 House Swap England/Australia |
House Swap England/AustraliaOceania » AustraliaTopic Type: Accomodation | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Looking to swap house+car Eng/Oz for 6-12 months | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 John and Sylvia John Wallace & Sylvia Bowman Post Count: 79 Msg: #1 143 days ago, May 22nd 2008 | [Moderator, I don't know if this is appropriate here. Feel free to move/delete if out of order.] | Sylvia and I are going to the UK for 6-12 months from Sept 08 till late 09. We would like to exchange our house+car for a house+car in England (within commuting distance of London) for all or part of that time. All of the home exchange sites we have looked at cost a fortune and are only looking at a few weeks exchange. We need a longer term. We are travelling overland from Hong Kong so won't be arriving in England until Nov 2008 but our house will be available from Sept. We live about 100kms (60 miles) north of Sydney, close to Newcastle and the Hunter Valley. It is within commuting distance of Sydney if you have to work (I do it every week day!). If you are interested, please contact us via our blog. There is some additional info about Budgewoi in our blog. John. [Edited: 12:40 - Jo Trouble - Moved from General Travel to Classifieds]  Mell Mel Fla Post Count: 4107 Msg: #2 142 days ago, May 23rd 2008 | Hello John :) | I think another place you could try for somebody to swap with is Couch Surfing They probably do house swapping as well as offering hospitality. Mel [Edited: 08:11 - Mell ] John and Sylvia John Wallace & Sylvia Bowman Post Count: 79 Msg: #3 141 days ago, May 24th 2008 | Thanks, Mel. I'll give it a try. | John hedy heather eldridge Post Count: 3 Msg: #4 97 days ago, July 7th 2008 | Hi, a few words of advice about home exchange sites from a fellow Aussie (in 2005 we did 9 swaps during a six- month holiday - from Ireland- UK-Europe-Malta). And I am currently working on Trip #2 for 2009...... | 1. I 'd recommend GTI (Green Theme International) - there's heaps of Brits looking for exchanges to Australia. I found it THE best value site, definitely worth the $$$). It's absolutely user-friendly too. 2. Good FREE sites include: Jewett Street, Livingaway, Geenee and Itamos. 3. Have you considered say, several shorter exchanges? Be prepared to do a bit of moving around. After all, the area you've mentioned ("near London") is tiny compared with distances we travel in Australia! Think laterally - you'll broaden your experiences with a variety of locations. 4. Another one to check is the Hospitality Club. 5. And then there are house-sitting sites (can't recall any specific ones but you can Google). We managed one fabulous rural mansion/pet-sit in Ireland in June when they went off to the US. I would be absolutely amazed if- with flexibility- you don't manage swaps for at least 'our' warmer months - you may have more trouble convincing Brits to be in Australia mid-year when they could be in Spain! Hope this helps. John and Sylvia John Wallace & Sylvia Bowman Post Count: 79 Msg: #5 96 days ago, July 7th 2008 | Thanks, Heather. GTI didn't come up on any of the searches I did. I'll definitely give it a try. | How did you manage to control the short swaps of your home when you were overseas at the time? Did each swapper take care of the next one? hedy heather eldridge Post Count: 3 Msg: #6 96 days ago, July 8th 2008 | Hello again, | I actually arranged them all before we left! And they were ALL non-simultaneous - so nobody was at our house whilst we were OS. I offered to leave the 'return visit' open, to be taken at their convenience in the future. This appealed because it allowed 'them' plenty of time to arrange an extended holiday in Australia (perhaps even including other swaps). What we do, is simply take our holidays away from home, when exchangees arrive - but we are lucky to have family to stay with PLUS a caravan. AND no work obligations!!! And because we do live in 'the sticks', most people wouldn't want to be here for months and months, so a shorter swap is more logical. They can have a real 'Aussie country town' experience after Sydney & the Gold Coast en route to Uluru. The other reason non-sim swaps work well is our differing seasons. Obviously most Brits/Europeans prefer to be here during our warmer months, and vice versa. (We began our journey in Ireland, then nth Scotland and Wales at mid-year, and gradually worked our way south thru Europe as the weather cooled, so that we ended up in Mediterranean Malta in Nov.) If I was you I'd try house-sitting first because 'their' holiday dates are probably fixed. (I have actually seen English people on GTI, advertising for sitters). If you manage to get one or two of these in place, you could then slot in some house swaps or even 'hospitality exchanges'. We did one of these in France; 'they' were still at home (and work), gave us a bed and bathroom, a car and a shelf in the fridge and lots of helpful advice. We were extremely lucky with the people though - they were fabulous & it was more like staying with old friends (which they have become). And don't forget, a lot of people have 'second homes'...holiday houses. If you get started now you should aim to develop a good rapport with your exchangees as you email back and forth. Get