Caveat Home Exchanger

It would appear from the number of home exchange clubs now in existence that the home exchange sector of the travel industry is expanding, but with this expansion we would encourage you to be even more diligent when selecting your home exchange partners. Whilst the great majority of people participating in home exchange are conscientious caring people and their home exchanges are entirely successful (as evidenced by the many testimonials that we receive), the world is not perfect and there is always a small minority who will spoil things for others.

Points that have recently come to our notice to beware of are:

Abuse of listings information.

As we mention in our Welcome Message when you join GTI Home Exchange, solicitations to members of any other kind other than home exchange or for any commercial purpose are strictly forbidden. If you should get an enquiry from anyone who appears to be promoting another home exchange agency or other commercial venture, please forward this to us for investigation.

Inaccurate or vague description of location of exchange property

Occasionally people may choose to be economical with the truth and deliberately vague when locating their exchange property. If you suspect that this is the case early on you probably will not wish to follow up this exchange possibility, but if it is in a location you really want to visit, you might. If the vagueness about their 'precise area' continues when you are getting nearer to confirmation of an exchange arrangement, be sure to obtain their exact address before you confirm, locate them on Google maps, and check out if they are anywhere near any well-known landmarks or places of interest that you may wish to visit.

Once you have the exact address you can also check out the neighbourhood for levels of crime in the area. Search for crime and the name of the exchanger's home area on the relevant Google search engine.

Home Exchange Switch

As you know, at GTI Home Exchange members are allowed to list 'rental' ONLY as a supplementary alternative to 'home exchange'. The system is not intended for the advertisement of commercial holiday rentals, for which we provide a completely separate site, Holiday Homes Direct. If you make an enquiry in response to a listing which appears to match your co-ordinates in terms of length of exchange and dates, which immediately receives a negative answer to an exchange offer, but suggests a rental proposition instead, or even directs you to a commercial rental web-site, please let us know. The situation is most likely to arise in relation to listings which are for second or vacation homes. At GTI we do not wish to restrict the listings of second homes as this gives more flexibility for non-simultaneous exchanges to take place. However if we receive a number of complaints about the same listing which is suspected to be guilty of the 'home exchange switch' phenomenon, we will investigate.

If you feel that the 'rental offered' option should not be allowed at all on home exchange clubs web-sites, please add a comment to this post and let us know your views.

The objective of this post is not to put people off home exchange, but to increase the confidence and mutual respect between Green Theme International Home Exchange and First Home Exchange Alliance members. To help us in our endeavours to make home exchange as safe and enjoyable as possible for participants in the future as it has been in the past, please take the trouble to complete our Exchange Feedback Form after your exchange. We look forward to hearing from you.

Memoirs of a GTI Home Exchange Globetrotting Pensioner

Hello Kath,

Many thanks for your welcome email, and bearing in mind the passage of time (over 12 years)? and number of folks who pass through your system I envy your memory, I have difficulty in remembering folks I have met in the last 3 years. Looking back on old papers I think I must have registered with you early in 1995 prior to my cycle ride across the USA. That started on 1st May, lasted 6 weeks and covered 3,800 miles made many friends and raised £8000 for a children's hospice in Wales.

When I returned to the UK after that trip in July 95 there were a number of exchange offers from around the world in my mail. Arising from that I went to Canada the following year (May 96) for 2 exchanges of 4 weeks each. Then in September of that year I spent 6 months (with my cycle) in Australia where I had 4 exchanges around the country meeting up with cycling clubs and clocking up another 3000 miles. It was whilst I was in Australia that I read an advert in an American cycling magazine for the ultimate cycling trip in 2000 which is what my website is all about, although that now badly needs updating.

I think my family were hoping that the 2000 trip would get the travel bug out of my system. I have to say it made it worse, as the following year I did a ride down the west coast of the US from Canada to Mexico ( I was in Vancouver Island on 9/11) . Then over the next 5 years I have undertaken organised cycling tours in France, India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Brazil (with 3 trips to the last 2 ) and last year the most difficult challenge was an organised ride in Tibet covering 1000 kilometres from Lasha to Kathmandu.

