Anyone ever done a home swap?

Same boat with the dogs!

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So @gingerSnaps543222 and @Ms.BarbsWildRide , it looks like you two are perfectly suited to house swap. :grin:

You can be the very first Liner House Swap. You could even write a blog for Touring Plans about it. :rofl::rofl::rofl:

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Hi! I have done a swap to Australia with the site Home Exchange and it was a fantastic experience!!! I live in Montreal, let me know if you are interested in visiting our city and we can chat! The only thing is that I’m not sure how realistic that would be for this summer with COVID border restrictions :frowning:

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Well, on the home exchange site I looked at, they specifically asked if pet care is needed. There was no box to check for “crazy doggies”, though. :grin: You just need to work it out with someone else who has crazy pets.

First of all, I know approximately where you live and I don’t think that’s true! And secondly, they have all different types of houses, small to palatial and everything in between. Finally, many people swap for job reasons, not just vacay. My friend who does Air BnB actually makes a point of hosting hospital travelers and locum tenens. So you never know!

Wow! Thank you! I definitely will message you. I’m not sure our house will be ready to exchange just yet, anyway. We have a little bit of remodeling work to do and it’s slooooowwww getting it done here. That’s not the pandemic- people just run on Mountain Time, lol, they always have more fun things to do than work.

Do you think Home Exchange is the best site? Anything you wish you’d have done differently? Australia is on our bucket list, as well.

I’m excited to hear you had a great time with this. I’m hoping we do, too.

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My parents have done this several times, and always had good experiences. Personally I’ve never done a swap but we have had house sitters stay while we’ve gone on vacations a few times - we posted on a website and people who were travelling and looking for free lodging stayed in our house for a few weeks - they got a home base, we got somebody to keep an eye on things and feed the cats.

All this to say that it doesn’t necessarily need to be a swap if you don’t think somebody would be interested in your location (although never say never, one of our house sitters was somebody who wanted to be bear her daughter who’d just had a baby without wanting to actually stay with her), you could also look at house sitting.

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That’s a really good point about housesitting. I never thought of the similarities there before.

We’ve had house sitters in the past, too, though they were acquaintances. We just couldn’t bear boarding the pets for that long, not to mention the expense for 2 cats and a Newfoundland.

I’m encouraged to hear about your parents’ experience, too. That’s certainly what you hear online, but I don’t trust travel forums to tell me the truth due to heavy censorship (except this one, which is why I really like it here). :+1:

Another similar situation, the CFO of one of our hospitals was temporarily assigned out of Seattle. They let their home there, turnkey, for years. He was very happy with the arrangement, and since he was CFO I’m pretty sure it was a nice place. :wink:

Yes. I forgot to mention, the friend that houses locum tenens doctors & travelers does not live in a very vacation-y part of Montana, nor is her house spectacular, but it’s very comfortable. Having raised 6 kids, she just loves to have company.

So, if I were to want someone to rent my house while I was gone, I absolutely would contact the local hospitals. We always have travelers and locums. Always. (Lol, I wish we didn’t- they are really hard on the bottom line.) They make good tenants, if I do say so myself. :wink:

It’s seems like there are a lot of ways to do this. I really appreciate everyone’s input. Thank you all so much!

Just in case anyone else is interested, I did find this article talking about the potential pitfalls:

And this interesting comment from The Globe and Mail, for people who don’t think anyone would like to visit their area (looking at you @qwerty6 ) :

  • My husband and I have been members of Intervac (Intervac.ca) for three years. We have had exchanges in Canmore, Groningen in the Netherlands, Ottawa and this summer, Portland, Ore. We live in Edmonton and had some doubts whether anyone would want to exchange, but there are always reasons – family, friends, weddings, the Fringe, the International Marathon finals. We have a potential exchange for next winter with a Brazilian family who contacted us wanting to experience a Canadian winter! Alison Faid
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