You’ve been saving up all year long for your dream vacation. You go to sleep with visions of adventure, sightseeing and a new perspective of the world at large. You’ve taken care of your airfare, transportation, insurance and a general itinerary. If you’re going far afield from your home base, you know that travel guide books are a necessity.

You need at least one general travel guide book which covers the basics. Sightseeing must-do’s, getting around, a few restaurant and hotel recommendations, and a brief recap of museum attractions are all you need, right? Not so fast! If you’re not a seasoned traveler, you might be shortchanging yourself with the basic, all-around travel guide book. Let’s take a look at some of the specialized travel guide books that can make all the difference between a ho-hum experience and a truly enchanting and memorable trip.

If your itinerary involves traveling from city to city, your hotel accommodations become more important. Check your bookstore for travel books that review hundreds of hotels, residencies and B&B accommodations. Such books are written by dedicated and frequent travelers who search out those cheap sleeps and out of the way hotels, with an eye to value, charm and amenities. Such a travel guide is worth its weight in gold. Wouldn’t you love to stay in a medieval castle with modern plumbing, for the same price as a plain-Jane chain hotel? If your stay is extended, wouldn’t you like to know where you can stay in a fully-furnished apartment for the same price as a hotel? Take advantage of this type of travel guide book.

If you’re into museum hopping, make the most of your trip with a travel guide devoted to museums. Your trip time is limited. A museum guide can help you zero in on the ones you’d kick yourself for missing.

If you love shopping, or are on a business buying trip, investing in a shopping travel guide book pays you ten times over. This variety of travel guide book is written by a shopaholic, well versed in those little out of the way shops you’d never find on your own, except perhaps by accident. Detailed descriptions of the type and quality of goods available in any given shop will save you lots of time and research, leading you by the hand to insider gems.

If you’re going to a non-English speaking country, a travel guide book of conversational phrases can be very useful! Such books cover many common foreign dilemmas. When are the banks and post offices open? What’s the current etiquette on tipping? How about ordering at a restaurant? Where do you do your laundry? This type of travel guide keeps you on the planet, so to speak, in a foreign country.

Come to think of it, perusing the travel section in your local book store just adds to the excitement of your upcoming trip. A great way to stretch your travel dollar and your memories, once you’re back home.

The sheer size of America can be overwhelming for the first time traveler. A USA Travel Guide is advisable and there are several quality ones available. Whether an overseas visitor or an American wanting to see the country, these guides have useful maps, general information and highlights on sightseeing. The United States is a terrific holiday destination with its cities, mountains, deserts and National Parks. There is something for everyone with wildlife, culture, and entertainment.

The Lonely Planet is a familiar and respected series and its USA edition has 129 pages of maps. It also highlights the main attractions and points out the very best National Parks. There are suggestions for road trips and some destinations, away from the usual routes.

The Rough Guide series is also very popular, especially with the younger generation of travelers. Their USA Travel Guide is broken down into the different states and lists the tourist sights. There are helpful reviews on accommodation, restaurants and bars and advice from experts on various activities. Historic sights, culture spots and nightlife are all discussed. It’s great for finding your way about too with maps and plans for every state, region, and large city.

The USA Eyewitness Travel guide picks out the chief attractions at an easy glance and includes a brief article on the history. Travelers can plan visits to National Parks, cities, galleries and museums. The USA Travel Guide points out scenic routes and where you’ll find areas of beautiful wilderness. The history, sights and cultural institutions of different regions are included. Tips are given on how to prepare for a trip to America and what laws and customs apply.

There is something very romantic when it comes to road trips in America and many books, songs and movies about long rides down lonely highways have inspired people to follow suit. If this is you, then the perfect USA Travel Guide is the Road Trip USA: Cross-country Adventures on America’s Two-lane Highways. This full color book has been revised and is in its 4th edition with updated information. 140 maps, full of detail, will help with the planning. Cross-country routes are mapped out and landmarks are highlighted along the way. Aside from the major cites, small towns are featured and anything that might be of interest on the roadside. Suggested itineraries include lists of places to stay. The radio is very important for road trips in America. It keeps you company and updates you on road and weather conditions. This USA Travel Guide gives the call letters of various radio stations.

