Home Exchange - Getting started

As this is the time of year when many new members are joining the home exchange community, I thought that it might be appropriate to list a few of the basic procedures for setting up and enjoying a carefree home exchange:

1 Sign up with a reputable home exchange agency. (Compare membership prices too:
Green Theme International Home Exchange charges just £21 for 12 months membership; HomeLink a massive £115, Intervac £65 to register on-line; and HomeBase Holidays £29.

2 Use the site’s search engines to find suitable properties to swap with and start making offers preferably by e-mail. Alternatively, wait for offers to come to you, but you can really only afford to do this if you live in a tourist hotspot. Far better to be proactive and really seek out the exchange you want and contact your prospective exchange partners straight away.

3 Draw a short list from your responses, not forgetting to send a polite refusal to those you have eliminated from your quest. If references are available for those on your short list, do not hesitate to take them up once you feel that you are near to finalising an exchange arrangement.

4 Once you have committed to an exchange arrangement, exchange full information by email, so that you really feel you are getting to know your exchange partners.

5 Draw up a pre-swap agreement, with details of what to do if something gets broken, who pays the bills, whether cars are included in the swap and whether you are expected to look after any pets. Sample agreements, one short and the other more detailed and therefore perhaps more suitable for long-term exchanges, are shown on the GTI Home Exchange web-site at pages:http://www.gti-home-exchange.com/englishcontract.html and http://www.gti-home-exchange.com/GTI%20Sample%20Extended%20Home%20Exchange%20Agreement.htm

6 If possible agree to book your air, train or ferry tickets on the same day, then send details to your exchange partner proving that you have. This will reassure both parties that financial commitments have been made and that neither plans to pull out.

7 Contact your insurance companies and let them know your plans. Take out any extra insurance if necessary.

On the whole, insurance companies are pleased that your house will be occupied while you’re away — it makes burglary less likely. Most insurance companies have a relaxed approach to home exchange. Direct Line says that as long as the company is notified in advance and agrees that the incoming occupants are a “like-for-like” risk — pro-fessionals swapping with professionals, for example — property and contents will be covered for the duration of the exchange, even if incoming swappers damage or even steal items in your home. Others, including Churchill, will continue to cover all losses incurred as a result of forced entry.

Similarly, most car-insurance firms will cover a new driver for a nominal charge, providing they are told of plans in advance. However, some people do find they have difficulty particularly with adding cover for drivers from the USA. A site which you may find useful if you find yourself in this situation is: http://www.moneysupermarket.com/motor/

8 You're almost ready. Finally, clean and tidy your house, lock particularly valuable items away and put together a welcome pack of information about the house and the area. Before departing for your holiday, leave keys with a neighbour who can greet your visitors. Even better, arrange to overlap with your swapping partners so that you can meet face to face.

The Romantic Angle on Home Exchange

This is not the first time that I have written about their being the possibility of a romantic angle on home exchange. Way back in the Green Theme International Home Exchange newsletter of March 1996 I included a little snippet entitled 'Love is in the Air' when a GTI home exchange member told us about her exchange partner from the States who decided to look up an old flame while in England. It wasn't long before romance was rekindled and this time the couple decided to tie the knot.

I have now been asked by a journalist if I can find any other GTI members who have a romantic story to tell:

"I'm not sure if you can help me, but I'm a multi-published freelance writer looking for true love on home exchange stories for potentialarticles in national magazines (and perhaps even a book if response is strong enough).

I believe there will be sufficient media interest in this idea, as it will tie into the upcoming romantic comedy 'Holiday', starring Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet. (In the movie, two single women arrange for a 14-day exchange of their L.A./London houses and each meets a man, and becomes romantically involvedwith him--on the wrong side of the Atlantic, of course!)

If any of your members have arranged to swap homes, and then got into a relationship - I'd ask that you provide them with my contact informationfor interview purposes.

Many thanks for your consideration.
Best regards,
Stephanie Olsen Founder/Owner Family Life Abroad
email address: editor@familylifeabroad.com "

Catching Up

To keep members informed: the company which hosts the Green Theme International web-site is currently migrating the site to a new server, and I am temporarily unable to upload the GTI August/September newsletter to web-site. I have therefore decided to post it on the GTI Home Exchange weblog instead, in the hope that members will log in here and read it.

Green Theme International Home Exchange August/September Newsletter

In this issue:
-- My Summer Sabbatical
-- It's never too late to renew your Membership
-- Uploading your Photographs
-- Swap-Spammers
-- Protecting your Privacy

My favourite Hobby Horse

This year I took a three months summer sabbatical. (It seems ironic that the last article prior to it that I posted on the GTI Home Exchange weblog should have been on Home Exchange and Sabbaticals). It would be nice to relate that my sabbatical was from choice, but it did in fact stem from a family health problem requiring me to help look after my four young grandchildren. It was great seeing so much of them for a change, as in normal circumstances we do not live closeby. It would have been even better had we been fortunate enough to find an extended home exchange in the area where we needed to be, the English Lake District, but as this is very much a holiday hotspot this was almost impossible. So many properties there have been bought up as investments to be used as holiday rentals at astronomical prices, causing all sorts of problems - the diminution of true village communities, weakening of community spirit, lack of affordable accommodation for people wishing to work in the area - in fact many of the reasons why I established Green Theme International Home Exchange in the first place, hoping to encourage people to make maximum use of their existing resources without the need to indulge in second homes etc. On a trip to the hairdresser, John (the hairdresser) told me that there are just six houses in their hamlet but that he and his wife are the only full-time occupants, the rest being either weekend homes or rental properties. The Lake District National Park Authority belatedly introduced a local occupancy restriction policy on the sale of certain properties, to try to redress the balance but this will take many years to have an effect. As my daughter Alison has been involved in the administration of the GTI Home Exchange for more than a year now, operating from our UK base, my absence was probably barely noticed, there being no reduction in level of service to you whilst I was away. The only area that we did not manage to keep up-to-date with was the GTI Home Exchange weblog.

