Most of the swaps my parents did were to Europe, and I spent those summers at camp, so I wasn't exactly a home exchange world traveler as a child. But today my own children, who have gone on swaps with us in France, Montreal, Toronto, California and Tuscany can truly say they have seen the world through the eyes of third-generation home exchangers.
What brought this to mind was a look at the Intervac home exchange site. Intervac was the first home swap club my family used, back when I was little. The internet was the private playground of a few tech nerds, so we eagerly awaited the Intervac catalog to see where we might vacation next.
Back then, each listing was limited to a single postage stamp sized photo. On-line Intervac listings can now include up to 20 photos, among the most of any swap club. To save space, Intervac's catalog used to rely on confusing abbreviations and icons to describe the home. This was democratic in that all swappers, regardless of what language they spoke, could be equally unsure of what the icons meant. No matter, today's Intervac listings include plenty of space for text descriptions of one's home.
Intervac has been around since 1953 and has 20,000 members. It's a particularly good choice for those interested in European swaps. My favorite part of the Intervac site is the "My Statistics" tab. This includes a pie chart of countries from which members have viewed my listing. My pie chart shows more people from Cananda than the US have viewed my listing, which is remarkable considering that the US has ten times the population of Canada. Spain and France are the other countries whose home exchangers were most interested in my listing. The statistics page also shows that an average of four people per day viewed my listing.
There are some great features on the Intervac site, like a stop-light icon that shows a green light for people who want to receive offers, or a red light for those who want to temporarily stop getting offers.
Intervac has a tick box for "double exchange". I was concerned that this referred to an indirect swap. That means I use your home but you don't want to come to my apartment so you use someone else's place whose home you want to use but who wants to use my home. Not only is this confusing to describe, it's a bad idea in practice. You should get to know your exchange partners and feel comfortable trading homes with them, not involve a third party you did not screen, and who may not care well for your home since you are not using their home.
The Canadian rep for Intervac, Richard, saw that I had edited my profile and called me personally to make sure one of the changes, which could be confusing, was intentional. This was on a Sunday. I was impressed that he followed members' profiles so closely and tried to avoid possible problems. Here is what Richard told me about the "double swap" concept:
"Double exchange means that 2 local families are looking to exchange with
2 other families or 2 other unrelated members at their desired destination...for example two brothers and their families could exchange and travel together at the same time"
Hmmm. I have to say this sounds very confusing with lots of potential downsides. I only want to deal with a set group size of swappers when I travel. I have had several instances in the past where extended families or groups of friends were traveling together. On two occasions where one of the exchanges fell through, I was then asked to accommodate the entire huge group in my small New York City apartment.
If a swap family approached me saying they needed to coordinate their dates to those of another group who were staying in another swap home, as well as the travel dates of the owners of that other home, I would be much less inclined to agree to a vacation exchange with them. I don't have to worry about meeting my own commitments to the exchangers, I also have to be concerned that their travel partners won't cancel the trip, the travel partners' home exchange won't fall through, and on and on. Points for creativity, but it wouldn't work for me in real life.
An interesting feature of Intervac is their "agents in 30 countries". This means most people can find an Intervac representative who speaks their language and can help with possible questions locally. Intervac offers a "visitors tour" at the link above.
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