SAVE MONEY: GO ON VACATION

Our two week winter home exchange found us relaxing in a custom-built redwood house overlooking the wild Pacific ocean.


Home exchange is a wonderful way to travel. We let the California couple use our place when we brought our kids to visit their grandparents. The Californians went to Mexico for a month, leaving us their house and luxury car.


We knew it would be much nicer and far less expensive to do a home exchange than to stay in a tiny hotel room. We like space to spread out and love to avoid wrangling hungry, restless kids at every meal in a restaurant.


What didn't occur to me is that it would actually be cheaper to go on vacation than to stay home.


Part of why staying home is more expensive for us is that we live in Manhattan, a very expensive city.


There were endless free, fascinating activities near the swap home. We saw wintering elephant seals give birth. Butterflies filled the air at their migration stop in a nearby redwood grove. The kids enjoyed seeing creatures in tide pools at the nearby ocean. We also walked the beach picking up semi-precious stones. We hiked at a preserve just behind the exchange home.


If we had stayed home in or big city a single dinner out could have easily exceeded the total amount we spent on groceries and heat-and- eat meals at a gourmet shop near the exchange home.


Home exchange is such a great way to travel. As I lounged in the swappers' hot tub looking up through eucalyptus benches at a starry sky I was thrilled once again that I am a home exchanger.