It's never too late to renew your GTI Home Exchange membership

"Nous avons deja fait un echange en 2002 avec succes. J'aimerais une abonnement pour 2006. Merci de me renseigner. Jacques"

"We have already had a successful exchange in 2002. I would like to become a member for 2006. Please advise me. Jacques"
Thank you for your e-mail. As the period since your membership expired is more than two years, I regret that you will have to complete the Membership Registration form again as if you were a new member. This is because as soon as a member's listing expires it is hidden from view to ensure that all exchange listings are current with up-to-date offers of exchange. However, even when the membership is expired and not available for viewing, the listing remains on our database for a further period of two years, making it easy for the member to login and renew their listing. A reduced concessionary renewal fee is offered to members who renew within that 2-year period.Unfortunately because a period of more than two years has elapsed since Jacques' listing expired, it will not only have been hidden, but have been deleted completely from our database. Perhaps the fact that members are returning after a period of more than two years means that we should consider extending the period before we finally remove them from the database, especially as more and more people are making arrangements for long haul exchanges, but perhaps travelling less frequently because of the expense of the actual travel and the distance involved. If you have an opinion on this please let us know so that we can guage the need to extend our Membership Renewal period?

Uploading your photographs

As the old cliché goes, "A Picture is worth a 1000 Words", but it is true. Photos are virtually essential to a home exchange listing, they can make the exchange offer come alive more than anything else, and encourage many more enquiries than those without. And remember if your listing carries a photograph it will take its turn as the Feature Listing right on the front page of our web-site!

New member from Paris, Nicolas, wrote "I would like to introduce pictures of my apartment in my dossier, how can I do?" Thank you, Nicolas

Firstly ensure that the photos which you are uploading are in Jpeg format (it will have either a '.jpg' or '.jpeg' name extension). The Pictures will be automatically resized to be no more than 220 pixels in height, and pictures in landscape format (ie wider than they are tall) work best. Also, if possible ensure that the original picture which you are using is over 220 pixels in height, to minimise loss in quality, but no more than 100K in size to minimize the time taken to upload from your computer.

To upload your photographs, log on to the Members' Area with your Email Address and Password. When you arrive in your own administration area, click on the link 'Manage your Photos'. Browse your pictures file on your own computer, locate and open the first photograph which you wish to upload, the picture Filename will appear in the box, label it by selecting the appropriate image number (ie 1) from the drop-down list, and then click the 'Upload' button. Do this for each of the subsequent photographs labelling them 2, 3, 4 and 5 as appropriate. That is all there is to it.

Although Nicolas' enquiry was made in English, as he is a French member he might have found it easier to follow the upload procedure in his own language. So . . . .

Au sujet de l'emplacement des photos, voici le procédure à suivre:
Entrez dans la partie administrative vous concernant par cliquant sur le 'link' Login au-dessous du titre 'Members' Area' sur la page anglaise ou 'Adhérents' sur la page française respectivement pour arriver au page: http://www.gti-home-exchange.com/ihea/memberlogin.cfm
Entrez votre adresse email dans la première boite suivi par votre mot de passe dans la seconde. Cliquez sur le hyperlink 'Manage your Photos'. Vous arrivez à la page où vous pouvez ajouter ou modifier vos photos. Notez, s'il vous plait, que toutes photographies doivent être en .jpg format et, si possible, pas moins de 220 pixels en taille, afin de maintenir la qualité des photos. Photos avec une largeur plus grande que l'hauteur sont les mieux.

Souvenez ce que vous avez intitulées vos photos, et le titre du dossier où vous les avez sauvegardé sur votre ordinateur.

Utilisez le bouton 'Browse' pour choisir une photographie de votre ordinateur. Marquez la photo numéro 1, 2, 3, 4 ou 5 qui convient, et puis cliquez le bouton 'Upload'. Bientôt vous verrez la photo pour l'image que vous avez selectionnée dans la boite pour cette photo au-dessus.
Pour remplacer une photo, il faut supprimer la vieille photo avant d'enregistrer une nouvelle photo. En cette instance, vous retrouveriez peut-être que la vieille photo apparaîsse encore une fois après que vous avez cliqué le bouton 'Upload', mais actuellement elle a été remplacée, et quand votre 'session' à ce moment sur votre ordinateur s'est terminée, vous verrez la prochaine fois que vous entrez le site que la nouvelle photo est en place.N'hésitez pas à me contacter si vous avez besoin de renseignements complémentaires.

Swap-Spammers

I cannot claim to have coined this phrase myself, having come across it recently when I became aware of the home exchange blog at http://homeexchanger.blogspot.com/ written by home exchange enthusiast Nicole. As a very experienced home exchanger, her blog contains a tremendous depth of insight into the 'ins' and 'outs' of this fun way to travel. As she so aptly says, whilst we all celebrate the benefit that the internet has brought to the world of home exchange and the ease with which we are able to communicate with potential exchange partners with a few taps of the keyboard, as responsible and caring people home exchangers should avoid the pitfall of becoming swap-spammers. With so many exciting exchange opportunities on offer it is all too easy to paste your carefully prepared offer into the email form of a Member's listing and click the Send button, only to suddenly realise when you look at your 'Members I have contacted list' that you have far exceeded the number of enquiries you can sensibly deal with. And if you are lucky enough to receive many responses, it's tempting to take the expedient way out and just reply to the one or two offers that you wish to explore further leaving all the others who have expressed an interest dangling and frustrated without any explanation as to why they never heard back from the person who made the enquiry in the first place.

Home exchange is a community of like-minded people who all need to treat each other with respect for home exchange to work. Because of the philosophy of caring with which we differentiate our site and our enthusiasm for promoting ethical home exchange travel, we are sure that the vast majority of our members are respectful of each other and would never fall into this pitfall but it is always the exception that proves the rule.

Incidentally, if conversely you feel that you are not receiving the replies you should be, have you changed your email address recently? Make sure your email address within our system is up to date, login and check your settings (not forgetting that you will have to login with your former registered email address before you can access your Member Area to change your settings). After verifying that the email address displayed is correct, you can also then login to our website and view your own listing and send yourself an email to make sure that email is getting through your own SPAM filters and your own email protection. Sometimes we find that what members are using to keep out junk mail restricts legitimate email, or they have their level of security set too high.

