House swapping forms global community around the world

This summer, HomeExchange member Angela was able to travel from the United Kingdom to Australia by home swapping. Maleny, Australia provided plenty of fun things for their family to do.

"Maleny is high in the mountains surrounded by rainforest," Angela explained. "The views over the glasshouse mountains are spectacular. We went on tranquil rain forest walks. We went to the bird park and had cockatoos sit on on our heads!"

Though she adored the home's stunning views, garden, and pizza oven, the best part of the exchange for Angela was being reunited with her parents.

"We had traveled from the UK to Australia but then were unable to see family due to state border closures," she said. "As soon as the border reopened my parents traveled to see us and we were incredibly lucky that our hosts offered us their home so that we could all be together."

This wasn't the only memorable home swap Angela has had, however. She recalls hosting another family for the first time:

We were going away for Christmas and our usual house sitter was unable to house sit. So we thought maybe this is the time to do our first home exchange. We are Australian expats living in the UK and the first people to contact us once we had out available dates in Home Exchange were an Australian family. We had a video call with them and instantly felt reassured.

After a successful first time hosting, Angela happily opens her home to travelers. Her dog loves it too! "All our guests have offered to look after our dog during our exchanges and we have some great photos of the guests out enjoying life with our dog happily beside them," she said.

Whether they are hosting during Christmas or reuniting with family in the summer, Angela said home exchanging makes her family realize they are part of a global community.