You may not want a general guide but a specific one for the location of your choice. Should that be the Big Apple, then the Rough Guide to New York City is the book for you. It explores the five boroughs and there are articles on the city’s fascinating history, its ethnic make up, world famous architecture and culture. This is very much a baseball town and you can learn all about the sport and Yankee Stadium’s place in it. There is an entire chapter on the iconic Museum of Modern Art. Practical advice covers accommodation, transport and bars and restaurants.

The author, Athena Rickby, circulated an email recently indicating that she had decided to sell the book, explaining that her family, other commitments, and yes …. a full schedule of home exchanging, meant that she was unable to devote the necessary time to maintaining, marketing and selling the book herself. She had planned a full scale update of the book for earlier this year and she was especially disappointed that she had never found time to complete this.

To maintain the integrity of Home Exchange Academy, I only plan to make one change to its contents, and that will be to include a reference to both Know Your Trade and CHECtravel. Other than that ALL the text will remain exactly the same. The author made it absolutely clear that the book wasn’t written to promote or advertise any home exchange club above another and I do not intend to violate that intent. Home Exchange Academy will promote and advise on the entire concept of Home Exchanging while remaining 100% neutral.

All I shall be doing is marketing the book and probably offering copies in membership promotions occasionally. Oh, I have lowered the price slightly, from $19.95 to $17.00.

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This wonderful Home Exchange Story was sent to me by a long time member. I need to give full credit to  Travel and Transitions where it was travel story contest participant. It’s a great, heartwarming story.

We had been let down by email at the last minute by our Chicago holiday exchange partners. The only consolation, that their change in circumstances was a joyful one—a baby had suddenly become available for them to adopt, which meant they could not travel. Both being freelancers, my partner and I rarely synchronize for time off together, so we were determined to get away with the two children. We sent out a last minute internet SOS. Did anyone, anywhere want to swap with us at a few weeks notice? Very rarely, human beings show the type of kindness and trust that restores faith one’s faith in humankind. This is just that kind of story.

Two people called Ron and Joan answered. They didn’t want to swap as they were about to travel to Mexico but we could use their Californian home for a week while they were away. We politely responded, thanking them profusely, but California from London is a long way to travel, so if we were successful in hooking up another week close by, we’d take up their generous offer. Before we had a chance to even start looking, they’d hit us back with another message. They would be glad to move out of their home for an extra week and live in their trailer, so that we could have a holiday.

We couldn’t believe this was for real, so we made it clear that unless during simultaneous exchange, we would never be able to pay them back. Also, during a mutual exchange, both parties have as much to lose as the other. In this case though, there was no such insurance for these wonderful people, so we also asked what proof of identification they required from us, thinking they would probably need blood samples and all! They replied that people who travel and people who have children are generally decent people, so they needed to know nothing, not even full names or address. Ron even offered to pick us up at San Francisco airport, an hour away from their home and that was just the beginning of a magical, heartwarming journey.

In the back of Ron’s car, having travelled for the best part of 24 hours and with my ‘babies’ under each arm, I left it to my partner to hold the conversation. It was pitch black outside and I had no idea where we were headed, as it hadn’t occurred to us to ask them for an address either. After a while we felt ourselves crossing an extremely bumpy and rickety small bridge and the dense darkness outside told us that we were in the middle of countryside. Fear began to rise – mothers instinct – when it suddenly dawned on me that I knew absolutely nothing of where we were or who we were with. But too late now.

Finally, we pulled up in the darkness and the car door opened to the kindly face of an elderly lady. She took my own face in her hands and planted a kiss on my forehead before ushering us all into the house. Still unsure of who these remarkable people were and what their motive for such kindness could be, I was rumbled. Will our entire family end up under the stairs or are these two lonely pensioners looking for companionship? My heart dipped when Joan proceeded to show us around the house and to the dining table where she had prepared home made lasagna and placed a lovely bottle of red wine. That’s all we needed, a couple of cranks who wanted to share our family holiday with us and I am so exhausted that I can hardly stay awake. But before the thought had taken shape, Joan gave each weary child a hug and exited her own home. Just like that. Gone in the night and us, having settled the children in their cozy bedroom, complete with comforting night light, swaying about on their amazing water bed an trying to absorb it all.

