HomeExchange for Teachers: "I wish we'd started home exchanging with our boys sooner!"

Susan and her husband Joe are teachers, and they live in Scotland. Members since 2016, they are huge advocates of HomeExchange for teachers (or anyone for that fact!), as the platform has enabled them to explore the world with their two adults sons. They have now enjoyed 30 exchanges, saving themselves tens of thousands of pounds. 

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How did you get into home exchanging?

I loved ‘The Holiday’ movie with Kate Winslet and Cameron Diaz, so I badgered my husband for years as he was very reluctant. I eventually gave him a big glass of wine, showed him an amazing home online and talked him into it!

We’re both teachers, so we benefit from long holidays, but sadly the salary doesn't quite stretch to exotic holidays. Well, not any more! Home exchanging for teachers (or anyone who loves to travel) is a good way to make your holiday money go further. Over the past 9 years we have had the opportunity to tick off so many places on our bucket list and experience living like a local in some totally unique properties. We’ve saved a massive amount of money - it must be tens of thousands of pounds.

How do you plan where you want to go?

The offers really start stacking up in January when people are planning their holidays for the year. When we first started, I was timid so we waited to see what offers came to us. We got a nice offer for a beachfront apartment in Valencia, which was great. After that, we got braver and made a bucket list - now we’re ticking loads off that list!

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Do you travel as a family?

Our boys are now 20 and 22, and they’re both penniless students so they keep tagging along on at least 2 holidays a year. I wish we’d started home exchanging with them sooner. When we first told them about our plans, they weren’t bothered about having other people in their home, and now we’ve been on some amazing exchanges, they’re totally on-board with the concept.

Can you share some of your home exchange highlights?

We’ve had both reciprocal and GuestPoints exchanges, and both staycations and overseas holidays. Most of our offers have been from Europe, but we’ve also been to America twice. We also had three weeks in a luxury villa in Thailand, and we had a beachfront villa in Bali for three weeks. That home was really incredible - we had a private pool and staff, with a chef and a housekeeper who did our laundry.

We’ve also enjoyed a week in Edinburgh, a house in the hills in San Francisco, an eco house in Iceland, a houseboat in Amsterdam, an apartment in Paris, a villa in Rome.... the list goes on!

Do you swap cars too?

Yes, we have occasionally, and we've lent our car to our guests too. During our summer 2023 swap, we had a lovely offer from a family who lived in Nimes in the South of France. We took flights to and from Edinburgh, so we coordinated our flights so that we could swap cars! We also looked after each other’s pets - so we didn’t have to pay cattery fees - and we just took out additional car insurance. For the cost of that and our flights, we had 2 weeks in the sunshine. We spent some of the money we’d saved on sightseeing, but for much of the time we were happy to stay at home and enjoy their pool and the great weather.

Have you got any advice for anyone who is new to home exchanging (or other members of the academic community who are considering trying HomeExchange for teachers)?

My advice to others considering this would be that it’s useful to know roughly where you want to travel, so that you can look at flight routes, and decide where would be smartest to go.

The more you exchange, the easier it gets. Once you’ve got the house up to speed, you simply need to create a small home manual with your hints and tips on what to visit. We’ve created an online house manual that we send to guests in advance.

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