to know them as people, even if your paths only cross briefly at the time of the exchange; they will be much more comfortable leaving their most valuable assets in your hands! Send photos of yourselves, not just your home/area. Five of our swappers met us at Railway Stations/ferry docks, took us home & headed happily off on their own holiday or back to their main residence. Because 'they' were offering their homes up front, I did a fairly comprehensive 'House Exchange Agreement' that covered everything inc dates we'd be there (& the fact that their return visit was 'open'), house insurance, phone call & other payments, car use - max mileage allowed, fuel, insurance etc, every possible contact phone no, cleaning of the property etc etc. We printed & signed these & I actually posted one to each of our 9 exchangers for their input/signatures. There was a fair bit of trust on 'their' behalf I guess - luckily for us, Aussies generally have a good reputation as tourists! So...a lot of work up front & very time consuming! It's worth contacting absolutely everyone you can - you'll be surprised how flexible a lot of folk can be! And I guarantee that you'll hear back FIRST, from those who can't help or are not interested, so don't despair a week after contacting people. Finally, re the cost of some house swap sites.......be very discerning before you sign up/pay - check out ALL their listings to see how many are useful to you (I wouldn't even bother with US/Spanish/Italian-based sites in your situation). Another good one is SHEI (Singles Home Exchange - dont let the name put you off!). And remember that the good sites -like GTI & SHEI, at a cost of <$A100, are still cheaper than ONE NIGHTS accommodaion at a Hotel, especially 'over there' - the prices are horrendous! OK, I'm rambling on & on... Home exchange is very do-able and I'm obviously very enthusiastic - it's THE best OS travel experience we've had, with the bonus of being the cheapest! Hope this all helps, Heather John and Sylvia John Wallace & Sylvia Bowman Post Count: 79 Msg: #7 96 days ago, July 8th 2008 | Heather, this is great. Thanks for all of that information. While Sylvia and I are fairly adventurous (we have travelled all around SE Asia and the Middle East by bus and on foot), this is the first time we have thought of swapping houses with someone, so any advice is welcome. There is always some anxiety with anything new. | One of our concerns has been that we live away from Sydney and didn't think many people would be interested. From your comments above, I gather you also are some distance from Sydney. Was this a dis-incentive for people? Send me a private message if you want to discuss this off-line. I hope you don't mind but I copied your last post into the General Travel Forum to another posting I had there about house swapping. I think there are more people interested in this type of travel than just us. We are also looking at travelling without flying which I think many others are also interested in. John. hedy heather eldridge Post Count: 3 Msg: #8 96 days ago, July 8th 2008 | Hi, I'm just doing this on the run after stumbling across the site last night & dont have the time at the moment (drastic family circumstances) to work out how to do a private message! | So, I'll keep on here unless you can give me inbstructions on how to do it.... We actually live in rural South Australia - 200kms from Adelaide - in a small farming town (1000 people)! One thing I've learnt is that NY-ers and Romans/Venetians/Parisiennes exchange with each other only! That is, you will find heaps of people in a similar living environment to yourselves who will be happy to exchange and probably have never been approached to do a swap! All our exchanges were 'off the beaten track' (as we offer) and that was the beauty of the whole thing - anyone can find their way to the Eiffel Tower, but how many people have stayed in a tiny, remote French village? This is where you get the REAL essence of a country/region AND meet some fabulous characters, too. Cities -to us at least- are fairly much the same...just add landmarks! If I have time 2nite to work out this site & how to contact you privately, I'll give you my listing nos. on some websites that I've subscribed to, so you can see ALL the detail I include on the pluses of coming to our little town, and all the websites I add in my 'blurb' so that people I contact can see what they're in for. You may be surprised how appealing rural Australia is! I dont mind you copying the post - I have been interviewed on ABC Radio about exchanges so nothing is a secret! Cheers, Heather John and Sylvia John Wallace & Sylvia Bowman Post Count: 79 Msg: #9 96 days ago, July 8th 2008 | Hi Heather. Click on our name in this post. That will take you to our blog. Under our picture is a button "Private Message". Click that and, hey presto!. | Don't rush. There is plenty of time. Get yourself sorted out first. We are just grateful that you are sharing your experiences with us. That is what this whole site is about. When you have some time to spare, wander around. There are some fantastic stories here. It is more of a family sharing than a commercial blog. Very addictive if you're not careful. Ask travellingmum  Number of Users: 3 | Number of Posts: 9 | |||||||||||||||||
