Home Exchange Activity Holidays

Although Home Exchange has perhaps not yet entered the arena for extreme sports such as skydiving or base jumping, a recent GTI Home Exchange member listing highlighted the fact that it is perhaps time to extend the list of leisure activities that can be pursued on a home exchange holiday. The particular listing that I am referring to is HE20672 at Dahab on the Red Sea in Egypt.

Lynne says: “Our house is less than one minute from the beach in Dahab which is a very beautiful area with lots to do including; snorkelling, diving, camel riding. It also has local restaurants and shops nearby. The house has 2 large bedrooms, bathroom, lounge (with Satelite TV), kitchen (with washing machine and microwave) and a cool outside tiled area with trees all around. Dahab is well known for diving and you would be able to use the facilites of Dive Urge, our dive club. We have a private beach for you to enjoy. Dahab suits all types of people looking for a great holiday. We can also easily organise a transfer from Sharm Airport.”

She continues: “We are a family of 5 including 3 kids: 2 girls 10 and 4 and a boy who is 18 months. We own and run Dive Urge in Dahab and have lived here for more than 11 years now too so we have lots of helpful information on getting the best out of your time here. We like to enjoy our annual holiday in England for 6 weeks over July-September time but, as we do not live in our exchange house, we are able to offer it year round and are flexible. We do a fair bit of exploring here and are active in trying to preserve this amazing place. Myself and my hubby are both scuba divers and I also ride horses locally too with my daughter.” Lynne is interested in visiting England, preference being for the counties of Berkshire, Somerset or Dorset.

Another gentle activity like diving is hot air ballooning, mentioned by new Green Theme International Home Exchange members Barbara and Brian, HE20831 who live in Canterbury near Christchurch, New Zealand. They describe their area as follows: “10 mins from city centre, we are also close to the port hills and surrounding bays and beaches, and yet only an hour and a half drive to the closest ski field. There are many outdoor activities locally situated including hot air ballooning, fishing, jet boating, swimming and many more.”

“We are Barbara and Brian a family of 5 with 3 children aged 9, 12, and 14. My husband Brian was born in England and hasn't returned since he immigrated here over 15 years ago, so we are very excited to have the opportunity to go back. We have never done an exchange before but have heard it is a great way to travel to other countries without accommodation costs and a great way to meet new people.” Barbara and Brian obviously can’t wait to fix up their first home exchange, so anyone interested in a home swap to New Zealand, please contact them as soon as possible.

'T'is the Season to be Jolly planning your next Home Exchange Holiday

Best wishes for the New Year to all our GTI Home Exchange members.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

Meilleurs Voeux de Bonne Année

Prettige Kerstdagen en een Gellukig Nieuwjaar

Frohe Weihnachten und ein Gutes Neues Jahr

Buon Natale e Feliz Anno Nuovo

Feliz Navidad y Prospero Año Nuevo

Unfortunately I myself have not felt quite so jolly in recent weeks having had to spend a period of time in hospital, and therefore apologies for the break in publishing articles on the GTI Home Exchange Blog. However, I was glad to discover that others have been keeping up the good work for me viz. the article Holiday Home Swapping on the Guide me Green web-site.

A Time to Travel, A Time to Stay

From time to time members contact us to say that they are not in a position to offer their home for exchange this year for one reason or another. Moving home, settling into a new job, renovating the house, or care responsibilities are among a multitude of reasons why people sometimes have to sacrifice their precious travelling time. For these people it is not the end but merely a temporary lull in their travelling days. So it is always a particularly sad moment when a long standing GTI Home Exchange member contacts us to say that they will not be renewing their membership because of ill health. "Unfortunately, we can't travel this coming year because of a health problem. So we shall not renew our membership. We have appreciated your organisation and helpful kindness. Kind regards, Louise C, France."

We wish anyone in this situation a speedy recovery, but time does eventually catch up with all of us when we no longer feel able to travel or it is simply not a pleasure any more. Then is the time to sit back and reflect on your globetrotting years, the friends you have made, the wonderful home exchange travel experiences you have been fortunate enough to enjoy, and to appreciate the pleasures of your own home.