Next morning, we woke to the most spectacular scenery, beautiful beyond our wildest dreams. Their home is a ranch in the middle of a vast redwood forest. The landscape is unbelievable and wild deer roam around outside. At the appointed time, Uncle Ken, a retired ranger, knocked for us and gave us our own private tour of the magic forest, bringing to life the nature and history of the surroundings. 15 of us even stood inside the trunk of one of the giant neck breakers, once hired out as a hotel room. Many sun kissed, fun filled days in the hot tub in the company of the redwoods and excursions to nearby San Francisco followed.

Ron and Joan however, didn’t even stay on any of their own 2 acres of ground for fear of intruding on us and only came to collect us again to take us to a special family barbeque that was held in our honor. It was strange running into Ron one day in town where we had gone for breakfast, knowing that he was camping out of his own home for us. After they left for Mexico, Aunt Kathy once called us up to ask if we would like to accompany her and her grandson to an amusement park for free on her pass. What a ball!

The best bit is that Ron and Joan have now become lifelong friends to us. They visited us on a trip to London and then the friendship matured this summer when they joined us for four days when we exchanged to BC Canada. Different generations, creeds, cultures and a world away. We could never have paid for such an experience that has left us also, a little kinder, a little more trusting and more willing to go out on a limb for others. After all, what goes around, comes around.

© ExchangeHomes.com All rights reserved.

A few have weathered the trials of time and still remain today, but the vast majority has fallen by the wayside, although quickly replaced by fresh contenders.

This has left the inexperienced swapper with next to no guidelines, no course of action when selecting a club to join. A few books on the general subject of home exchange have come and gone, but none have taken the aspiring home exchanger by the hand and walked him through the entire process step by step. That is, until now …

A brand new e-book—Home Exchange Academy—has just hit the market and I see it as a winner! Athena Ricky, the author has been home exchanging with her family for more than twenty five years, she’s the veteran of more than forty swaps so it’s not difficult to see where her depth of knowledge springs from.

The opening title describes the e-book as a “Blueprint to Swap Homes For Your Next Vacation and Get Out Of The Hotel Rut”, and that’s a perfect summation. Home Exchange Academy could not be more detailed. It explains exactly how to compare all the clubs presently available, what to look for on their web sites, plus the red flags to guard against.

Once a club has been chosen the author explains right down to the last detail exactly how to set up a listing, what text and information must be included. She also has some excellent suggestions for integrating more photographs and information than the website listings can accommodate.

Also covered in extensive detail are: correspondence between members, developing likely inquiries, preparing your home for an exchange, writing Home Exchange and Car Exchange Agreements, and creating a Home Exchange Book which provides visiting guests with detailed information about your home and its idiosyncrasies, emergency contacts and phone numbers, recommended local restaurants and attractions, plus much, much more.

Samples of these documents are incorporated in the e-book, plus purchasers can download actual working copies in Microsoft Word and PDF formats from the e-books website.

May potential home exchangers marvel at the notion of vacationing almost anywhere in the world, without ever having to pay for accommodation, but because of reservations about allowing “strangers” into their home, they continually resist making a commitment and joining a club themselves. I think this e-book does an exemplary job of allaying all those unfounded fears. As the Ms. Rickby so succinctly states:

“The question I’m most often asked by the uninitiated is: How do you trust complete strangers to live in your home for two weeks?

My response is usually concise and along the lines of: “How do they know they can trust me?”

I think those words speak volumes!

I especially like the author’s clearly expressed decision not to promote any current club above another within her book. She chooses not to reveal which clubs she herself belongs to and never so much as mentions any club by name. Instead, she walks her readers through how to search for, and list all the current clubs by dint of Google, Yahoo, etc. Surely, this tactic alone will keep her e-book fresh for significantly longer than would otherwise be possible, plus no club can feel slighted or complain because they have been left out.

For full details on this excellent e-book, go to: Home Exchange Academy.

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