All of here hope that all of you have had a wonderful holiday season. It's certainly been busy and exciting for us, with the release of THE HOLIDAY bringing us record numbers of visitors and new Listings. People are saying the movie is going to do for HomeExchange what "You've Got Mail" did for internet dating, and it's true. Besides being featured in the movie, in just the last month we have had articles about HomeExchange.com in USA Today, the New York Times, the Washington Post, many other international publications, TV and radio are telling the HomeExchange story, including The TODAY Show!

Washington Post

USA Today

The Easy Reader

The Daily Breeze

I can't begin to thank all of you who responded to our request for your home exchange stories, but we are going to try to get back each one of you. They were presented to all the media who requested information about Members' experiences, and even if your own story wasn't picked up individually, as a package they were able to convey the incredible impact HomeExchange has had on the quality of our Members' vacation experiences. It goes well beyond saving money, home exchange has really changed people's lives. We are thrilled to be able to provide this service to our fantastic family of Members.

And now a Mea Culpa:

In last month’s Newsletter I wrote about the advantages of taking weekend
exchanges, and got called on it because I only used examples of weekend
exchanges within the US.

One of our very loyal, longtime Members wrote to gently chastise me, and I
deserve it 100%. Here is his letter, followed by my public and very humble
apology.

So yes, "weekend exchanges are becoming more and more popular", you write in your newsletter and then you go on to mention a few "San Franciso to Napa, Boston to Vermont, Washington DC to North Carolina" , sorry but how provincial can you get??? What is the percentage of International listing compared to the total?? And you have made Julie Osborne your "signature voice" because it portrays an "international, professional... feeling" . And the only thing you think or write about are local US exchanges. We (12160) have had numerous weekend exchanges Amsterdam to Berlin, Amsterdam to Paris, Amsterdam to Budapest, Amsterdam to London, and I am sure we are not the only ones in Europe. So come on, get really International and start thinking about your exchangers outside the US of A!!

HM
Amsterdam, Netherlands

Hein, you are 100% correct and I deserve every word of your gentle criticism. Please accept my explanation (but not excuse), that it was an innocent oversight as opposed to an intentional over-focus on our USA rather than non-USA Members. I was just thinking about the last few weekend exchanges I had been talking about with Members, and they were the first that came to mind. About 60% of our Members are now non-US Listings, and are we certainly value you and them.

I hope you, and the rest of our Members know our hearts are worldwide, NOT just in the US.

I apologized personally to Hein, and asked him if he would write about his own HomeExchange experiences in our “Meet a Member” section of this month’s Newsletter. It appears below.

Happy Holidays, Happy New Year and bon voyage,

Ed Kushins
President

The Gift of Home Exchange

If you are not already logged in to our website, after clicking the link below to purchase your gift certificate, you will need to login to your existing HomeExchange.com account. Once logged in, you will be presented with a payment page for your gift certificate purchase. The $15 dollar discount will appear on the payment page, no need to enter any coupon code.

CLICK HERE TO BUY THE GIFT OF HOME EXCHANGE FOR SOMEONE SPECIAL

 

Sony's THE HOLIDAY!

I'm sure most of you are aware that HomeExchange.com is featured in the recent SONY pictures movie THE HOLIDAY starring Cameron Diaz, Kate Winslet, Jack Black and Jude Law. The HomeExchange.com team went to a preview at the Sony backlot a couple weeks before the December 8th premiere here in the US and we all gave it a thumbs up!

The movies centers on Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet who use HomeExchange.com to arrange a home exchange between Cameron's home in Los Angeles and Kate's cottage in the English Countryside.

The initial spark for her new romantic comedy, The Holiday, was ignited a few years ago when screenwriter/director Nancy Meyers was planning a vacation and serendipitously happened upon an internet site that arranges house swapping - across cities, across countries, across continents. "I had no idea this kind of thing ever existed," she confesses. "On the website, I read about all these fantastic houses. Eventually, I realized I would have to trade mine to get one."

HomeExchange.com is excited to be part of this movie, and we've been fortunate to do interviews for Radio, newspapers, magazines, and an upcoming spot on the Today Show too!

If you haven't seen the movie yet, it really shows all the fun and excitement you can have on a home exchange, don't miss it!

One Minute Survey

WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU

December Survey
CLICK HERE TO PARTICIPATE IN OUR NEW SURVEY
In this months survey we are giving you the opportunity to tell us what improvements you would like to see on the site next year. We are ALWAYS open to your suggestions, so take the survey and be heard!