At other times Green Theme International Home Exchange finds itself the victim of its own success, with members not renewing their membership because they do not need to. In reply to our renewal reminder letter, Wolfgang wrote: "I would like to renew my membership, but at the moment have so many exchange requests, that I would rather make a break of about a year before I resubscribe. Is that at all possible? Thanks for your help, it's a great page. Plus I would now like to subscribe to the rental page; what should I do? Wolfgang P, Austria"

Of course it is a member's perogative to take a break from membership. Rest assured that we shall be only too pleased to welcome you back whenever is appropriate. And to subscribe to our rental page, Wolfgang just needs to visit: http://www. holiday-homes-direct.com

Home Exchange Last Minute

Unless GTI Home Exchange members are seriously overlooking the option to add the tag "Exchange Request Fulfilled" to their listing as Bob and Jan have done on their listing HE19401 there are still many wonderful exchange opportunities available for the months of July and August. I know that we constantly repeat that exchangers should try to plan ahead and not arrange their exchanges in a hurry at the last minute to give themselves plenty of time to get to know their exchange partners, but if you have been prevented from contemplating an exchange until now for one reason or another, you have not yet "missed the boat" (excuse the cliché) and there is still plenty of choice.

For last minute exchanges it is probably wise to not be over ambitious and limit your choice to within your own continent or country rather than contemplating long-haul, but this still offers plenty of scope. To cover all corners since new members are registering daily, look at both the Hot List of Newest Listings as well as the Last Minute Offers list for exchange availability.

Whilst I would not wish to encourage members to emulate "Shirley Valentine", you could still get away to an idyllic Greek island, listing HE19898 in Skiathos Island,













locate a break in Italy in an apartment in Giuncarico, Tuscany, listing HE19911,














or a house in Morleschio, Umbria, HE19917.













Other Last Minute locations include a cottage in SINT-KATELIJNE-WAVER, BELGIUM - HE19428, or an Anglo-Swedish family in Stockholm HE18197who have a very specific destination request for North Yorkshire, preferably Beverly, Guisborough, and Bedale.


Wishing you happy hunting and happy home exchange.

Choosing your Home Exchange Club

With the plethora of home exchange clubs now in existence choosing the right club must be daunting to anyone considering participating in the world of home exchange travel for the first time. At one time the name of the club was all important to differentiate itself from others, but with so many new clubs struggling to include the words "home" and "exchange" in their web-addresses to optimise their search engine results, all the club URLs are now very similar, leading to a degree confusion. Some might claim that the more clubs there are, the greater the home exchange opportunities for all, but this is not necessarily the case for a number of reasons which I will try to clarify below.

As far as I can ascertain the number of home exchangers is not growing exponentially as fast as the number of home exchange clubs. As the home exchange market matures, just as copies are made of branded goods and offered at a much reduced price, so many of the new clubs are simply copying the style and format of long-established clubs, but whilst imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, because they need to grow a client base rapidly many choose to offer their services free of charge.

Now 'free' may seem to be good on the surface, but dig a little more deeply and you may begin to question if this is so. People who are not really serious about home exchange may register for free on the spur of the moment with a free club. Members who have paid for their listings with other established clubs may register with a number of the free clubs to spread their net more widely - we often receive communications from people who have forgotten which clubs they have actually registered with and so confusion reigns. Far more important considerations than whether or not the club is offering 'free' membership are whether or not their members' exchange success rate is high; whether their members are pro-active in seeking exchanges ie they do not just sit back and wait for offers; whether they have satisfied members ie their members renew their membership year on year.

What is really worrying about the new clubs offering 'free' membership for a limited period is that they may be here today, appear to succeed for a while, and be gone tomorrow when they discover that it takes much more time, comittment, energy and investment than they ever imagined to launch a successful home exchange club. If this is a potential exchangers first encounter with home exchange and they do not manage to arrange an exchange through such a club before it disappears they may be lost to the concept of home exchange travel for ever.