Protecting your Privacy

Small can be beautiful when considering the important topic of protecting your privacy. We make every effort to avoid you from being subjected to spam and any solicitations that are not valid home exchange offers, but the nature of home exchange requires contact, and despite our best efforts we cannot always prevent unauthorized, unethical abuse of the system. Recently the activity of an upstart home exchange organisation was uncovered blatantly encouraging another agency's members to join their organisation, Trade to Travel, under the guise that it was a home exchange enquiry. Fortunately this was uncovered when only a few members had been contacted. Another organisation HomeWelcome actually plagiarised a listing from another agency's site and placed the listing on theirs, even sending the person in question a User ID and password!! Again, because the member immediately notified the agency of which he was legitimately a member, asking if they had given permission for this, the scam was promptly uncovered and the rogue agency required to remove the unauthorised listing. At this time GTI Home Exchange does not appear to have been attacked in this way, and being a relatively small agency enables us to maintain a high level of communication with our members and to quickly identify the perpetrators of any such activity. As GTI Home Exchange is a private, members only home exchange agency the type of conduct described is unethical and illegal and against our stated terms of use. If you do get any improper solicitations of this nature, please do NOT respond to the enquiry, but assist us by forwarding the emails directly to us. We will remain vigilant and will continue to work with our selected established home exchange associates to aggressively expose this unethical behaviour. We feel sure that potential home exchangers will feel inclined to trust an agency which is not trying to live off the back of another agency's hard work and has not illegally plagiarised another site. It would seem likely also that agencies whose members are required to pay a modest sum to join, (and who are therefore a known quantity to that agency because it has a record of the billing address from the credit card transaction) are more likely to be responsible, trustworthy and reliable people than those who have been tempted to list with an agency purely because that agency is offering free listings.

Home exchange for sabbaticals

If you are an experienced home exchanger you will have learnt that there are many different types of reasons for exchange. Whilst many members are simply looking to fill their regular holiday slot, home exchange agencies such as Green Theme International also attracts a number of exchangers who are planning for sabbaticals or career breaks.

For these members, home exchange is an ideal opportunity to ensure that their home is occupied whilst away for long periods and at the same time secure accomodation of a similar standard in their chosen destination. Accomodation designed for short term rental often lacks those extra facilities which are make longer stays more convenient, such as washing facilities, freezers, transport etc.

Home exchange can also often be a means to engaging with other people in the community more easily - many exchange partners also end up exchanging a network of friends too!

If you are looking to exchange for a sabbatical or career break, look for offers where the member has said they are seeking a long term exchange. You may want to mention the reason for exchange in your offer. And don't forget to check the box in your own administration area saying that you are seeking a long term exchange too. This will help attract members in a similar position.

Rens and Anneke explain why Home Exchange is for them

New GTI Home Exchange members, Rens and Anneke HE18245 explain why home exchange is their kind of family holiday:

















"We are Rens (organic food entrepeneur) and Anneke (teacher). We have three children, Marthe is 7, Tijn, our eldest son, is 5 years, and Jop is 3. Two years ago we changed home with a family in Austria and we liked it very much. Swap homes is more than a vacation, it is very special to live another life in another country."

"We used to go on cycle-tour in several countries, but when Tijn was born we plannend other vacations. Last year the children were old enough to make a cycling tour through Holland in the holidays, Tijn and Marthe were cycling themselves. We liked it very much but it was hard work too. Both cycling and swap homes is a way to get a glimpse of a country and the people living there."

Rens and Anneke offer a "Comfortable family home (build in 1934) in a very pleasant street in Utrecht. Our three floor house has a sunny livingroom, two double bedrooms, two children bedrooms, a city garden. And very nice neighbours. Town-centre 5 minutes by bike, or 12 min. walking. Excellent links to Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague, 30-40 min. by train. Close to the Veluwe, Betuwe, beach, and lakes."

"Utrecht has a historic centre, good museums, several theatres, cinemas, concerts, festivals, many restaurants and a lot to do for children. And of course we have enough bicycles for you!"

GTI Home Exchange Last Minute

My apologies for having taken some respite from blogging during the Spring. As the year progresses, some people may be wondering if it is still possible to arrange a home exchange for the Summer season particularly in the northern hemisphere. I thought, therefore, that it might be useful to draw attention to the fact that new listings are being added to the GTI Home Exchange web-site on a daily basis throughout the year, so there are always new home exchange opportunities to pursue. Click on Search to arrive at the initial search page, and after you have selected which Country or region you wish to search, you will be taken to the Summary listings: you can then select to sort these listing either by Membership Date (ie most recent listings shown first) or by Dates of exchange requests.

To Search the Last Minute Offers list, click on the hyperlink on the left of the GTI Home Page to search the listings of members who are still seeking a swap. This feature is intended to assist members who haven’t yet arranged an exchange when their exchange dates are getting close (three months away or less). If you are a new member you won’t see information or a link to add your listing to this separate list during your first week of membership (when you should be searching listings thoroughly and contacting members with your exchange offer). Note: once available in your member area, if you click the link Boost my Profile, this will add your listing to the Last Minute Offers list for a month and cannot be removed before then (you will see a countdown of how many days your listing has left on this list each time you log on).

Happy Searching!!

Home Exchange and Temporary Car Insurance Cover

QUESTION

Good Morning,

Would you be able to recommend a car insurance company who will take American and Australia drivers without an additional charge. We recently changed from More Than to Zurich who now require an additional £21 per week for our American exchangers. As we like to exchange for a few months this does mount up.

Your help would be most appreciated. Thank you.

Katie Evans

Thank you for your question. I don't think I have any easy answer here for you. In fact, I had understood that More Than was a company who were quite lenient about accepting other drivers and providing temporary cover, and I was wondering why you had in fact moved from them to Zurich.

It seems to be insurance for Americans that always causes the most concern to the Insurance companies. Have you tried Direct Line to find out what their terms would be? Or perhaps the only answer is to go to an Insurance Broker who may be able to suggest a number of alternatives to try.

I seem to recall that I posted a few items on our weblog about car insurance, but currently haven't been able to find the one which I thought was relevant to your situation. I will post your question on the weblog too and hope that someone will come up with some feasible suggestions for you, and if so, will let you know as quickly as possible.

Very best regards
Kath

Comment
The question of finding insurance companies who provide temporary car insurance cover for additional drivers at reasonable cost is one which home exchangers seek advice on more than anything else. If anyone has useful information to pass on, or if there are any insurance professionals or car insurance companies who would be kind enough to provide GTI Home Exchange UK-based member Katie, Member ID HE17900 (and many, many others) with advice on this perennial problem, it would be most appreciated.

Kath

And a follow up from Katie:

Dear Kath,

Thank you for your quick reply.

Unfortunately we had to change our car insurance from More Than after being with them for years as they wouldn't insure our exchangers.

We are currently with a broker who has only been able to find Zurich who are willing to cover our American exchangers. I have heard about Direct Line and will give them a call.

We joined your site whilst in Florida a few weeks ago and immediately received 3 enquiries! Amazing.

