One of the things that I did not have time to cover in my last article on ‘Holidays ideas to beat the Credit Crunch‘   was a real killer money saver.  House Swapping, actually I noticed the organisations concerned prefer to call it exchanging, perhaps to avoid any overtones. This one seems a bit way out at first but offers some real savings if you still want to travel and gives much more chance to get into the local culture and pace of life than a traditional package.
The range of people and places who want to swap houses is really quite surprising.  At the biggest home exchange service Homelink there are over 14000 from 72 countries.  I think that sort of people this would suite would be slightly more independent and adventurous.  If you dislike the way you are treated like a tourist on conventional tours and hotels that are impersonal. I think Home Exchangers want to gain new experiences and like to feel in control of their precious leisure time.
Here are some of the reasons why some people find home exchange makes for an ideal holiday.
Holiday Ideas Cost-savings
The cost of accommodation is a major factor in holiday budgeting, especially for those such as teachers or parents of school-aged children who are tied to specific dates and so tend to pay inflated prices. For the price of annual membership (£120), accommodation budgets can be totally eliminated, irrespective of the duration of your stay. It is easy to see how this money could be put to good use: A more exotic destination perhaps? How about longer (or more) holidays? Or maybe you might have little more spending money to treat yourself to some special events that help to turn a good holiday into a great one. One home exchanger recently put the cost-savings into context for me when she said that her membership more than paid for itself on the first night of her first exchange!
You can keep it simple by merely exchanging homes, however you can save even more money by also agreeing to exchange cars, so that the holiday budget can be limited to cost of travel plus food / spending money.
Holiday Ideas Authenticity
Conventional tourism can sometimes thwart the principle of  “When in Rome….” as travellers are often treated as tourists. In this way you have the opportunity to parachute into a genuine local community and live like a local. So, if you like the idea of sauntering along to the local diner to ask for “eggs easy over and coffee”, home exchange could be for you. With this in mind you dont have to live in a touristy area yourself, either.
Holiday Ideas Flexibility
Remember also that there is no limit to the number of exchange holidays that you can take during your membership year. This should be appealing to retired or semi-retired members as they are more able than most to succumb to wanderlust. This also means that there are quite a high proportion of similar travellers, [...]