Now, from the above, you may think that the aim is to eliminate new competition. This is not so. Fair competition keeps us all on our toes. But some clubs are not always ethical - they have been known to register with other clubs under false names or email addresses in order to gain access to contact information so that they may solicit other clubs' members, or to try to poach other club's representatives.

As far as the more established clubs are concerned, some are consolidating by collaboration with or acquisition of other smaller clubs. Others choose to play the numbers game (a stance encouraged by journalists who always want to know how many listings a club has without regard to whether the listings are balanced, how long they have been in circulation with join and expiry dates shown, whether the numbers include rental offers too etc.) Others have extended the periods of membership offered, even including lifetime membership (one wonders how current these lifetime membership listings are). Others, of which Green Theme International Home Exchange is one, aim to provide the very best of services by constantly upgrading their web-sites and introducing innovative features.

So to return to the initial question, how to choose your home exchange club. The answer, of course, is with care. Study a club's web-site in depth, see if you like their proposition, the clarity of the information provided, and get a feel for the people behind it from the style of their communication.

• Be prepared to pay a modest subscription for the privilege of membership.
  
• Ascertain whether the club has built up a good reputation, been around a long time, been recommended by others, including the press/media?
  
• Is privacy important to you? If so, choose a closed site, open to members only, that has no visible contact information.
  
• Where do you live and where do you want to go? Most established clubs have worldwide listings, but some clubs may be stronger in particular areas than others.
  
• Some clubs offer a Reverse Search feature: which allows an exchanger to look for other exchangers who are interested in coming to their location.
  
• Do you have specific needs for your home exchange: eg pet care required, disabled access etc? Choose a club with Advanced Search features which enable you to select listings matching your specific criteria.
  

We hope, of course, that you will choose Green Theme International Home Exchange as your home exchange club.
You can rest assured that we will try to live up to your expectations.

Time travel on Home Exchange

Over the years I have become aware that many a GTI Home Exchange member's motivation to embark on a home exchange is often the desire to return to their roots or trace their ancestry. Members will travel from Australia, New Zealand and Canada to Scotland and Norway for example, from the US to Italy and so on.

I have always been amazed by the diversity of homes that are offered for exchange ranging from one person studios, to cottages and suburban homes through the whole spectrum to great mansions and on the rare occasions even castles and chateaux. For some people though it is not the home which is the prime consideration, but the location, as the appeal is history itself. So, for example, a small loft in Paris could be all you need to follow the Da Vinci trail, an apartment in Rome to soak up the wonders of the eternal city,

a nice atelier, with a mezzanine in a Venitian palazzo in the historic center of Venice,

or a home in Cracow, Poland, sadly perhaps because of its close proximity to the concentration camp Aushwitz-Birkenau.








Moving further afield, the Curates House in Speightstown, St Peter Barbados is a wonderfully historic Caribbean home having all the comforts you could want whilst retaining a genuine Caribbean charm.


And finally, to bring us back to the future a spacious, detached ex-farmhouse
situated on the outskirts of the holiday town of Bude on the North Cornwall coast, would allow a visit to the acclaimed Eden Project, with its climate biospheres which recently hosted The Sexy Green Car show.

GTI Home Exchange blog resumes publication

Regular readers of the GTI Home Exchange blog may have thought that I have been figuratively 'struck dumb' owing to the lack of posts during April, or that I had become lost for words. But this was not so! On returning to our French location, we were happy to find that we were now able to benefit from a highspeed internet connection in our village, something which we had sorely missed before. We promptly signed up for the service, but then our troubles began. Our landline was cut automatically (as we anticipated according to the terms of the contract), but our ADSL service provider was unable to re-establish the connection of our line. It appears that we have been at the mercy of two major telecommunications suppliers who are not able to agree between them on the terms of provision of the service, and as a result, we the customer, have been caught in the middle. I am pleased to report that we are now back in action and I have posted this brief item by way of apology for the interruption to the continuity of the GTI Home Exchange blog and our email customer service. I am happy to say that at no time did the telecommunications problem affect the operation of the GTI Home Exchange web-site.

