A couple who traded family holidays for home swaps have said the travelling hack has saved them up to £50,000 across 35 countries.
Retired teachers Tim Moynihan, 67, and his wife Elizabeth, 66, joined HomeExchange in 2008 – a platform which allows users to exchange their homes over dates of mutual choosing, or if a member wishes to lend their home without reciprocity, their guest can offer GuestPoints to thank them for their hospitality.
In search of more affordable ways to holiday with their now grown-up children – Matthew, 38, Hannah, 36, Helen, 34, and Rory, 31 – Tim said home swapping has allowed the family to travel the world and stay in properties with “all the home comforts”.
Tim and his wife have since visited 35 countries over the past 16 years, including Iceland, Sweden and New Zealand, completing 84 home swaps in total – and they believe they have saved up to £50,000 by doing so.
The arrangement has also seen more than 40 guests, including couples and families, stay in their four-bedroom semi-detached home in Hadleigh, Essex, which is beside the country park and has views across the local estuary – and they have never had a bad experience.
The annual HomeExchange subscription is £180 and allows members unlimited exchanges, and the couple have stayed in properties including a seafront apartment in South Africa, where they spotted whales just yards away, Hot Springs in Arkansas, where Bill Clinton grew up, and a “James Bond-style villa” in Thailand.
“What we’ve discovered is that you’ve basically got a home away from home,” Tim told PA Real Life.
“The benefits of it are that you get a place that you want to go to, you’ve got all the home comforts, you’ve got people that know the area and, very often, people will leave a house book with tips on what to see and do and to help with managing the house during the exchange.
“Those sorts of things prove invaluable, really, so you get a fuller picture of what life is like in those countries when travelling abroad.
“You get a flavour of other people’s lives because you’re in their home and their personal possessions are there – their family photos, for example – and you can gauge their lifestyle.
“If you stay in a hotel, you don’t really get to experience that, which makes home swapping more special.”
Tim and his wife Elizabeth first joined the website in 2008 in search for more affordable ways to go on holiday as a family of six.
“The thing was, having four children, hotel holidays were a non-starter for us … and being teachers, we had the six-week holiday, so you’re tied to the peak times,” Tim said.
“So I was just looking for other options that would allow us to travel abroad.”
For Tim and Elizabeth’s first home swap, they travelled to Colmar in France, but they have since visited places such as San Francisco, Iceland, Sweden, Norway, Thailand, South Africa, New Zealand and Australia, creating long-lasting memories.
While in Oakland in San Francisco, Tim recalled staying in a shared living community, meeting a sex therapist who was living next door and waking up to an earthquake one morning.
One of their most memorable home swaps was a lavish “James Bond-style villa” in Ko Samui, Thailand, which had a swimming pool, and on another occasion, they stayed in an unusual property in Selfoss in Iceland.
Recalling the trip to Iceland, Tim said: “We arrived in the middle of the night.
“You’re driving through these lava fields, and there are little plumes of smoke, wisps of smoke, coming up.
“There are no lights, of course, it was such a bizarre experience … and the house was very interesting – there were dolls everywhere and African artworks and a gym in the main living area.
“It was just so different to our own home.”
The couple also stayed in various locations in South Africa and were able to see whales just yards from their seafront property in Hermanus.
“We drove along the coast to Hermanus from Cape Town in South Africa, and we had the most amazing apartment, which was right on the seafront,” he said.
“The next morning we looked out, and there were whales near the shore just 100 yards, 200 yards from where we were – a whale and its calf just literally in the bay outside our apartment.”
Tim said he believes he and Elizabeth have saved up to £50,000 by using HomeExchange – and it has allowed them to stay in places that they never dreamed they would visit. For more information, visit HomeExchange’s website homeexchange.com.
This includes Hot Springs in Arkansas, the largest gated community in North America, where US president Bill Clinton grew up, which Tim described as “fascinating”.
Tim and Elizabeth had use of a new 4×4, two Vespas, a Volkswagen Beetle Convertible and their own pontoon boat on the dock by the lake below the house, making it a very memorable trip.
The couple said that being able to use families’ cars and other vehicles has enabled them to save even more money when doing some reciprocal home swaps.
“The places are often spectacular,” Tim said.
“You don’t always end up in the places that you would want to go to for a holiday … but if you go with a spirit of adventure, you can have a lot of fun.”
Tim said one of the best things about home swapping is immersing yourself in new places and cultures and living like a local.
He said he would encourage anyone to give it a try – and although people may have reservations about strangers coming into their home, Tim said thorough checks take place and they have never had a bad experience.
Speaking about his advice to others, he added: “I would say, just do it. I mean, what have you got to lose?”