Best regards, Katie Evans

To Trade or not to Trade, that is the question

Hi,

We're rookies at this and need some advice. For a few weeks we've been registered HE17744, trading from Canada for France, and have just been offered a trade. It's great, other than our boys really wanted a pool. It's mid-February and I'm not sure if activity will increase and other offers will very likely be forthcoming or someone will accept our request.....or should we "get while the gettin's good"?
Thanks so much for any advice you can give.
Regards, Sue
Sue's home in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada's capital

Answer

Hi Sue,

Thank you for your e-mail. Unfortunately there is no straight answer to this - it is true that many members subscribe or renew in the first few months of the year, and this is the busiest period for enquiries if you are seeking a summer break and you may indeed receive further offers. There is no obligation to accept the first offer that comes your way, but we cannot guarantee that you will receive a better offer. I notice that you state on your property listing that you are looking for a farm if possible, but you do not mention a pool - it is perhaps worth considering that there may not be a large number of farms which also have pools.

If you have specific requirements, the best way of securing a suitable exchange is
to be pro-active in sending out offers to members with properties you have identified as desirable. You should be able to find suitable properties by using the search facility on the website. In the meantime, you could promise your current exchange offer partners to commit within a period of time (perhaps within 3/4 weeks) being open about the fact that you are looking for a property with a pool, and then pro-actively send out offers to any properties that fulfil your requirements completely. It is also advisable to stress to those you send enquiries to that you need a quick reply because you have an outstanding offer.

Of course, this might mean that you lose the chance of this exchange in the meantime if they manage to confirm another offer. I don't know whether there are any other significant advantages to the offer you have received as you don't give their name or membership number, (do they have children of a similar age? are lakes, swim holes or the sea accessible? etc) and obviously you need to weigh up what other attractions there might be at the property or nearby that your sons would enjoy - you could ask for more information from them in the meantime.

We do encourage all members to reply to offers whether they are interested or not, so people know where they stand, so please do make sure you give a final decision one way or the other.

I hope this helps. I realise that it is difficult to make a decision, especially if you are first time exchangers, but being clear about your requirements, asking questions and communicating with exchange partners is the only way to make sure your exchange meets your expectations.

Please do get back to me if you need any further advice.

Yours sincerely
Kath
GTI Home Exchange

GTI Home Exchange Member Suggestion

(Include a hyperlink to your property listing when sending an enquiry using the GTI Home Exchange Email Enquiry Form).

Hi,

How about including a hyperlink to the property listing in an enquiry email submitted from your website - that way the person receiving the enquiry would be able to go straight to the property lisitng to see the exchange offered.

Best Regards, Cordialement,

Alison HE17138
Alison's townhouse in Romney, Hampshire, England

Hi Alison,

Thanks for your suggestion - this is a good idea and it would obviously be easier to access a listing with one click if it were possible. I suspect however that there may be technical difficulties implementing something like this as we have to make sure our e-mails are suitable for people using different email formats and software all over the world and therefore keep them as simple as possible - we have to be careful not to introduce complications that will prevent them reaching their destination or being blocked. Some mail servers security checks may also classify messages as potential spam if they contain hyperlinks. However, I will include it as a possible feature when we come to our next upgrade specification later this year when we can properly assess feasibility and/or look at other ways we could make it easier to access a listing from an e-mail enquiry.

In the meantime, any members who are familiar with html coding, and "a href" statements wishing to include a direct link to their own GTI Home Exchange property listing from their email enquiry to a potential exchange partner, may like to paste their own link into the email form before sending it.

Many thanks for your input - ideas for improving the smooth running of home exchange are always welcome!

Home Exchange Record - Can you beat it?

With records being broken daily at the Winter Olympics in Turin, our thoughts at GTI Home Exchange turned to records of a different kind. We ran an article a short time ago inviting members who thought they held the home exchange record to contact us. Until then it seemed that the record for GTI members was eighteen exchanges, but we now discover that that record is beaten by GTI member HE14636.

Their property, located in Sheffield, which has attracted so many exchange partners is described as a "spacious 5 bedroomed Victorian house on three floors overlooking parkland. Small secluded suntrap garden. Within walking distance of beautiful Peak District National Park. Conveniently placed for a city and country break. Easy access to historic York, Chester and Lincoln. Cinemas, theatres, swimming, cycling, walking, horse-riding, top sports venues and shopping mall all within fifteen minutes of house. Experienced exchangers (more than 20 in Britain, North America and Europe)".

Eluned goes on to say: "We are a family of five (two away at University) Youngest still at home (17). Although Sheffield may not immediately strike you as your dream holiday destination we have previously exchanged very successfully with families from Venice, Toronto, Brittany, Oxford, London, and Catalunya. We even have some references. Some have been repeat swops, so we must be doing something right! We have a wealth of local information and the natives are friendly if you get in a fix. We will endeavour to look after your home as if it were our own".

Home exchange for the very disabled - wheelchair and hoist required...

This week we had an enquiry from a potential home exchanger regarding the suitability of exchanges for the 'very disabled' ie for those that need to use a wheelchair and hoist. Unfortunately there is no straight answer to this one. Home exchange is often the best way to travel for disabled people if you can find someone to exchange with that has similar needs to your own, but obviously this becomes more difficult the greater the need for specialist apparatus - this is the reply that we sent...

"You can search listings on the website for disabled access by clicking on the Search tab at the top of the page, and then checking the 'disabled access' box. You can then refine your search depending on what other criteria you require. Currently 147 listings come up as offering disabled access, however unfortunately there is no way of telling whether a hoist can be accomodated or provided. Some members may mention a disability in their own listing, and this may give you a clue as to how well equipped a potential exchange would be for you, but really there is no quick shortcut to asking them directly in most cases.

GTI Home Exchange does have disabled members who exchange successfully and who are wheelchair users, indeed member HE16184 travelled from her home in Vancouver to Australia with her wheelchair and scooter this year, but I don't think she required a hoist. Similarly, GTI Scottish member HE14242 also travelled to Australia, using her scooter. In answer to your question about the possibilities for the more seriously disabled, it would really depend if you can find a match for your own requirements and unfortunately we can offer no guarantees. I am sorry I cannot be more helpful.

You may also find the Accessible Journeys website can provide you with useful advice and links to specialist holiday companies if you are not already aware of it: http://www.disabilitytravelcom."

On the other hand, if by any chance any of you blog readers feel that you could accommodate such a request and are interested in an exchange, or indeed you are aware of other specialist sites that we can signpost people in this position to, please do let us know so we can pass on details to this or other enquirers.

