HomeExchange - House Swapping

One of the most unexpected and wonderful gifts of Home Exchange is the remarkable people it brings into your life. Time and again, we find ourselves connecting with fascinating, inspiring individuals who are out in the world with open hearts and a genuine zest for living — people who have chosen to embrace adventure, seek new experiences, and make the most of every season of life. These aren’t just travelers passing through; they are kindred spirits who are actively, enthusiastically living their best lives. That sense of shared values — curiosity, generosity, trust, and a passion for authentic experience — is what makes Home Exchange so much more than a lodging swap. It is a community of people who truly get it, and every exchange leaves us feeling grateful, enriched, and a little more inspired ourselves.

I like the concept of home exchange and there have been a lot of people on this network for decades. But they are a big company now so don’t expect them to care about you and your contributions. I host a nice room in my house and it takes a long time to accumulate points. When I was traveling in London I booked a stay that cost me over 900 points. Later, I was told the neighborhood wasn’t that safe for a single female. So I kindly asked the host for a refund. They declined, which is understandable since they said they had already used those points elsewhere. But when I asked HomeExchange nicely if they could give me my points back due to these circumstances they refused. It cost nothing to them to make this accommodation. I was not asking for cash, just hard earned points so I could book another place. They did not care. They don’t really care about like-minded travelers, they just care about their bottom line.

We've been using it for just under a year and have done 18 exchanges (10 as hosts, 8 as guests). We. Love. It. Have met some amazing people, traveled to some amazing places. You do have to put a bit of effort in to find a home to stay in ( if your expectation is that you can just enter your dates and location and press a 'book' button and have a place to stay you're probably going to be disappointed - exchanges require you to have a conversation with the guest/host via the app message function first). But that's part of what we love - getting to know the people who are staying at our home and the people whose home we are staying at. My only suggestion to improve the app and website functionality would be to enable users to have their welcome booklets attached to their profiles so they can release them to their guest prior to their stay (we currently email ours through). It would be nice if that could be done through HE but it also shouldn't be automatic - the host should be able to choose when it gets released because most have access codes or key locations in them.