Experience your child's first trips thanks to HomeExchange

At HomeExchange, we love giving a voice to those who can best describe it: our members. This testimonial was written by Rosa and her family, a member who has been traveling on exchanges for 10 years and who, for the past 3 years, has been taking her son along on her adventures.

Traveling with young kids isn't complicated. You just need to find the right way to do it.

After nearly 10 years of home exchanging and 3 of those traveling with our little one, home exchange has completely changed how we travel. Not just for the comfort it brings, but for everything it adds on a human level. And every single time, we get that same feeling as the first day: you're not arriving at accommodation, you're arriving at a home. When you travel as a family, that's what makes all the difference.

Learning the Value of Sharing

With a home exchange, you don't have to adapt to the destination. The destination adapts to you. You walk in and find a high chair, bedtime storybooks, toys in the living room, maybe even a scooter to explore the neighborhood. Small details that change everything. They keep the days flowing naturally, protect the routines that matter, and turn traveling with kids from a challenge into something that just feels normal.

But what genuinely moves us at every exchange is watching our son discover other kids' toys and books. He takes care of them, enjoys them, makes them his own for a few days, knowing, even at his age, that other children are doing the same with his back home. It's a quiet kind of learning, but a powerful one.

This isn't just about traveling. It's about understanding the value of sharing, respecting what belongs to others, and being part of something bigger. Our little one isn't just seeing the world. He's learning to share it.

Experiencing Travels to the Fullest

Over time, we've also changed how we experience destinations. We no longer try to "see everything." We focus on living it better. We ask our hosts about their favorite parks, the cafés where you can take kids without feeling rushed, the little finds that never make it into any guidebook. That's how you really get to know a place. We've traded the frantic pace for slow travel: fewer checklists, more moments. Less rushing, more everyday life in new places.

And then come the memories. The ones that stick. Our son, at just five months old, watched the tulips bloom in Amsterdam. At ten months, he had his first picnic in Central Park. At one year, he ran freely through the Austrian countryside, swam in crystal-clear lakes, and collected his first eggs from our hosts' hens in France. At two, we explored Provence and the French Riviera, discovering villages and markets at our own pace, and he tasted his first sardinada at a cove in Ibiza. Same philosophy every time: these aren't just trips. They're firsts.

That's why, for us, home exchange goes far beyond a place to stay. It's sharing what makes you happy with other families. It's knowing someone is taking care of your home while you take care of theirs. It's teaching our little one the value of respect in the most natural, spontaneous way. And it's the best way we've found to discover the world as a family. What you bring back from these trips doesn't fit in a suitcase.