Home Exchange Agreements

Believe it or not, very few members take the precaution of completing our simple Holiday Agreement Form, so it is gratifying when one does occasionally drop through the letter box. The Holiday Agreement Form is provided for members to exchange with each other, sending a copy to us to hold on file. It not only helps to clarify the terms of the exchange arranged, but also means that in the unlikely event of the need to make a claim against your travel insurance, evidence of an exchange having been arranged is held by a third party (ie GTI Home Exchange).

Having received the Holiday Agreement Form from Barry and Joyce of Rotherham, we are aware that they are off to Queensland, Australia, in November to enjoy Christmas down under in Gladstone. The Great Barrier reef is accessible by launch from the marina or by road from their exchange home. The beach, where there are bbq's, tables and play areas, is a short drive. As well as the family’s new car they will have the use of a Pajero 4WD with fridge, small boat and all fishing and camping equipment.

Meanwhile their exchange partners will spend what will probably be a somewhat cooler festive season in South Yorkshire, compensated by the fact that they will be able to spend Christmas with the family. Needless to say it was important for Terry and Patricia from Queensland to be in a comparatively precise location within easy access of Sheffield where the family live. So, whilst we recommend that the most successful exchangers are people who are able to be flexible about destination, we have proof here that you can be quite specific about a destination, and with ‘Lady Luck’ on your side, link up with compatible exchange partners using the GTI Home Exchange system.

We hope everyone has a really splendid time and look forward to hearing from you on your return. (Don't forget the Exchange Feedback Form is available for you to give us your feedback about your exchange experience. You may either copy and paste it, and send it to us saved as an MSWord .doc file attached to an email, or post it to us).

GTI Home Exchange 2 Year memberships

GTI Home Exchange member, Catherine, has just renewed her membership for our Membership option Plan 2 which gives her membership for a further two years at a discounted subscription rate.

Catherine says: "We did a home exchange to France this past summer and are hooked! You may view our listing HE15845. Please contact us with questions!"

From the picture that Catherine has posted on her listing, Davis, a sunny university city in California, certainly looks a lively place to visit. She says "It's a great place for touring Northern California; 10 mins to Sacramento (state capitol); 1½ hrs to San Francisco, the wine country, the Pacific Ocean; and 2½ hrs to the Sierra Nevada mountains (hiking, 1849 gold rush sites, Lake Tahoe, and Reno casinos)".

Contacting GTI Members

HE16210
Some time ago I received a message from a GTI Home Exchange member stating that they were having difficulty making initial contact with 2 other members, as their email address as available for their listing via the members' area appeared to be incorrect. As a result both of their messages to these members were returned unopened to them with the standard sort of ISP message ie:
"I'm sorry to have to inform you that the message returned below could not be delivered to one or more destinations".

Neil, who brought this to our attention, said "We have double checked that the address we sent to is as listed on the GTI site and they match so should have got through."

Members and visitors to the weblog yesterday who read the post about the recent GTI website upgrade will note that we have tried to address this problem of members' changing their email addresses and forgetting to update them on the website, by allowing members to include an alternative email address. For your security and to avoid spam, both addresses are available only to other registered members.

At the time that Neil sent us his message he was looking for an exchange in Denmark, and a new listing in Aarhus has just been added to the website:HE17356.

However, Neil's listing currently carries the heading 'Exchange Request Fulfilled".
If you have used the facility whereby you can indicate that your Exchange Request has been fulfilled and you do not wish to receive further offers for the time being, it is very important to remember to uncheck this box when you are ready to receive further offers of exchange.

