Weekend Home Exchanges
The majority of our members plan one major home exchange every year or so, and many of them also make multiple “weekend exchanges”. I find that the word “weekend” is generally used fairly loosely to cover anything from two to four days.
Weekend exchanges represent exceptional value. During the 25+ years I lived in Southern California I made on average three a year. My rules of thumb were simple: Never look beyond a two hour flight and always select a home that’s no more than an hour’s drive from the destination airport. This usually meant a minimum of my precious time being lost traveling.
I always flew out of my local, municipal airport which also cut down considerably on big airport hassles. It also made it extremely easy for car exchanging - I simply parked my car in one of the perimeter parking lots and called my exchange partner to inform then of its specific location. Upon their arrival they then took the shuttle bus to pick up the car.
Before the advent of cell phones this wasn’t quite so simple however. Back then the easiest means of communication was the answering machine.
Over the years I’ve done weekend exchanges with my (then) young daughters and husband, with my aging mother, with just my husband, and a couple of times when he was away on business, on my own. These solo home swaps were particularly memorable, probably for no reason other than that once arranged, they forced me to make specific plans for myself. Normally if my husband is away I devote even more time to working.
From Southern California a great many attractive destinations fit my criteria: Mexico, Northern California, Oregon, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Colorado, Utah ….. Now we’ve moved to Northeastern Texas a whole new range of possibilities has opened up for me. Florida will work, so too will all the states in between. I definitely plan to swap with Kentucky so that I can visit some of the great thoroughbred breeding farms.
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