Editor’s note: This article was first published in July 2011. The listing counts (7,000 homes in Spain and 6,000 in France on Home for Home, and 40,000 on Intercambiocasas.com) and the €6.95 monthly fee are 2011 figures.
Imagine you live in Spain and would like to visit Los Angeles or New York. Chances are that, on the other side of the Atlantic, there’s a New York family keen to visit Spain. One way to get a cheap holiday with free accommodation would be to swap your home with a family that lives where you want to go.
Several websites have sprung up for exactly that purpose, putting you in touch with families who are willing to exchange their homes. Some of these sites are free, while others charge a small fee. Either way, the idea is a good one. For anyone interested in this kind of service, here are a few sites:
- Home for Home: homeforhome.com. This site already lists more than 7,000 homes in Spain, 6,000 in France, plus Argentina, Brazil, Mexico and more.
- Intervac: intervac-homeexchange.com.
- Intercambiocasas.com. It has a total of 40,000 properties available for exchange. The site charges a monthly fee of €6.95 to register and access the listings.
These sites are built on trust and mutual respect. It’s a matter of talking directly with the homeowners to agree on the dates when you each want to go away. That said, since I don’t know these sites first-hand or how much protection they offer against unwelcome guests, it makes sense to follow a few basic safety rules.
With free accommodation sorted, the next step is to find a good deal on the trip itself. There are several sites with cheap flights from low-cost airlines, such as www.vueling.com and www.easyjet.com, not forgetting a site that gathers flight deals for under €100, www.viajesbajo100.com.
Finally, you can share costs, especially transport, in several ways. If you’re travelling by car and would like to split the costs with another couple, you can try www.compartir.org or www.comparteviaje.es.
For last-minute deals, there’s another site with good bargains: www.es.lastminute.com.
As you can see, these sites offer a way to save money in the summer without giving up your holidays. I hope you find them useful.
Featured image: Aero Icarus, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Flickr.