Having moved to Wales from Bath in 1975 with my job where I retired in July 93 I felt I should relocate, but my travels kept getting in the way of those plans. I eventually put my Cottage in the Vale of Glamorgan on the market in 2004. This was eventually sold in August of last year whist I was in Brazil for 2 months. In the meantime I met Dorothy a widow (4 years my junior) who does not cycle but enjoys long distance walking so whilst I still try to spend time on 2 wheels a minor change in my lifestyle has now arisen.

Hence the reason for getting back into home exchange where we can both indulge in our respective pastime. As you will gather we are booked for a 7 weeks trip to South Africa commencing next January, unfortunately there was a report in the Telegraph last week end that due to an increase in crime there has been a big drop in tourism in SA so we hope it will not affect us.

Finally you did ask if I had any experience from my previous exchanges that I would like to pass on for your web-log, not sure if it will be of interest but there is one couple from Australia who I did an exchange with in 96, they came back to my cottage in 2002 and Dorothy & I spent a very pleasant 2 weeks at their Queensland home in Feb. of this year. There is more to add to that experience but if you think it will go down please let me know and I will prepare something.

What I now have to do is try and get some photograhs on to my listing. I am incidently pleasantly surprised at the level of subscription for GTI compared to other agencies in home exchange. No doubt there are more folks into home exchange compared to 96 but am sure I was paying more then than now ? is there another expense I have overlooked ?

best wishes
sincerely
Arthur

A Time to Travel, A Time to Stay

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

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

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

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

Home and Dry with Home Exchange

Summer may appear to be on hold this year, and the weather may be wet, wet, wet, with Britain and most of Europe experiencing its worst June/July for decades, but home exchangers, as long as they are not in the worst affected areas, can be home and dry. Not for them the experience of being cooped up in a less-than-generous hotel room with little or nothing to distract them from watching the falling rain. To date we have not heard of anyone's home exchange arrangements having been ruined by the unseasonal and inclement weather, and we seriously hope that this is the case.

Of course, our sympathies go out to those people in the worst affected areas of central England near Sheffield, and eastern England near the city of Hull which people are beginning to call the 'forgotten city' so little apparently having been done to help them alleviate the affects of the floods.

It would appear that some areas of Europe have fared better than others, Greece in particular experiencing a minor canicule with soaring temperatures, and high pressure stationary over the Azores, apparently contributing to low pressure affecting the rest of Europe.

Hopefully there is still time for summer to get under way and for those of us who have been deprived our little bit of comforting sunshine, a gentle late Indian Summer would be ideal.

Home Exchange Last Minute

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

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

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













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














or a house in Morleschio, Umbria, HE19917.













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


Wishing you happy hunting and happy home exchange.

Choosing your Home Exchange Club

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Go Green with The Trainline European and International rail travel

In the GTI Home Exchange blog article Going Green on Home Exchange published in February, we suggested that for non-intercontinental travel it is a good idea to let the train take the strain because this produces fare less carbon emissions than other forms of transport. The drawback was that travel by train tends to be expensive, but passes are available which help reduce the costs. Eurail passes aren’t only good for slower, state-run trains. Customers also have access to privately owned, premier, high-speed trains in the countries their passes cover. For example, there’s Artesia between Italy and France; Thalys in Germany, Belgium, and France; and the Eurostar between England and France. Pass holders do need to pay a small fee for a seat reservation.

For United Kingdom based GTI Home Exchange members, TheTrainline have announced that they now offer European and International rail travel. Whether it’s an InterRail pass for backpacking through Europe or a luxury holiday in Australia they can cater for all international rail needs. See below for what’s included.

COMPETITION
To celebrate TheTrainline have teamed up with Rail Europe to offer 2 pairs of tickets* to one of the following destinations – Paris, Lille, Brussels, Calais or Disneyland Resort Paris®. To win simply email competitions@thetrainline.com with your answer to the following question:

Q. What is the capital of France?
- London
- Sydney
- Paris

Good luck and happy travelling!