Home Exchange opportunities with a difference

I always like to draw destinations which are unique or out-of-the ordinary to the attention of GTI Home Exchange members. Two such destinations have recently been added to our database of home exchange offers.

HE17472
House in UBATUBA, STATE OF SAO PAULO, BRAZIL

Described as a cozy house in condo; security 24 hrs and administration officers in case of need. 220 km from Sao Paulo with good roads; 25 km from town of Ubatuba, 50 km from Caraguatatuba. Located at 600 meters from the beach which is very calm (not for surf). Boating facilities in condo. Area has over 80 beaches for excursions; town has boats for rent, and the landscape is extremely beautiful. The family would like to exchange their home for an apartment in Western Europe, USA (NYC or near it, Boston, California, Florida……)

HOUSE IN BALCHIK, VARNESKA, BULGARIA

The following listing HE17656 is the first we have had located in Bulgaria. It is a holiday home with three storeys, and described as a newly renovated villa in a traditional Bulgarian village, the house is about 15 minutes from the nearest beach and 45 minutes from Varna Airport. Varna is known as the Barcelona of Bulgaria and has galleries, museums, restaurants and a fab ‘café’ culture. The family consists of four adults and two children ages 9 and 2 and they would like to spend one to two weeks in France in August 2006.

Kath Botterill
GTI Home Exchange

GTI Home Exchange Renewal Plans

Question

Dear Kate

Thank you for your renewal reminder, but owing to changed circumstances I am not able to renew immediately. But I have just one query, why is there so little difference between the GTI Home Exchange new membership rate and the discounted renewal rate?
Sher

Answer

Dear Sher,

Thanks for responding and advising us of your current situation. Your long-term loyalty GTI Home Exchange over previous years is much appreciated, but regrettably if we were to increase our discount for renewing members, we would then have to increase our annual subscription for new members. The success of home exchange depends on growing a wide and varied membership and we therefore aim to keep the cost to new members competitive and affordable.

I hope that we shall have the pleasure of welcoming you back soon when your situation is different.
Regards
Kath

Response received from Sher

Dear Kate,

Fair enough, I quite understand your point of view, and as soon as I'll have something more permanent to offer on an exchange basis, I'll be only too glad to join gti-home-exchange again, as I really greatly appreciate its quality, services and contents, and I'm looking forward to being part of it all again - all the more so as a new membership doesn't even cost more than renewing an old one!

Personally I've had 2 happy experiences, with Barcelona and Bristol, and I keep telling everybody around me about you, but it seems that the Swiss are a bit hesitant (or scared?) about letting anyone into their precious houses...

Thanks a lot for your speedy reply anyway, and all the best for 2006!

Sher

Green Theme International Multilingues et Yahoo

Pour plus de six ans Green Theme International Home Exchange a offert des pages multilingues de leur site web GTI Home Exchange (Echange de Maison GTI). Maintenant Yahoo! Search vous offre la recherche multilingue (encore en Beta). Si vous voudrez l'essayer allez au Yahoo France et cliquez sur le bouton 'la recherche multilingue' des options de recherche.

Yahoo! Search - Essayez la recherche multilingue !

Plus besoin de parler cinq langues pour profiter de ce que le Web peut
offrir ! Vous tapez vos mots-clés en français, et la recherche multilingue
de Yahoo! Search les traduit en différentes langues puis donne
les résultats traduits en français.
o Découvrez des sites que vous n'auriez pas pu trouver autrement.
o Mots-clés, titres, descriptifs, tout est traduit en français.
o D'un clic, accédez aux sites en VF et en VO.

Une simple option à cocher

Pour activer la fonction, il suffit de taper vos mots-clés dans la boîte de
recherche, de cocher l'option " Recherche multilingue " et de cliquer
sur le bouton " Rechercher ". Par cette simple action :
o votre requête est traduite en plusieurs langues (pour l'instant,
anglais, allemand, espagnol et italien) ;
o la recherche s'effectue sur chacune des traductions ;
o les sites trouvés sont traduits dans l'autre sens et affichés en français.

Des résultats plus nombreux et en français

La recherche multilingue de Yahoo! Search permet à la fois de trouver
plus de résultats qu'auparavant et d'y accéder en français.
o Plus de résultats : 5 fois plus de langues, c'est potentiellement 5 fois
plus de résultats. Voyez la différence s'afficher avec le nombre de
résultats trouvés.
o V.F. et en V.O. : la langue d'origine de chaque site est affichée.
Vous pouvez choisir directement la V.O., mais vous pouvez aussi voir
la page traduite, et grâce au système d'onglets, naviguer sur le site,

The Home Exchange Poacher

The purpose of home exchange agencies is to put you in touch with other people interested in exchanging homes for vacations. A good home exchange agency will have spent many years building an extensive member base in many countries, creating an attractive web-site to attract a constant stream of new members and initiating improvements to the web-site to make it very easy for their members to use. A good home exchange agency will build up a dialogue with their current members to provide them with lots of help and be available to answer their questions promptly.

As a result of this close relationship GTI Home Exchange members are usually prompt in advising us if they receive any unsolicited mailings from people who are trying to abuse our system. It has recently been brought to our notice that a lady by the name of Ans Lammers has been sending unsolicited messages to some members to join her new home exchange agency. The only way that this lady could have gained access to the email addresses of our members is to have joined under a pseudonym, as there is no one by that name registered on our database. When questionned, our members are certain
that she could not have obtained their names and email addresses elsewhere(especially for such a targetted mailing as would be necessary to reach members who are interested in home exchange).

Occasionally new agencies trying to establish themselves will offer free membership for a limited period, but it should be appreciated that free membership does not always attract the type of people you would wish to exchange with: if someone is not prepared to pay a small fee to join an agency, consider whether they may be genuinely committed to arranging an exchange. Whilst we cannot, of course, prevent members from joining another agency if the offer seems attractive and they wish to do so, we would hope that members would be cautious in supporting someone who is prepared to adopt such underhand methods to poach another agency's members.

Generally it is best to stay with an established home exchange agency that you can see has a good range of up-to-date exchange offers, and which operates a private, members-only site for extra safety.

A GTI Home Exchange Member's generosity

GTI Home Exchange members, Rayne and Bob of Seattle, generously offer non-reciprocal hospitality when their planned exchange does not work out.

"We had an exchange planned, but because of the vagarys of e mail, it didn't work. We were very disappointed. Within a week we received a query from a family in England. We live north of Seattle. It was too late to buy affordable plane tickets to be able to do an exchange, but I thought what the heck, let's invite them to stay here for a few weeks. They could use our home as a base during the week when we are at work and on the weekends we could take them on our favorite hikes and to favorite fishing spots.

