your in-box. If you can't check through your junk folder, be sure to log on to your member area regularly to check for any recent messages you may have overlooked.

And to end with a teaser: I am itching to tell you about a brand new project that I have been closely involved in over the last few months, and that will be launched within the next few weeks. Sorry I can't reveal more than that at present but, although this development is separate from Home Base Holidays, it will definitely be a major benefit for our members. All will be revealed in the next newsletter. Meantime, you will just have to keep reading the blog and watch out for information that will be posted right after the launch.

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 'at' btinternet 'dot' 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 unsolicited (spam) message(s) from anyone promoting an unknown agency who you think could only contacted you via the private member area on Home Base Holidays please forward it to us. The private member area is for one-to-one exchange offers between members only, not for any other purpose. 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). Never respond to offers in unsolicited messages - if a 'free' offer seems too good to be true, it probably is!

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 1985-2007: 22nd year providing a home exchange service worldwide

Highly Recommended is RTÉ One's new lifestyle consumer show with Joe Duffy. Read full details on the RTÉ One TV website but, briefly, this show will be looking at original ways of cutting costs and saving money. Joe Duffy and a team of consumer experts want to know the story behind these savings. With the help of the studio audience each deal will be scrutinised and challenged but if it stands up throughout the investigations and the panel are convinced it should be 'Highly Recommended', the participant will walk away with 2000 euros.

Highly Recommended will look at a range of issues that impact on all our lives, everything from property, cars, health insurance, weddings to childcare - and, of course, holidays, a big expense for most people. They would like an experienced home exchanger, who lives in Ireland, to take part on the show.

It shouldn't be difficult to convince the panel and audience that home exchange is a great way to save money so, if you'd like the chance to earn an easy 2000 euros, please use the link below to send a message, with the subject line, Highly Recommended. Your message will be forwarded to Niamh, researcher on the show, who will contact you directly with more details. But hurry - there's no time to lose for your chance to win 2000 euros!