Green Theme International Home Exchange Website Upgrade

We are pleased to advise members and visitors to the GTI Home Exchange website that our programmer has just completed a further upgrade to the site. We are always looking for ways to enhance the site, make it easier to use and add new features, many of which are incorporated as a result of member’s feedback. Although some of the changes are concerned with administration and will not be immediately noticeable to members and site visitors, you will see some additional options on the membership form, in the search pages and in the member area. If you are a current member you may wish to log on to your member area to check out the changes on the form (View/alter your details) and make additions/amendments as appropriate: (please do not forget to click on ‘Continue’ at the end of the form to save any changes):

Changes on the Membership Form

1 Mailing address is no longer a required field (although it is still useful as another means of contact, but not compulsory if you prefer not to include yours).

2 New box to add a second email address. (Members sometimes change their email address and forget to immediately change it on their GTI membership form, so preventing other members from making contact. It can be useful to have an additional address (perhaps a free web based one like Yahoo or Hotmail). Also occasionally members’ exchange offer messages are blocked and undelivered by a member’s ISP. Again, for this reason it can be useful to have a second email address to use, but it is not compulsory.

3 Type of Residence – Motor Homes/Houseboats have been added to the drop-down list.

4 Type of Exchange – Non-simultaneous Exchange possible (additional tick box option).

5 Ages of Children – As well as the number of children in your exchange party, you can now also include their ages.

6 Dates of Exchanges – You are able to indicate a specific range of dates for two separate periods. If you wish to be more flexible, use the tick-box option Open to offers.

Additional Search Functionality

We have included a new Advanced Search option, Type of Residence, a drop-down list.

Additions to your Member Administration Area

You will notice the following additions to your Member Area:

1 a direct link to View Your Listing (allowing you to easily view how your listing appears to visitors/browsers if you have made any additions/amendments to it).

2 a Member Logout link on all pages once you are logged on (to save having to click back to your member area to log out after browsing listings.

3 all the listings have individual page titles: much better for bookmarking!

GTI Home Exchange 1st Blog Anniversary

It hardly seems possible that it's almost a year since I started the Green Theme International Home Exchange blog, the time has flown. If you haven't yet discovered the GTI blog, please be quick as I believe items retained in the Archives will begin to fall off the blog very soon.

It has been a little disappointing that not more GTI members have come to terms with the technology of blogging, or at least made comments on the GTI blog, as hoped, to create a superb member resource for relating their experiences or discussing travel items of mutual interest. It's appreciated that some of us may not be in the first flush of youth and able to absorb all this technology, as Jo Chambers wrote:
"Hi Kate,
Now I know I went to Aus but the blogspot is just now perhaps a step too far, I do this in the library and hotmail does not like me visiting a site outside hotmail!!. Where would you like our news of our exchange to Australia, as I am disabled, using an electric scooter, we thought it might give confidence to others? Hope more people get inspired to put their experiences on line."
So I posted Jo's article about her trip to Australia for her and she was very pleased. "I think my article looks really good, though I say so myself."

It is in fact very simple to post your comments on the GTI blog. Just click on the Comments hyperlink below the relevant article, and again on the hyperlink Post a Comment. So here's hoping for some feedback.!!

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

Plea for Email Etiquette

An email received this morning from Lynn Armstrong HE15580 emphasises yet again how disappointing it is if members do not receive replies to their preliminary exchange enquiries: as Lynn says "it seems many members don't bother responding to exchanges proposed through the site! I don't know what the solution is, as to me it is only a matter of etiquete to say no, thanks!". I couldn't agree more, Lynn, and we repeatedly stress how important this is in our communications. Even if a member is not interested in a proposed exchange, they should reply as promptly as possible, so that the member knows the position and can continue looking for other compatible exchanges.

Last Minute Home Exchange List

Question?
Hello, Why do we have 28 days left on the list? I thought we paid for a
year? Thanks for the reply. Rayne

Answer
Dear Rayne

Thank you for your email. Your membership is for a
full year. The '28 days left on the list' refers to the
Last Minute List to which you must have added yourselves
(perhaps inadvertently?).