CLICK HERE TO PARTICIPATE IN OUR NEW SURVEY

CLICK HERE to read some responses from last month's survey.

Meet a Member

Meet Hein! - Home ID #12160

I have traveled a lot in my life, first as European Marketing Manager for a small US chemical firm with an office in Amsterdam, Netherlands. I had an agent in every country in Western Europe - except Great Britain - and visited them once every year and in the bigger countries more often. It was, of course, not leisure travel but even so trips to Paris, Frankfurt, Vienna, Copenhagen, Stockholm and other capitals were not really a chore!

Then, when , through a merger , I lost my job I made my hobby into a job and traveled the world as a nautical photographer/writer specializing in windsurfing. Now, as you can imagine that brought me to lovely spots on the globe: Maui, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Sri Lanka, Thailand to name just a few, and very often subsidized by the sponsors of the events which very often were major airlines.

But that also ended when the windsurfing hype blew over in the second half of the eighties, and one after the other manufacturers and magazines folded. So that was when nobody picked the tab of my travels anymore. And I still wanted to continue to travel.

What to do? I had heard of people exchanging their homes during the holidays but it was through a complicated, time consuming method of catalogues as thick as a fist where you had to write letters - snail mail, remember? - and wait for days, sometimes weeks until you got a response, and if negative you had to start the whole procedure anew.

It was in the middle of the nineties and the World Wide Web was in its infancy, the Google boys were still in diapers, but there was a beginning. I don't remember how I found HomeExchange.com, I believe it was through Ask Jeeves one of the most popular search engines at the time, but I found them. I subscribed and was one of the first in my city - Amsterdam - to be a home exchanger. My first exchange was with Oakland, CA and it was great, a house in the hills in the midst Eucalyptus trees and it included the use of the owners car. I went to San Francisco, the Napa Valley, Yosemite Park and I loved it, it was so much better than the hotels I had stayed in during my previous travels. The luxury of having a kitchen, not to have to leave the house to get a breakfast, my own terrace overlooking the Golden Gate in the distance. Not just being limited to a bedroom, but having a living room, a den, a dining room, all that space, like my own home! And then I realized the great advantage of home exchanging: having your own home in a far away country and I was completely sold. From that point on I exchanged my home 2, 3, 4 times a year, one or two longer stays and numerous weekend exchanges with places closer to home. I spent summer holidays in places like San Diego, San Francisco, North- and South Carolina, Washington DC., Key West, the Virgin Island, Mexico and weekends in Paris, London, Budapest, Berlin and Copenhagen and all that just for the price of an airline ticket!

We stayed in beautiful homes overlooking the ocean, and in small apartments in big cities, in big houses right on the beach and once in a tiny sixth floor walkup (!) student apartment in Paris, but mostly we loved our exchanges. One that stands out is a huge apartment on the Isle Saint Louis overlooking the Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower in the distance.

Very often we did not meet our exchange partners in person, I left the keys to my apartment at the information desk at Schiphol airport, and found theirs at neighbors, estate agents or under the mat, or even in the flower pot! But the nicest exchanges were when I did meet the people I exchanged with and sometimes even did more than one exchange. The most memorable meeting was with my exchange partners from Virginia. They stayed one night longer in Amsterdam than I in their home which gave me the chance to take them out to dinner at a restaurant which tourist hardly ever find. During our conversation, home exchange obviously was one of the topics, and comparing exchange homes we found that we had both stayed at the same house in Montepulciano, a quaint little town on a hilltop overlooking the magnificent area of Tuscany in Italy. What a coincidence!

What have I learned from 10 years exchanging homes? Things that could benefit the uninitiated?

Try to talk to your exchange partners on the phone before the exchange, a voice can tell you things that an email cannot. But even mailing a number of times before the exchange gives you a good impression of the people you are dealing with. Are they the kind of people you would like to take care of your house? Are they laid back or up tight? Are they friendly and willing to help you make the exchange a success?

And watch out for second homes. I arrived once in the middle of the night after a long flight at a beautiful home not far from the beach; it was spotless, but too spotless! The fridge smelled of Mr. Clean and only Mr. Clean, there was absolutely nothing in it, neither was there anything in the kitchen cabinets. No salt, no pepper, no oil, no vinegar, no sugar, nothing. I had to buy all these thing the next day, knowing that I would only use tiny quantities of these daily necessities and that all I left would be thrown out by the cleaning service that would clean the apartment for the temporary tenants that would move in after me and they again would have to buy all these things. Because the home was up for rent when the owners were not there, which was most of the time. I know, it's not a big thing, but if you exchange homes, you expect to come to a real home, like your own, where you can make a cup of tea or coffee when you arrive, exhausted from a long flight.