"I was at a point in my life when I really needed to have a new experience and I thought it would be interesting to invite a family from so far away, that we had never met and take the risk. It paid off wonderfully. Our familys were as compatible as if we had been life long friends. Meryl and Chris were relaxed, friendly and very interesting. Their 4 teens were active in a diverse range of things. We had nice interaction with each one of them. Danny, the youngest, might remember the funny american lady (me) who would punch him on the shoulder affectionately every now and then. Ruth and my kids played soccer and Adam and my 17 year old discussed regae music for hours.

"One of my favorite memories was canoeing with the Dad, Chris. The water of the lake was clear and the sunlight reflected thru the depths. Chris is a sound recorder and has worked from Barrow Sound, Alaska to the Antarctica. I asked him if by chance he had ever met Dervla Murphy, my favorite travel writer, and he had !

"Meryl and I did the household chores together and got on in quiet a sisterly way. She and I both have hectic lives. Chris is gone for long periods and so she is on her own with a full time job and 4 kids. To see her canoeing on the lake, by herself, in peace is something I remember often.

"So Kath, best wishes in your business, you can tell it brings a lot of people joy, in an affordable way !"

Rayne

"Dervla Murphy's latest travel book Through Siberia by Accident"

Great Times on Home Exchange - Final Part

John & Val's GTI Home exchange partners, Gavin and Ailsa, comment on their first Home Exchange experience.


Gavin & Ailsa outside John & Val's home

This was our first experience of a home exchange of this nature and it proved a magnificent way to enjoy an extended visit to another country. Without it, we could never have stayed for as long as we did. It was made even more enjoyable when we overlapped in Hong Kong and were able to meet Val and John and have a meal together; it blew away the thought of strangers living in our home. The actual exchange of home and car was for 3 months and was completed very successfully. We recommend the concept to others.

Gavin & Ailsa

Great Times on Home Exchange - Part IV

Towards the end of our stay we flew to Australia for about 5 days stay in each of Sydney, Melbourne and the Gold Coast at Surfer’s Paradise. We experienced sunny 20-25C temperatures for most of our antipodean trip. Then very regretfully it was time for the long flight home via Singapore.

We have always found everything in order on our return and even though we may move things around a little where we stay to suit, we replace them. Online banking and Visa take care of cash flow. Any problems and there is always a relative nearby to contact, or one can email the exchangers. We always leave guide notes to operate equipment etc., emergency contact phone numbers and details of places of interest.

We don’t regret for a moment the time and money we have spent traveling abroad over the years. Home exchange is such a rewarding, stimulating and enjoyable way to experience the world and its people.

Great Times on Home Exchange - Part III

Our trip to New Zealand via Hong Kong

A year ago we decided to visit New Zealand this year for three months (Mar-May 2005) and soon contacted a retired professional couple, again through Green Theme, who were interested in visiting the UK to do some more detective work on their family history. As usual we only made broad plans here. Invariably it is best to book flights on the net, especially any internal ones. This time we decided to fly Singapore Airlines by recommendation, and to spend 10 days in February in Hong Kong on the way. There we met our exchangers on their way to our home and had an enjoyable meal together.
Val & John enjoying a meal with Ailsa & Gavin at a restaurant in Hong Kong

Our visit to a Ceremonial Tea House in Macau









Then on to New Zealand and Auckland where we got a shuttle bus to Hamilton. On the way we chatted to a fellow passenger who was head of a technical college there and he generously offered to lend his holiday home on the Coromandel Peninsula for a few days. Hamilton is a lovely city with a beautiful park; river walks; and of course a rugby stadium. The modern exchange home was in a leafy suburb close to the city centre and the country roads south. We got to know our neighbours and after a couple of weeks we began our grand tour of North and South Islands, seeing over 1800 miles of stunning scenery. Highlights included a railway trip in the mountains near Christchurch; bathing in open air thermal pools; boat trips on lakes and fiords; experiencing Maori culture; Art Deco architecture in Napier; geothermal activity at Rotorua; close-ups of many of their unique animals; and an underwater world in Auckland.

Next stop Australia....

To be continued ...

Great Times on Home Exchange - Part II

Northern California - Canada (Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal, Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia)- US

Then it was time to fly off to Ottawa having kept in touch by email, and we were met at the airport by our exchanger’s son. Her apartment was well situated in the suburbs on a scenic bus route into the centre through parkland by the river. There we saw the colourful Canada Day celebrations outside the Parliament Building including a display by the Royal Mounties.

Later in our stay we visited Toronto by train. We also drove down to Gananoque near Kingston for a boat trip amongst the Thousand Islands, of salad dressing fame. Our longest excursion in the Mazda sports car was east to Montreal, Quebec, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia where we stayed in a tiny cabin set in the grounds of a palatial residence where we went for breakfast.

Our return route was across the border through the US seeing F. D. Roosevelt’s home and the Frederic Remington Art Museum on the way. All too soon after that we returned to the UK, via a rescheduled flight, having had a wonderful trip. We finally met our Canadian exchanger when she revisited England last year, having kept in regular contact since our exchange.
To be continued .....

Great Times on Home Exchanges - Part 1 - UK North Oxfordshire to USA Northern California

John & Val's Californian Odyssey

We have now enjoyed three very good long term exchanges because we wanted to spend long enough in other countries to get to know the people and their way of life by living there like residents through a home exchange. We decided that we didn't mind someone else living in our home for some months, but wondered if ours was good enough. Our home is in a good location in the South Midlands close to Oxford, Warwick, Stratford upon Avon, the Cotswolds and on the main road and rail transport systems for London, Birmingham etc., which attracted our exchangers.

After some research, Val, my wife, chose Green Theme International as our home exchange agency and we haven't been disappointed. Through their website we posted details of our semi-detached "cosy" home in North Oxfordshire with various stipulations as to where and when we wanted to stay and for what length of time. As we wanted to stay in the USA and Canada we decided to go for broke and to try to do these consecutively. From the offers we received we were able to stay two months (April and May) in Northern California followed by a further two (June and July) in Ottawa before returning home. With a real sense of anticipation we started planning a year in advance so we had time to get to know our exchangers by e-mail. One benefit of an exchange is that it prompted us to get the home up to scratch, clearing clutter and creating storage space. We have very good neighbours who welcome our exchangers with the key and help them to settle in, even give driving instruction where necessary. We usually buy the Lonely Planet guide to get a feel for the country and to get some ideas of the places we most want to see, but we don’t finalise the itinerary until we get there. Then we have a good chat with locals who love to suggest things whilst getting to know us, quite often coming up with the detailed road maps too. Car exchange is also convenient and cost-saving even though we have to pay extra on our insurance.

