At a dinner party this weekend I was introduced to a couple whose children were about the same age as my own. Over winter break each family traveled to the Central Coast of California. Here our stories diverge. My new friends described their search for reasonably-priced lodging in the notoriously upscale Big Sur area. They finally settled for a campground that had rustic cabins for rent. The cabins proved a bit too rustic when their son woke up crying from a bug bite of some kind.
The husband told me a long story about trying to keep his toddlers from disturbing other diners in the campground's cafeteria. Chasing the kids away from an elderly couple he felt compelled to apologize for the children's rowdy behavior. The older gentleman said not to worry, he had been through the same thing thirty years earlier.
Our dinner party compatriots asked where we had stayed while in the same area. I told him we had a house to ourselves that was right on the ocean. I explained that we had used the remodeled kitchen to heat prepared dinner entrees and store milk and cereal for the kids' breakfast. He assumed that this was a rental house, and asked where we had found it and whether or not it was expensive. No, I said, it was free and I found it through the home exchange club where I find all my vacation lodging.
His wife chimed in that they knew another couple who swapped their home and the idea intrigued her. At first the husband didn't seem to share her enthusiasm. He was an architect, however, and I told him that one of the things I really like about home exchange is the opportunity to experience living in different styles of houses. I would never buy a split-level home, I explained, based on having temporarily lived in a few as a home exchanger and finding that they were not conducive to noise privacy.
The architect told me that he was planning to remodel his own home in Brooklyn. "But no one would want to stay in Brooklyn" he said wistfully. Not so, there are many ex-pat Brooklynites who would prefer being in the County of Kings when returning home to see family or old friends.
What renovations are the most sought-after by people looking to trade homes, he asked. Stay tuned to discover how to renovate with an eye to home exchange.
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