THETRAINLINE EUROSTAR DEALS
Travel to Lille, Paris or Brussels and take in the delights of those beautiful cities.

Lille from £55pp
Paris from £59pp
Brussels from £59pp

INTERNATIONAL RAIL
Try out the new InterRail pass. Choose a single country or a global pass.

Europe rail pass
One country from £24**

USA passes
USA Amtrak Rail passes from £90**

Australia passes
Australia rail passes from £44**

UK based GTI members may book their Eurostar deal tickets or International rail passes from our Travel Partners page at TheTrainline.

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.

GTI Last Minute Home Exchange offers

Hello Green Theme,



We haven't anything organised for this summer yet. Could you put our property on the "last minute" part of the site? Many thanks for all your help. Tom Hunter.

Hi Tom

Yes, I will do that for you, but for future reference you can do this yourself. You just need to login to your own member area using your email address and password, and then click on the hyperlink "Boost my Profile". I will also include an item link to your GTI Home Exchange listing HE10545 in the weblog, which may bring you some more enquiries.

It is also worth adding for the benefit of new GTI Home Exchange members that 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). We rely on members to respect these terms and only place themselves on this list as appropriate so that the Last Minute feature can be a really useful tool for members still searching for an exchange.

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 all the listings thoroughly , including the Last Minute offers still available, and contacting members with your own exchange offer). Note: once the feature is 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 (in red) each time you log on). (On occasions members mistake this information to mean that this is the total length of their membership subscription remaining, but it merely refers to the length of time their listing will remain on the Last Minute list.) Once the month has expired if you wish to remain on the Last Minute Offers list, you will have to login to your member area and click on the hyperlink Boost my Profile again to be placed on the list for a further 28 days.

Very best regards.

Kath
Green Theme International Home Exchange
http://www.gti-home-exchange.com
email: gthomeexchange@btinternet.com

GTI Home Exchange blog resumes publication

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

Who's seeking a Home Exchange at Christmas?

Who would have thought that I could be so audacious (or mad even?) to mention Christmas in March. But at GTI Home exchange I have always been keen to encourage people to plan their holidays well in advance, especially if it involves long-haul travel and more than once in past issues of the GTI Newsletter have I emphasised that it is the 'early bird' that catches not the 'worm' but the exceptional home exchange opportunity.

So, when GTI Home Exchange member, Bruno, HE17670, renewed his membership today mentioning "Our aim in this home exchange is for our family to have another Northern Hemisphere Christmas in a new and interesting area", I thought that it was time to make the point again. If you're looking to spend Christmas in warmer climes or perhaps meet up with family in Perth, Western Australia, do take a look at this fantastic offer. Only 269 days to go and counting!!!

GTI Spring Newsletter

The Spring issue of the Green Theme International on-line Newsletter is now available. The GTI ezine is published to keep current and recent members, enquirers, Newsletter subscribers and journalists informed of developments on the GTI Home Exchange web-site.

We are publishing just a few days later than the official commencement of Spring. This is quite an achievement as we have just moved back into our home after a six months absence with all the re-organisation that this entails. It is amazing how much you can accumulate and have to find new homes for in so short a time.

In this issue:

-- GTI Home Exchange Survey

-- Web-site Enhancements

-- Very Specific Home Exchange Requests

-- Home Exchange in Winter Sports Destinations

-- Featuring a Green Home Exchange

.

Swap Homes, Cars and Wild Birds?!!

Yes, I am talking about the feathered variety. For the last six months we exchanged our home in mid South-West France for a cottage high up on Cartmel Fell in the English Lake District. The cottage was just above the cottage in which Arthur Ransome lived and wrote his children’s books, the most famous of which is Swallows and Amazons. It was easy to see where Mr Ransome got his inspiration as the view from the top of the Tor just behind our cottage, on a good day, was incredible.
But as autumn faded into winter and the wet weather prevailed the mists closed in and we were often lucky if we could see more than ten yards ahead.

