[Note: while this giveaway has come and gone, our excitement for HomeExchange.com hasn’t! We’re still big fans of this great service that allows travelers to become temporary locals, all but eliminate their lodging costs, and stretch their travel budgets.
We encourage you to give HomeExchange.com a try. Use our referral link to earn a 100 GuestPoint bonus when you sign up!]
We’re excited to announce our first giveaway of 2017: a one-year membership to HomeExchange.com! Home exchanges are a great way to minimize your lodging expenses while you travel. By staying as a guest in someone else’s home while they stay in your home, another member’s home, or somewhere else entirely, your can stretch your travel budget by zeroing out your lodging expenses and reducing your food budget by eating in!
We LOVE doing home exchanges. We were introduced to the concept by our friend and fellow blogger Sara at Go Gingham. After exploring a few options, found that HomeExchange.com best met our needs. With over 65,000 homes in over 150 countries, travel opportunities abound. So far, we’ve done simultaneous and non-simultaneous exchanges as well as the brilliant “Passport” exchanges in which you earn a credit by hosting other members and then can use that credit at another member’s home, without having to do a true “exchange.”
This one-year membership to HomeExchange.com is a $150 value, and in order to enter our contest, all you have to do is leave a comment below! Too easy. We’ll have a random drawing from among all the commenters to select the winner on or around January 11, 2017, and we’ll post the winner’s name here after the drawing is held. We’ll also notify the winner via e-mail.
Whether or not you win the contest, we highly encourage you to consider home exchanging. We’ve had nothing but great experiences, and stayed in wonderful homes and condos in Las Vegas, near Phoenix, near Montana’s Glacier National Park, and on the gulf coast of Florida. Each one enabled us to stretch our travel budget, and each one added the comforts of home — a nice improvement over most hotel rooms.
Have questions about home exchanges? Care to share a home exchange experience? Or just want to enter the contest? Leave a comment below, and enjoy your next travel adventure, whether it’s for a week or a weekend! THIS CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED. Congrats to our winner: ThistleAmy!
A Week or a Weekend 
We love home exchanging! We have done exchanges in England, Ireland, Italy, Canada and in this country, Nashville. It is the only way that we would be able to stay for an extended period of time in other countries, which has allowed us to “live like locals”. We love Home Exchange.com!
Living like locals, especially when not getting a hotel bill at the end of our stay, is awesome. Thanks for your comment and happy travels!
FB – this is so timely – before I left for the holiday my boss and I were talking about her upcoming home exchange to Hawaii in May. She has been doing home exchanges for several years and I have loved hearing about her experiences. Earlier we had all agreed that over the holidays we would only try to do “one thing” – not try to swallow the ocean – you know – read 4 books, clean the closet, organize the fridge, visit all your friends and relatives, etc. After our chat about her Hawaii exchange she said “Amy – your one thing over break should be to look into home exchange.” Well my one thing turned out to be getting a new kitty. So home exchange research is still on my to do list. Great post – with Portland’s draw as a must place to visit – home exchanges for us just got much more viable.
Well, getting a kitty was a pretty good “one thing”, but researching home exchanging should be next. And now you’re entered to win a free year!
Thanks to all who entered our contest! thistleamy5 was our big winner, but we definitely encourage you to check out homeexchange.com. It’s pretty awesome.
I emailed you the entry – check your spam if you haven’t gotten it yet!
will do – thanks so much!!!
We haven’t been on a home exchange since our year in England! Would love to try it again.
You’re due!
If I win, will the people who have my house take care of my kids too, please! Please!
Ha! Ya never know…
Have you guys had folks stay in your home? How was that side of the experience?
We have had several folks stay at our place and it worked out great all four times (two couples and two solo travelers).
We hardly noticed that they’d been here when we got back, and our cat was well-fed and happy, too. We go out of our way to make sure we leave the places we stay nice & clean, too.