Home Exchange, Hospitality Exchange and Rental Options

Charles' house in OBEILAR, Province of Granada, Spain

GTI Home Exchange member, Charles G sent us the following email on his return from a three/way holiday after setting up a combination of home exchange, hospitality exchange and a rental via our linked rental site Holiday Homes Direct.

"Please renew our membership. Its been a great success. We just came back from nearly 4 months in the Far East and Australia, one month of which was exchange, and the remainder on exchange hospitality, plus a rental in Bali HE15761 (Holiday Homes Direct Property reference 1288. Note 20% discount offered to GTI Home Exchange members.)
Holiday Homes Direct Property 1288


"In future we will go city centre exchanges, since it's easier to travel out on excursions. We were outside Melbourne for a month, but made an excellent city centre contact for a future exchange".

Regards, CHARLES

Thank you, Charles, it's always nice to receive feedback, especially when things go so well!!

A Fishy Tale

In answer to the question on our membership registration form, 'Where did you hear about Green Theme International Home Exchange?', I was surprised to see someone had entered Carp Magazine. Whilst we receive much good publicity in all sorts of magazines, this was not one which had immediately sprung to mind, even though I know that angling is a very popular pastime. Great, I thought, our Themed Holiday Search in Advanced Search must really be reaching its target if we are being mentioned in such specialist publications. Still a little bemused, I thought I would try to find out a little more about Carp Magazine and perhaps even read the article. Imagine my embarrassment when on looking for information on Yahoo I found that CARP in this instance actually stands for Canadian Association of Retired Persons and the magazine referred to was the Carp 50+ Magazine.

At GTI Home Exchange anyone wishing to conduct a search based on a particular holiday theme may do so by clicking on Advanced Search , and then clicking the Theme drop down menu offering the choice of boating, fishing, golf, horseriding, skiing, tennis, walking.

Home Exchange - Short or Long Term

Question:
We would like to offer our house by the beach on the Costa del Sol, Spain, this autumn, for 1-3 or 4 months, in exchange for a country house/cottage in Berks/Oxon/Hants. How do we need to proceed?
Thanks for your help.
Sincerely,
CJ
Answer:
Dear CJ,

Thank you for your enquiry. Membership of GTI Home Exchange covers both short and long term exchanges, however the majority of home exchanges are indeed shorter term. Having said that, you may find that your minimum period of a month still attracts this type of exchange member. The choice of longer term members is generally more limited, which you might expect. Most members also like to allow time to get to know their exchange partners via e-mail or phone, and make the accompanying necessary arrangements for car hire/exchange, travel etc, so the likelihood of your finding a suitable exchange could depend to some extent on what time in the autumn you are looking for.

We cannot offer a guarantee of success in finding a suitable exchange partner, however your chances are probably greater as your property is in a popular area of the world. If you are looking to exchange in early autumn, you may wish to consider allowing more flexibility in terms of the length of time you could exchange for, in order to increase your chances further of finding an exchange partner. This would also give you the opportunity to try out home exchange as a holiday option if you have not done so before. Remember, your membership lasts for twelve months (or longer depending on which membership option you choose) which could give you the potential of further exchanges during this period.

All joining instructions are on the website, however, I have included below more detailed instructions which may help. If you have further questions, please do not hesitate to contact us. In the meantime, I hope that we will be welcoming you as a member of GTI Home Exchange in the near future and look forward to hearing from you soon...

Alison
Green Theme International Home Exchange

The cost of membership is just GB£21.00 or Euros 30,00 approx for a full 12 months membership, providing you with password access to the full database of exchange offers with member contact details, and a listing of your own home exchange offer together with 5 photographs (free of charge).

You may register on-line by clicking on the green Join tab at the top of the Green Theme International Home Exchange home page or by clicking the 'Join Now' hyperlink at the top of the right-hand menu. At the next page, click on 'Join Now' again, which will move you forward to the Membership Registration Page.

Choose your membership option (ie Plan 1 for 12 months, or Plan 2 for
24 months membership) and then complete the form with all the information relating to your own exchange offer. During this process you will create your password for later access to the web-site. When you have completed the form, click on 'Continue' at the bottom of the page to save the details you have entered to our database, and then proceed to the secure payment page (choosing your preferred card for payment, and currency). Once you have successfully completed the payment procedure, your listing will be on-line for all other members to view, and you will have access to the database to be able to view all other members' listings with their full contact details.

There is a considerable amount of information on the site concerning the concept of home exchange and help and advice about setting up a successful exchange. If you click on the hyperlink 'Exchange Advice and Forms' under the Members' Area heading in the right-hand menu, you can read this information but there is other information elsewhere such as on the pages Frequently Asked Questions and Member Testimonials regarding their experiences.

Stop Press! Rare Home Exchange Opportunities

A rare destination, not very often available via home exchange, has just been added to the listings. Whilst Turkey has been featured occasionally before in our listings, this very attractive offer features a substantial house in Fethiye, Mugla, Turkey, GTI Home Exchange reference HE17141.

Sheila describes her home: "3 bedroomed villa built 2004 in beautiful location 8 minutes walk from beach, restaurants and bars. The property is located 10 minutes by local bus or 25 minutes by Boat Dolmus transport to Fethiye Town where there are shops, banks, restaurants, boat trips, cinema etc. and all the emenities of a large town. The surrounding area has numerous sites of historical interest and entertaining day trips. Also nearby is the blue flag resort of Olu Deniz and the nightlife area of Hisaronu".

