Home Exchange – How I spent My Summer Vacation in France
My wife and I just had a fantastic three week vacation if Paris, France and the only way we could have ever done it was because of home exchange and most especially ExchangeHomes.com. I had never heard of it until one of my fellow teachers told me about it. Essentially, it’s when you trade homes with a family that lives in the city you want to go to. I was a little skeptical at first, but boy am I glad I did it.
We are both teachers and so we don’t make a ton of money (to put it mildly), and my wife has been wanting to go to France since the day I met her. But with the horrible exchange rates, I didn’t think we could do it. With airfare and lodging and transportation and eating out every meal, it gets expensive. But home exchange saved us.
We traded our two bedroom home for a two bedroom apartment in the Marie de Clichy neighborhood on the outskirts of Paris. It was a little ways from downtown, but it was two blocks from the Metro and we had no problem getting around. They even loaned us their car, but we only used it a couple of times to go sightseeing in the French countryside.
It was a marvelous experience. Getting around on the Metro was a breeze, and we got to see France up close and personal. We went shopping at the local bread, cheese and grocery shops and saved a ton of money eating in and packing our lunch.
But the best part of it was the people. We made friends with one of the neighbors and they had us to dinner one night and took us to some places that don’t show up in any guide book.
We are already planning our home exchange for next year – London.
Submitted by a member
©@ ExchangeHomes.com | All rights reserved
Related posts:
