"Since I don't have a blogger account and am not too keen on getting one, I'll send my comment per e-mail!
Wow... parking in Manhattan is lots cheaper than I expected ( I checked the interesting web site you referred to).
We live in the old center of Amsterdam, where - on a weekday - parking costs anything between 35 and 45 euro (50-64 dollars) per 24h. It takes a six year waiting list before a parking permit is granted, if you're lucky. Which of course doesn't mean you can actually park your car anywhere: so many 17th century houses and canals, but so little parking space, but that's a story for another time!
Although I appreciate your concern: I would never say "no" to an international (!) swap I'm interested in because of parking costs. I mean: a return ticket Amsterdam-JFK costs over 700 dollars anyway. I'll gladly fork out a little extra budget to park my rental if I need to have one.
Which doesn't seem very likely if I ever wanted to stay in NYC, of course. Whenever we've been there and we 'needed' to visit some dodgy neighbourhood we caught a cab. In the US that's even cheaper than parking. Long live the euro-dollar conversion rate :-)
Although we have no time to exchange at the moment (we're completely renovating our hopefully soon-to-be swap-worthy-houseboat, including parking permit :-)) I still read your posts, keep them coming!!!
Best wishes,
Emma"
With the great public transit available in Northern Europe I'd be surprised if parking availability were a big factor in a home exchange with Emma (and doesn't that renovated home exchange houseboat sound great!?!). In the US, by contrast, train and bus service is often spotty. We frequently get requests for weekend swaps from families living within a few hours drive -- or a day's train trip -- from Manhattan. They often want to drive here and are shocked when we tell them that parking for that long weekend will run about $150.
In our listing, we emphasize that we are less than a kilometer (under half a mile) from Pennsylvania Station, the main terminal for national and regional trains, including the two convenient airport trains from JFK and Newark Airports. There are multiple bus lines and subway trains within a block or two from our home. No one needs to drive to get here, but Manhattan is more like Amsterdam in its transit access than any other US city.
If you are planning a swap anywhere else, it's important to determine what the transit and parking options are in the exchangers' neighborhood. Is there an airport shuttle? How much do taxi cabs cost? What is the frequency of that bus they mention that stops on their corner? And when do the buses stop running? Transportation in a new town will be different than in your home area. Find out the details before your swap or you may find yourself stranded.
SUBSCRIBE NOW
You can subscribe to this blog to receive each day's post. Just enter your email below :
No comments:
Post a Comment