And in the big cities look at photographs of the place, ask dimensions. I mentioned the sixth floor walk-up, and that is not what you want. City apartments are small in general but there are limits, especially if you hit on a student, make sure the place is not a student dump. After all you are not a student anymore and chances are you do not want to put up with student quarters at your age anymore.

But if you watch out a little, ask the right questions and look at the photographs, you are sure to find a place that will make your holiday a feast. Because home exchange is by far the most marvelous way to travel, and as an extra bonus it's the cheapest way also.

So get onto the net and arrange for your next holiday as if you were staying at your own home!

Oh, and be nice for the people who come to your home. Prepare a little folder with instructions, tell them where the nice restaurant are in the area and the shops.

Get at it!

Hein Van Maasdijk

Special Notices

SEND US YOUR HOME EXCHANGE PHOTOS!

If you have any photos from your home exchange vacations that you want to share with us, we are always looking for fun photos to share on our site and to use for other promotional activities. Send photos to: switch1@homeexchange.com

I'm sorry to have to admit this, but me and my family just took a quick one night trip up to the local mountains to catch some snow for the day, and since it was such a last minute affair, we stayed in a hotel.

Now before you send in your nasty emails, let me just explain myself first. We literally thought of this at about noon the day before we wanted to go, so time was of the essence. Also, I have 4 kids, so a 6 person exchange is a lttle bit more complex to arrange than a typical couple's vacation

But of course it didn't take long to reinforce why I love HomeExchange.com so much and really don't enjoy staying at hotels.

In honor of my stay, and giving me good reason to write off the trip, I now give you my top 5 reasons why Home Exchange is so much better than staying at a hotel.

5. My Kingdom for a Knife
OK, so we purchased some candy apples and brought them back to our room and then figured out the nice young lady at the candy store failed to cut up the apples as we had asked. I looked at the corkscrew on the nightstand and quickly figured out that wasn't going to work. Hmm, no kitchen, no knife. Everyone take a bite and pass it around. Not the end of the world, but it is amazing what you take for granted when you stay in someone's home. Ever try to find a pair of Scissors in a hotel room? How about a book or a dvd? A board game or deck of cards? Fat chance finding any of that in a hotel room!

4. Spread Out
My family gets along great, but I think anyone stuck in a small, confined space for too long will go a little batty once in a while. After dinner we came back to the hotel to hang out and watch a movie, but not everyone could agree on what to watch, and pretty soon some small battles broke out. With a home exchange, you get more space, and room to spread out and do your own thing. After a whole day together, older kids need some space. A backyard soccer game is a lot more fun than staring at each other in a hotel.

3. What To Do With the Leftovers?
Nothing drives me more nuts than going out to eat and coming back to the hotel with absolutely nowhere to put all the leftovers from the meals my kids didn't finish. I had to throw away at least 2 good meals because there was no fridge in our hotel. And when I ran out to the store to buy ice cream, we had to throw away what we didn't finish. I also had to buy plastic spoons and use water glasses to serve up everyone. And I actually enjoy being able to eat some simple meals we prepare ourselves, which is of course impossible with a hotel room.

2. Two Rooms is How Much?
I know the hotel industry has to make money, but let's be honest here, hotels are expensive. They have a large staff and a lot of square feet they have to keep in tip top shape, so any nice hotel is going to cost you a ton of money to stay at. With my large family, we had to get two rooms, and that really hits the old pocketbook hard. In fact we all wanted to stay another night, but there was no way I could justify the costs for another 24 hours. Taking the hotel bill out of our tip budget would have meant more money for nicer dinners our, more souvenirs an probably another night or two of vacation time!

1. Everyone Needs a Little Relaxation.
I don't know about you, but I find it hard to relax in a hotel room. Hotel rooms are designed more for sleeping than hanging out. I like to hang out on a vacation: do a little reading on the deck, watch a DVD, cook up some dinner, maybe some burgers on the BBQ out back, play some cards or a board game, that kind of thing. You might find bikes or other play equipment in the garage, or grab a basketball and shoot some hoops in the driveway. None of which is possible in a hotel. At a hotel I am always waiting for someone to knock on the door, I feel like I don't ever have my guard down. On a home exchange, you call the shots.

So that is my list. Just say NO to hotels and YES to home exchange vacations! Your family and your wallet will thank you!

Until next time!

The Best Travel Value on the Web!