The system allows you to place yourselves on this
countdown list for a period of 31 days to give your
listing an additional boost, if you are getting close to
your desired exchange dates and have not yet found
a suitable exchange. Once the 31 days have expired
you are automatically taken off the list, and if you
still want to boost your listing it is necessary to
add yourselves to the Last Minute List again from
within your own administrationarea by clicking
on the hyperlink 'Boost my Listing'.

The Last Minute List is obviously intended for use
by those members who are seeking exchanges at
comparatively short within the next 3 month period
and we do, of course, have to rely on members to
use the list appropriately.

Best regards
Kath Botterill

House- and Pet-Sitting Exchange

"Oh! to be in England now that April's there"

As a result of our recent reciprocal House-, Granny- and Pet-sitting arrangement, it is now the turn of our house-sitting partners to care for our house and our two golden retrievers, Gemma and Charlie. Necessity dictates that we need to be in England for a short time, and whilst we are extremely reluctant to leave our dogs behind, Gemma is now such a senior old lady that it really is the only sensible thing to do. With this type of arrangement, the preparation, information and advice that it is necessary to leave for your house and pet carers is much the same as for a home exchange and takes careful preparation.

Although I shall be out of the office for approximately eighteen days from 19th April, I shall not be completely out of touch and will be available to answer any home exchange queries you may have via email.

The Great Debate - Open or Restricted Acces Home Exchange Web-sites

We occasionally receive emails from prospective members who query why the GTI Home Exchange web-site does not allow casual browsers on the site (ie non-members) to send exploratory enquiries to members, thereby broadening their home exchange possibilities. This could be done without revealing members' personal contact information. So why not? Where's the risk?

Our view has been that by opening all our listings to the public the whole database becomes casually 'surfed' and dilutes the overall success of our members in finding an exchange. We feel that our nominal membership fee helps to ensure a participant who is seriously committed to the concept of home exchange travel, and as a result our members enjoy a very high rate of successful swaps. Our high ratio of regularly subscribing members who renew their membership year on year is evidence of this. We understand that members of clubs which are open access often have a more difficult time arranging an exchange, with the need to weed out the many responses received which are just inquisitive and exploratory, and not necessarily genuine and motivated.

However, we are always keen to listen to members' points of view and would welcome discussion on this issue.

Joining Green Theme International Home Exchange

QUESTION: After partially filling in your membership registration form Join Now, I intentionally stopped the exercise since I had not got photos available.
Can I register now and have my listing released and add some photos later?
Eugene Flaherty.

ANSWER: Yes, of course. You can complete your registration
without the need to go through the whole process of completing the membership application form again by pasting this URL in the address line of your browser:

http://www.gti-home-exchange.com/ihea/memberlogin.cfm

Login with your email address and the password which you
created when previously filling out the membership application form.

This will take you to your own form. Click on 'Continue' at the bottom of the form to save the details you have entered to our database, and then proceed to the payment page to complete your subscription with a secure credit card transaction.

Please keep your email addresses updated

If you wish to make the most of your membership of GTI Home Exchange I cannot stress enough how important it is to keep your email address and other contact details updated on your listing, so that other members may send you their exchange offers, and so that any enquiries automatically sent from the site using the Enquiry Form provided are delivered.

Home Exchange Favourites List

Q: Can you please tell me once I have put a listing in my favourites, how I can delete it if it becomes unavailable or proves unsuitable?
Margaret & Doug

A: Thank you for your query regarding using the Your Favourites list in your own Member Admin Area. When you click on the Your Favourites/Recently Contacted hyperlink to view the list, you will see that there is a Red Cross beside each item in the list, and just above the complete list a red cross which says X=delete. You just need to carefully click on the red cross beside the listing you wish to delete. This will leave the others intact, but will remove the one you wish to discard.

Any more queries, don't hesitate to ask. When sending your queries, don't forget to send us your Member ID No, so that we can make reference to your listing in the Weblog item. It's all additional publicity for your listing and may attract someone to join from exactly where you want to go.