Our first exchanger’s red Ford Thunderbird enabled us to travel round California, Reno, Lake Tahoe, the Hoover Dam, Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon. We also met up with a couple in Sacramento who Val had got to know on a previous visit. Other outings included supper at a llama farm, a tour of a gold mine and a rodeo near Grass Valley. We were also introduced to a local group of hikers and saw much of the beautiful scenery close up and went for an exhilarating swim in the Yuba river. So the two months flashed by. Then it was time to fly off to Ottawa .....
To be continued ...

Comment ajouter vos photos sur votre page du siteweb Echange de Maison GTI

Question

bonjour,
nous étions précédemment inscrits sous le numéro ID:HE14632;
Mais nous avons effectué une nouvelle inscription, cette fois sous le numéro HE17428. Nous voudrions faire quelques modifications sur cette page, mais ne réussissons à y accéder, car ayant choisi le même code secret, nous sommes ramenés sur l'ancienne.

Aussi merci de supprimer notre ancienne inscription et de nous indiquer comment faire pour ajouter des photos?

Réponse
Cher Bernard

Merci pour votre email conçernant votre reinscription avec Nom de Utilisateur: HE17428
et votre problème avec accés à cause de duplication de votre code secret. J'ai supprimé votre ancienne inscription comme vous avez voulu et maintenant vous ne devriez pas avoir difficulté à accéder la partie administrative du site qui vous concerne, utilisant le même code secret.

Au sujet de l'emplacement des photos, voici le procédure à suivre:

Entrez dans la partie administrative vous concernant par cliquant sur le 'link' Login au-dessous du titre 'Members' Area' sur la page en anglais ou sur la page en français pour arrivez au page:

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

Entrez votre adresse email dans la première boite suivi par votre mot de passe dans la seconde. Cliquez sur le hyperlink 'Manage your Photos'. Vous arrivez à la page où vous pouvez ajouter ou modifier vos photos. Notez, s'il vous plait, que toutes photographies doivent être en .jpg format et, si possible, pas moins de 220 pixels en taille, afin de maintenir la qualité des photos. Photos avec une largeur plus
grande que l'hauteur sont les mieux.

Souvenez ce que vous avez intitulées vos photos, et le titre du dossier où vous les avez garder sur votre ordinateur.

Utilisez le bouton 'Browse' pour choisir une photographie de votre ordinateur. Marquez la photo numéro 1, 2, 3, 4 ou 5 qui convient, et puis cliquez le bouton 'Upload'. Bientôt vous verrez la photo pour l'image que vous avez selectionnée dans la boite pour cette photo au-dessus.

Pour remplacer une photo, il faut supprimer la vieille photo avant d'enregistrer une nouvelle photo. En cette instance, vous retrouveriez peut-être que la vieille photo apparaîsse encore une fois après que vous avez cliqué le bouton 'Upload', mais actuellement elle a été remplacée, et quand votre 'session' à ce moment sur votre ordinateur s'est terminée, vous verrez la prochaine fois que vous entrez le site que la nouvelle photo est en place.

N'hésitez pas à me contacter si vous avez besoin de renseignements complémentaires.

Kath Botterill

Home Exchange at Christmas

With Halloween's witches and hobgoblins now back in their hideouts for another year, thoughts naturally turn to the Christmas festive season, and if you have not yet made your plans and fancy a change of scene there are a number of home exchange opportunities available on the GTI Home Exchange website.

If the lights and markets of Paris appeal, New Yorkers might well wish to consider Harry and Isabelle's offer, HE17340.

"Apartment overlooking Paris (Eiffel Tower, Notre-Dame... )next to Père La Chaise cemetery, 20 minutes from city centre (Les Halles) with direct metro line. Lively quarter with cheap restaurants, a lot of shops and markets. Nice neighborhood, a lot of friends and a janitor in the building always ready to help you !"

"We hope to spend Christmas in New York, December 19 until Tuesday, December 27 and need an apartment for this period. We can leave ours even longer, because we can go to Normandy."

Another Christmas offer comes from Spain, HE13924

"We offer a lovely cottage near Seville(km), with a large garden and a beautiful decoration. During Christmas lovely city center located appartment available. 2 adults (seniors) and 2 young people,of 24 and 18 years old."

And another from Arnhem in Holland, HE16553 whose owners are interested in England, Italy, Finland and Europe in general. We are open for offer around Christmas time, one or two weeks.
"Comfortable house with a large living, 3 bedrooms and a garden, build in 1974, in Arnhem, on the edge of National Park De Hoge Veluwe, one of the Netherlands' oldest and largest national parks. Together with the Kroller-Muller Museum and the sculpture garden it offers a unique combination of nature, art and architecture. Arnhem, fames from World War 2 “A bridge to far” is one of the fascinating cities of the East of the Netherlands near the German border and has everything to make your stay unforgettable. If you love culture, a walk, ride a bicycle, if you want to visit the large attractions, pleasantly go shopping or go out to the woody surroundings. Children welcome. We have a 5 years old boy, toys available for use and two large playgrounds behind our house and the a big sandbox."

Home Exchange - Let's go skiing

Following up on the 33rd Daily Mail and Ski Board Show last week, I thought it was appropriate to draw attention to home exchange ski opportunities which occur on the GTI Home Exchange website. Holidays relating to a particular theme are easily found by using the Detailed Search and clicking on the appropriate Theme from the drop down list. In the case of skiing, there are no fewer than 184 listings which mention the possibility of skiing. For example:


HE13107
Apartment of 2 rooms situated at the 1st floor of a pretty chalet with a balcony giving a magnificent view of the Alps.




HE17293
80m2 flat situated on golf course with view of the Alps. 10 minutes walk to village via the golf course. Country skiing directly at the door. Downhill skiing up to 3000m altitude. Also possibility of exchange of our house in San Jose, Costa Rica during school holidays.

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.!!

