Over the past 5 years or so we have done 4 home exchanges. A home exchange is a great way to really get to see another culture or city. For all of our home exchanges we have exchanged homes as well as cars so it makes the cost of your travel boil down to transportation to get there, meals and entertainment. That is not a bad deal when considering the cost of hotel rooms, vacation rentals and car rentals.
We use a home exchange site called homeexchange.com and our travels have taken us to Wales, Cagnes-Sur-Mer, France (a cute little town in the South of France), Arlington, Va (right outside of Washington D.C.) and Jevnaker, Norway (a small town in Norway about an hour from Oslo).
I will follow up this post with future posts about each exchange along with some handy information if you are considering a home exchange. Plus, as we do future exchanges I will share those here as well.
Thanks and happy traveling!
Kristen