Surrounded on the Fell by sheep, bullocks, badgers, pheasants, the odd hare or two, and many other creatures, we soon discovered that a very handsome pheasant, although nervous of us at first, seemed to think that this was his territory. As the weather deteriorated poor Frederick as we named him would appear looking very forlorn and bedraggled. It wasn’t long before we took pity on him and offered a few titbits, nuts, seeds, and homemade bread. Obviously to his liking he began to makea daily visit to see what was on offer, becoming so bold as to eat out of our hands, a particular favourite of his being cold chips. He would even enter the cottage if the door was left inadvertently open.

Well, I know that dogs are very intelligent animals, and cats even more so judging by the way that they are able to twist their owners round their little paws, but when Frederick took to visiting three times a day at breakfast, lunch and tea-time, knocking on the door with his beak to let us know he wanted feeding, or jumping up on the windowsill and croaking to attract attention, we were amazed! Were we really at the 'peck and call' of a pheasant?! (Excuse the pun!)

When the time came for us finally to leave the cottage, we were happy that it was almost the first day of spring, as we felt that Fred should have a relatively easy time fending for himself and we comforted ourselves with the thought that the new residents would surely respond to his forthright requests should the need arise!

Accessible travel the Home Exchange Way

As regular readers of the GTI Home Exchange blog will be aware, we have illustrated before how home exchange can make the world more accessible for people with limited mobility or other disabilities. In the past members have written telling us how well they coped when undertaking significant journeys such as between UK and Australia, or Canada, accompanied by their scooters, confident in the knowledge that when they arrived at their destination they would find a home that met their specialist needs.

It is always gratifying to learn that the word about home exchange is spreading, and particularly so when it reaches those people with special requirements to whom it can make such a difference and perhaps allow them to take that trip or holiday they have always dreamed of. We were therefore delighted to learn that an article about home exchange appeared in the March issue of the French magazine Faire Face, published by the French Association for the Paralysed, which selected GTI Home Exchange as being one of the most helpful to paraplegic exchangers seeking accommodation with compatible exchange partners. Nos lecteurs français peuvent lire l'article dans le magazine Faire Face, "Séjours: pretez-vous à l'échange?".

Homes which are accessible for disabled people are indicated in the GTI Home Exchange listings with a wheelchair pictogram. Advanced Search criteria allow the listings for homes with Disabled Access/Facilities to be found, and a Free text search can be used for more specific criteria such as 'wheelchair', 'ramp' 'hoist' etc. So please, if you are listing a home which has very specialised equipment to offer, be sure to include as much detail as possible in either the 'Description of the exchange property' or 'Information on the exchange party' fields when completing the membership registration form so that others who are seeking an accessible home are aware of what it has to offer.

GTI Home Exchange can help you take that dream holiday, stay longer, spend less and live like a local! Overseas accessible travel with no surprises...
the way you imagined it should be.

Learning your Home Exchange Partner's Language

Learn to speak the Language to make the most of your Home Exchange

GTI Home Exchange takes pride in being a multi-lingual home exchange agency and encourages members to use their language skills when communicating with each other. If you are prepared to make an effort and can learn just a little of your exchange partner's language, it will make all the difference to the rapport that you can build up whilst getting to know them and making your home exchange arrangements. The BBC provides some excellent on-line language learning videos with methods and materials which not only rapidly improve your language skills, but what's more, actually make learning a language fun. The courses include videos, quizzes, games whilst at the same time helping you to improve your vocabulary and grammar along the way. Take a look!

Retirement Travel : a possible dream

Every day I seem to come across new blogs on home exchange: one of the most interesting I have read recently has been retirement travel : a possible dream. The blog, written by Pat and Lew Weinstein who reside in Key West, Florida, contains a mine of information both about home exchange and the possibilities of spending part of your retirement in another country - in this instance France. They write about how they found their apartment in a seaside village in the South of France and use it as a base for home exchange travel all over Europe. But not only is their residence in France part-time, it would seem that for Lew, an author, retirement is part-time too as he has just published his book "The Heretic" which is receiving acclaim reviews.