GTI Home Exchange Newsletter - Autumn 2005

The GTI Home Exchange Autumn Newsletter 2005 was published on 21st September (the official date for the beginning of Autumn, I believe). Articles featured in this issue included:
-- A Topical Pilgrimage to Cape Trafalgar?
-- Home Exchange Matchmaking
-- Combining Home Exchange, Hospitality Exchange & Rental Options
-- Dipping into the GTI Home Exchange Archives
-- Question & Answer Session
-- Member Suggestion
-- Rare Home Exchange Opportunities not to be missed
-- Exchange within your Own Country
-- World Atlas

If you are not registered to receive your issue of GTI News by email as soon as it is published, you may read it by linking to GTI News. If you would like to receive the newsletter by email, please subscribe to the mailing list on the front page of the GTI Home Exchange web-site.

School Holiday Dates - Les Vacances Scolaires

A new listing from Karine HE17280 prompted this post: Karine mentions in her summary "Nous recherchons des échanges pendant les vacances scolaires de la zone 2." Most people outside of France would not know that different regions of the country have differing dates for school holidays, and it would perhaps not be easy for families to find out when the dates holidays might fall for the region in which an exchange offer is located to see if they are compatible with their own children's school holiday dates. I thought therefore that the following link to the French school calendar would be useful to enable families to check if their dates are compatible before pursuing the possibility of an attractive and interesting exchange offer, only to be disappointed.

If other members know of an easily accessible source of reference in their country for school holiday dates, please post them on this School Holiday Dates blog. I am sure the information will be much appreciated and very useful for people seeking to arrange family home exchange holidays.

If you are not sure how to make a comment or add the information, the procedure is simple: just click on the Comment hyperlink on the blog, register with a username and password and then post your comment. Failing this, just send the information to me with the appropriate URL reference, and I will post it for you.

Know Before You Go campaign

This may be a repeat post on the GTI Home Exchange weblog, but the information is very important worthy of consultation on a regular basis, and of course, just before you travel.
Foreign and Commonwealth Office Know Before You Go campaign to help British travellers (and any others who may wish to make use of the information) stay safe overseas. Before you go overseas, check out the FCO website which is packed with essential travel advice and tips, and up-to-date country information.

Home Exchange Match Making

Question: A journalist asked this question this week, in preparation for an article he was writing on home exchange.

Does “like seek to exchange with like” when considering a home exchange?

Answer: Whilst many people would prefer and are often able to exchange with owners of a property similar in standing to their own, this is not something which is set in stone with regard to home exchange. Some people may be motivated more by the location of an exchange offer rather than the fact that the property should offer exactly the same facilities as their own home. There have been many examples of this: one which comes to mind is that of Trisha, a long-term member of GTI Home Exchange, with a beautiful property in Australia, who recently wrote in response to our renewal reminder: “I am in the UK at present and have been so busy with two children getting married within weeks of each other that I have put all else on hold. I do intend to renew our membership and will do so on our return to Australia when I have more time to sort things out.” Trisha was in UK and needed to be in specific locations for the weddings of her children. Similarly Winnie Larsen HE16500 wrote “We are going to a wedding in Edinburgh the 2nd of July and we are looking for a house exchange within that period. Winnie’s example above also indicated that sometimes it is the dates for which the exchange is offered that are equally as important.

Nevertheless, it is probably true that the most successful and carefree exchanges often take place when “like exchanges with like”. For example it is far more likely that a young family will find that their exchange meets their needs and matches up to their expectations if they are able to exchange with a family whose children are of similar ages to their own. There will be toys and facilities that meet the needs of the youngsters of the same age group and it often removes the need to take essential bulky equipment such as buggies etc.

Similarly other specific groups such as Seniors may prefer to exchange with people of their own age. Their properties are arranged more for the convenience and tastes of their group, perhaps with expensive décor, even antiques, and may not be set up to withstand the impact of more vigorous age groups such as families with teenagers. For people wishing to limit their search for an exchange within the Seniors group, they simply need to click on Detailed Search and check the “Seniors/Over 55's” box.

Of course, the final answer is not to close any avenues which you think may lead to the exchange you want be it for a particular reason or the holiday of a lifetime, but to earn a reputation of being an ideal home exchange partner by preparing an enticing exchange offer, and giving the time to getting to know and becoming comfortable with your prospective exchange partners before agreeing to a definite arrangement.

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.

Temporary Car Breakdown Cover in Spain

Once again the taxing question of car insurance, this time for temporary breakdown cover, poses a problem for GTI Home Exchange member Suzy Topolski HE13483. Suzy writes: "do you have any advice regarding getting breakdown cover on our Spanish exchange partner's car. She has annual personal cover.....so is even fine with our car in UK........... so we need to know if we can get temporary breakdown cover in our name for a Spanish registered car. It seems we are fine for insurance.
Thanks.

If anyone, and particularly perhaps one of our many Spanish members, has any information on this point, would you please kindly post a reply on the GTI Weblog, or if you do not feel confident with this, please send me an email and I will pass the information on to Suzy, as well as posting it on the weblog for the benefit of other members who may have the same difficulty in arranging temporary breakdown cover whilst abroad.

Kath Botterill

Fodor's Travel Guides

Newly registered GTI Home Exchange member, Pam Heaphey HE17085, mentioned the famed Fodor's Travel Guides in response to our question 'Where did you hear about GTI'? Curiosity aroused, I decided to take a look at Fodor's on-line. Whilst I could not find any direct reference to GTI Home Exchange, only our much more expensive competitors with membership subscription quoted in US$ being singled out for reference, I was impressed with the site and the amount of information available to travellers worldwide. It also offers the opportunity to register for their regular newsletter and really is worth a look.

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.

GTI Newsletter Summer 2005

The GTI News Summer 2005 was posted on the web-site on 30th June, just before we lost our telecommunications for approximately 10 days owing to a severe storm. We are pleased to say that this did not prevent it being distributed to those of you who are on the GTI Newsletter mailing list, having registered to receive the Newsletter via email. If for any reason you have not received your copy, (ie you may have changed your registered email address, or your mailbox may be full), you may view it from the GTI Home Page by clicking on the GTI News link in the righthand menu.

Back in Touch

Owing to a severe storm and lightning which struck our main telephone cable approximately ten days ago, we have regrettably experienced an unprecented break in our communications, and have been unable to access the internet, receive emails or telephone calls from members and prospective clients during this period. Whilst we very much regret this break in our service, there was regrettably nothing that we could do about it and we were obliged to wait on the goodwill of the telephone company to re-instate our service. Fortunately, my daughter, Alison, now acting as our representative in the United Kingdom, was able to respond to many of your queries on our behalf. We are now back on-line, but do sincerely apologise for any inconvenience that this break in our usual high level of service may have caused.