Handy Home Exchange Hints

We have come a long way since the days when members joining GTI Home Exchange received directories containing worldwide home exchange offers and pages of advice on how to arrange a successful exchange which they could browse over at leisure. .

With the move to the internet as the base of operations, some things such as easy communication with prospective exchange partners have become much easier, as has our ability to provide more help and guidance to members. As much as we try to avoid falling into the trap of providing information overload, it is inevitable that the more we try to improve our service, the more sophisticated the system becomes and therefore the more guidance is necessary to enable members to make the most of the facilities available to them.

When I received an email earlier this week I realised that for some members with little time to spare in their busy lives, it is all too easy to miss that vital piece of information that could make setting up their home exchange so much easier. Davina wrote: "Hi, we have a house swap arranged for August - this will be our
first swap. Our guests will be coming from USA. Can you give us some tips on what we do to our home etc to make their holiday enjoyable. Thanks Davina"

Davina had obviously missed our Exchange Guidelines which are available by clicking on the menu link in the Members’ Area.

Similarly, when a new member joins, the Administrator’s message in the Member Admin Area may seem daunting, but it is there to help and I would advise a new member to try to spare a little time to read it through.

I hope that the web-log topic headings on the righthand side of the GTI Home Page will also attract attention to the subject of Handy Home Exchange Hints. America’s Fine Living TV web-site magazine includes a reference to GTI Home Exchange: Advice and Recommendations on taking a Home Exchange Holiday in their Fine Living Essentials articles, Introduction to Home Exchange, Selecting a Home Exchange, and Home Exchange Guests. Thank you Fine Living.

Accessible travel with Holiday Homes Direct

Mablethorpe, ENGLAND
6 Berth disabled caravan, 2 bedrooms, on Haven Caravan site, all mod coms microwave, sandwhich maker, t.v. dvd player and some dvds surrounding area flat, access to all areas for wheelchairs.....

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.

Home Exchange and Pets

One of the great attractions of a home exchange holiday for many people is that when listing their offer on a home exchange web-site, they can request simple pet care for their pets from their home exchange partners. Care of a variety of animals has been requested on the GTI Home Exchange web-site in the past although usually the pets involved are cats and dogs. As not everyone wants to be tied down to pet care, this may limit potential home exchange partners, but for some, particularly families with children, having pets included as part of a home exchange is a welcome bonus.

However, some people do not have pets and would not wish to visit homes where there are animals, perhaps for allergy reasons or simply because they are not used to caring for animals. In order to try and meet every requirement our membership registration form gives people the opportunity to indicate in the Conditions of the Exchange the variations on the subject of pets by clicking on the various boxes: No Pets allowed (perhaps for allergy reasons, as mentioned above, or because their homes are not suited to pets), Pet care required and Pet care offered, and on our Advanced Search page people may search for exchanges where Pet care is offered.

But it would seem that there is always one more variation that we ought to include, and as yet do not. I recently received an email from a prospective member saying “we have been swapping for a few years now – but I was concerned that you don’t have an icon for ‘pets accepted’. It means that I have to search each property and view all of their text/info before knowing if pets are allowed whereas an icon, alongside the property itself (as with children – pensioners etc) can be seen at a glance. Would this not be possible?”

I agree with Ron, not only because I think it is a very good suggestion, but for another reason too! As more and more people are becoming aware of the damage we have been collectively causing to the environment, there is a growing trend for many individuals and families to want to do their bit to reduce their impact on the planet by reducing their frequency of air travel and choosing to take their holidays within their own country, perhaps opting to travel to their destination by public transport too if possible. This prompts the thought that if people are spending their holiday within their own country they might wish to take their pets with them more often, particularly their dogs who are usually so much part of the family, and who can become very stressed and melancholy even if left in the care of kind strangers for only a short time.

It would seem therefore that prospective member, Ron’s, suggestion of an icon indicating “Pets welcome/accepted” is a suggestion which should be seriously considered. I have put the proposal to our associate agency members of FHEA ( First Home Exchange Alliance), and hope to arrive at a positive decision in favour. However, the immediate reaction from one of our associate colleagues has been that we have enough icons already. Failing agreement on the inclusion of another icon with our FHEA partner agencies, at the very least we could change the negative condition "No Pets" showing on the full listing, to Pets welcome/accepted, and include this as an Advanced Search option.

Hospitality Exchange – What exactly is it?

Until I received an email this week asking the above question, I had thought that the concept of hospitality exchange was a comparatively simple one: ie that you host a guest and the guest reciprocates at another time. But when I began to think about it a little more I realised that there could be any number of levels of hospitality exchange; for example from the simple offer of a bed for the night or a specified period of several nights, to bed and breakfast, bed breakfast and evening meal, or full board accommodation for a specified time. Some people might wish to take the concept even further and escort their guests to places of interest in their area, cultural events, sporting activities and so on.

Therefore I think that the aim with hospitality exchange would be to “do as you would be done by”: in other words to try to offer a fair exchange at whatever level of hospitality might be agreed upon.

GTI Home Exchange listing HE19750 is an example of a very generous hospitality exchange offer, where your hosts would be willing to show you throughout Arizona and the American West.