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Our members have always been particularly inventive when thinking of ways to supply their exchange partners with keys, both to the exchange home and to the car. Car keys come into the arrangement if (as if often the case), family number one drives the car to the airport and parks it there for family number two to pick up upon arrival.

If you are parking the car in a regular public airport parking lot, I don’t advise you to leave the keys in one of those magnetic containers you can clamp underneath the car. This makes it all too easy for the enterprising car thief. A lot of members mail a second set of keys to their exchange partners and when they park the car at the airport, they phone the other party with its exact location. Even if the other party is already in transit, they can phone home upon arrival and listen to your message on their answering machine.

A better idea is to park the car in one of the private parking lots such as The Parking Spot. A lot of the major airport hotels also rent out parking spaces to non-guests. Cars parked this way have their keys stored with the parking attendants and it’s a simple matter to arrange for your home exchange partners to collect the vehicle upon arrival. All these companies provide constant buses between the terminals and their parking lots, another factor that makes this arrangement particularly attractive.

House keys can also be mailed to your exchange partners in advance. The most common method is to simply leave them with a neighbor. Again, I would definitely not recommend leaving them under a stone or flowerpot!

When we exchanged with a couple on the Big Island of Hawaii two summers ago, they mailed us a key to their mailbox, then upon departure, they locked their house keys in the mailbox for us to collect. At the end of the exchange we simply left all the keys on the kitchen counter top.

I’ve also heard of a family who installed a digital lock on the back door of the home and provided their swap partners with the code. They left front door keys at a pre-arranged spot inside the home.

Speaking of codes, if your home is equipped with a security system, don’t forget to set your guests up with an access code before you leave and be sure they know what is is! I heard once about an incident where the home owner in London programmed in a code for his exchange partners but completely forgot to let them know what it was.

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