Another rare opportunity just added to the listings is a house in Willemstad, Curacao, Netherlands Antilles, HE17154 - a fully furnished, well kept tropical paradise home on Sunny Dutch Caribbean Island of Curacao (15 minute flight from Aruba). Luxurious tropical garden with pond/fountain,/BBQ facilities, full modern convenience (TV/Cable/VCR/DVD). Home property attached to private school property; ideal for smaller children with "private" playgrounds/basketball courts etc. which would be closed to others during the holiday period. Although a Dutch island nearly everyone speaks English (and 2-3 other languages).

Exchange within your own Country

Pete and Maureen Whetton, HE15760 have just renewed their membership, and their destination requests this time prompted me to remind members that many people are seeking exchanges within their own country: viz Pete and Maureen's request for Queensland Coast, Perth, WA, Sydney, Melbourne, as well as Asia and New Zealand. Similarly the length of exchange often dictates the distance people wish to travel, and therefore many people seeking short breaks or weekend exchanges will be seeking to do so within their own country.

Compagnie de Danse "Oural" de Tcheliabinsk

It is not often that I feel impelled to post a blog article which has nothing to do with home exchange, but this week has prompted one such occasion. Taking time off to enjoy a performance by La Compagnie de Danse "Oural" de Tcheliabinsk from Russia in our neighbouring village, I was so impressed by their performance and the beautiful traditional costumes worn by the group that I felt I must mention it so that anyone else spending time in France in the vicinity of Confolens might go along and enjoy their performance too. The Festival of Confolens is a well-known summer festival of Dance and Music of the World, taking place this year between the 9th and 15th August, but prior to the festival many of the groups offer performances in the local 'Salles Polyvolantes' of the surrounding areas. The company has been described as the Bolchoi of traditional dance and you cannot imagine anything better or more realistically representative of the tradition and music of the great region of the Oural. The orchestra too is composed of artists who play an extraordinary number of popular instruments, 'chalumeau, gusli, domra, balalaikas and many others. If you have the opportunity to see La Compagnie de Danse "Oural" de Tcheliabinsk, be sure not to miss them and enjoy!

A Picture is worth a 1000 Words

As those of you who visit the GTI Home Exchange web-site on a regular basis will know, the Feature Listing on the left of the homepage is rotated virtually on a daily basis. However, the listing must have at least one photo in order to be promoted as a Feature Listing. Those without a photo have to be rejected for this purpose. However, from time to time I come across a listing which I think might benefit from some extra promotion, and write to the owners to see if they might like to provide a photo so that they may appear as the Feature Listing. One such listing was for a bungalow in Doncaster, not the first destination that comes to mind for anyone visiting the UK.

I was surprised and delighted to receive the following reply.

Dear Kath......

Many thanks for the e-mail. We have had about twenty five or more enquiries, not to mention the replies received to ours. We are off to Australia in about five weeks time, and looking forward to it. And next weekend we are going to Cheltenham for a long weekend. When we joined we thought that we would not get anybody interested in Doncaster. I have only just changed the listing to see if we can get someone next year. I have not got a scanner so cannot put the photo's on the listings.
Many thanks for your concern.......
Clifton and Paulene.

Hi Cliff

Even though you don't have a scanner, I would be happy to scan photos for you if you would like to send them to me. But it's not urgent, and can wait until you return from your trip to Australia. Safe journey, and write and tell us about it on your return.
Best regards
Kath

Summer Silly Season

Although we are not in the midst of a heatwave/canicule, it seems nevertheless that we are in the midst of the Summer Silly Season. This week brought a spate of enquiries from people who seem to think that an exchange can be arranged at very short notice: for example, an enquiry from a young Italian lady who was interested in a hospitality exchange for a month to any city in the UK, but wishing to travel within the first few days of August; another from a young French person who very specifically wanted to visit Sitges for the month of August. With home exchange it is very necessary to think and plan ahead, and there is almost no chance of making arrangements for either home exchange or hospitality exchange at such short notice. Whilst this may appear to be discouraging, we nevertheless prefer to be honest and not mislead anyone on their chances of arranging a successful exchange unless they are prepared to give it adequate advance thought and preparation.

We also received an enquiry from a journalist at Le Parisien asking if we could put her in touch with someone who was currently on an exchange in Paris. Whilst I could put her in touch with numerous French GTI Home Exchange members who live in or around Paris and are offering exchanges to Paris, it is very difficult for us to know at any given point in time who is actually on an exchange in a specific location unless they have sent us a copy of their home exchange agreement. We do invite members to complete a brief home exchange agreement and to send us a copy in the event that they might wish to refer to it if they should ever need confirmation of their home exchange arrangement for travel insurance purposes for example, but very few members do take this precaution, and consequently we do not know who is where and when. A great pity as it would have been lovely to have been able to fulfill the journalist's request and have received the resulting publicity.

So, if there are any GTI Home Exchange members who are currently enjoying an exchange in Paris (and thankfully not during a canicule, as it can be very hot in Paris in August), or any Parisien members who are about to welcome home exchange guests to their home, please contact Violette Lazard at Le Parisien infos_actu@leparisien.com, or contact me, so that I may pass this information on.