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Our Country Doesn’t Appear in the List of Home Exchange Countries
2008-06-10 15:33:00
Occasionally we receive emails and phone calls from potential home exchangers who are interested in joining Exchange Home s.com, but are reluctant to do so because they cannot find their country included in the list of Countries , either in the Quick Search on the Home Page, or on the Detailed Search page. If there is currently no listing for a particular country, then quite correctly, that Country doesn’t show up in either of the Country Search List s. However, immediately a member registers their membership from a country not currently represented, and enters details for both the relevant continent and country on the Registration Form, when the listing is saved to our database, the country in question instantly appears in the Country List. Similarly, we have been contacted by members and visitors to the web site who have been exploring the listings and noted one in an otherwise not represented country. They’ve returned for another look only to find that the country is no l...

Home Exchange Members Should Not Forget The Need For Travel Insurance
2008-05-31 16:47:00
I received this especially useful advice from a home exchange member last week and thought it would definitely worth publishing in this blog and sharing with everyone— Do not forget to include travel insurance in your to do list before planning your home exchange vacation. Most people take travel insurance lightly and never discuss travel insurance ...
More About: Travel , Insurance , Home , Travel Insurance , Exchange

Home Exchange When You Have Pets
2008-05-25 16:58:00
Many members successfully arrange home exchanges to include their pets. For a lot of families, caring for each other’s pets is an enhancement to the arrangement, especially if they have children. However, I cannot stress emphatically enough that no-one should ever demand pet car of their home exchange partners. Many people don’t like pets, have ...
More About: Pets , Home , Exchange

Home Exchange Request - Northern California to Ireland
2008-05-15 15:57:00
Regrettably, I have another request for a “rescue” home exchange partner. Member 4955 lives in Derrybeg, Co. Donegal, Ireland and has airline tickets to fly to San Francisco between July 30th and August 15th (when they will be moving on to visit friends in Atlanta) ,returning to Ireland on Sunday August 24th. Their home in ...
More About: California , Home , Exchange , Request

A Home Exchange That Includes A Car Exchange
2008-05-05 17:07:00
A great many home exchanges include exchange of the family car. It’s an ideal arrangement that will usually save the exchange partners a substantial amount of money in car rental fees. A member from the UK has contacted me with this question: We’re in the middle of arranging an exchange with a family from Los Angeles. We’ve ...
More About: Home , Exchange

Home Exchange Media Request
2008-05-04 16:29:00
We’ve recently been contacted by a tv production company (the first this “season”), asking if we could put them in touch with two sets of members about to embark on a home exchange, between either the USA and London, or USA and Paris. The tv company is based in New York so they would definitely ...
More About: Media , Home , Exchange , Request , Administration

Home Exchange and CHECtravel
2008-05-01 20:32:00
A Major Step Forward to Certify Home Exchange Clubs Copied directly from the CHECtravel website: CHEC is a response to the demands of home exchangers and exchange club owners themselves. Together a need was recognized for an organization that could create and maintain professional standards for exchange agencies, as well as a code of conduct for individual ...

Home Exchange Agreements / Contracts
2008-05-01 16:42:00
I was somewhat disappointed to read a post this morning on another home exchange blog referencing an email the author had received from a New York home exchanger requesting information about putting together a ‘Home Exchange Contract’— or as we call it—’Agreement’. ExchangeHomes.com offers templates for Home Exchange Agreements, Car Exchange Agreements and a Home Exchange ‘Book’ ...
More About: Contracts

Home Exchange Member from Australia Needs Swap to England
2008-04-29 18:24:00
Last week we heard of an unfortunate incident whereby an Exchange Home s.com member is urgently seeking a replacement home exchange to England , preferably the west country. They need an exchange between Saturday September 6th, 2008 and Saturday 20th September. To see their listing, click >> Here Any arrangements don’t have to be simultaneous because their exchange property—located ...
More About: Australia , Administration

Home Exchange and Free Email Addresses
2008-04-28 21:36:00
After a recent mailing to our list of expiring home exchange members, I (as usual) checked our email client for the inevitable list of undeliverable mail. I was suddenly struck by five emails unable to be delivered because the owner’s mail boxes were full. I looked a little bit closer: 2 were Yahoo addresses, ...
More About: Email , Home , Free , Exchange

Home Exchange Membership Amendments
2008-04-18 19:50:00
When, early in February, we went on-line with the major overhaul to our web site, we bowed to pressure from many members and visitors and introduced a two-tier membership system, effectively allowing non-publishing—or “Associate”—members to initiate contacts with members who paid to list their homes for exchange. We did however exercise an important constraint that ...
More About: Home , Exchange , Administration , Membership

Temporary MyBlogLog Verification Post
2008-04-12 21:24:00
Undergoing MyBlogLog Verification
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Go Go Kidz Car Seat Wheels
2008-04-12 17:01:00
It’s not my intention to turn this into a commercial blog, but when I see an item I believe may be of benefit to both home exchangers and travelers in general, it has to be worth a few minutes of my time to bring it to everyone’s attention. A number of years ago, I came across ...
More About: Tricks , Seat , Wheels

Successful Home Exchanging - Finalizing Your Exchange
2008-04-11 22:15:00
Part Seven of the Series This post will conclude my series of posts walking you through the entire process of selecting your home exchange club, setting up your listing, making contacts and, most important, finalizing the home exchange arrangements. Finalizing your arrangements can be critically important and unfortunately it’s one aspect of home swapping that some members ...
More About: Home , Exchange

Successful Home Exchanging - Contacting Fellow Home Exchangers
2008-04-01 19:52:00
Okay, so you’ve joined the home exchange club of your choice—hopefully ExchangeHome s.com—and set up your listing, including adding some illustrative photographs. Now it’s time to begin contacting fellow members. Don’t make the serious mistake of adding a listing (no matter how great you think it may be), and then sit back and assume that your ...

Successful Home Exchanging - Good Photographs Are Important
2008-03-28 18:38:00
Part Five of the Series To help our Home Exchange members, I asked a photographer friend for a few basic tips for amateurs hoping to produce some attractive, illustrative pictures to include in their home exchange listings. His words of wisdom follow ….. Use Digital Cameras Only With Still Shots Most home-use digital cameras have a one- or ...
More About: Photographs , Good

Successful Home Exchanging - Additional Listing Tactics
2008-03-25 20:25:00
Part Four of the Series It’s worth remembering that there are several ways you can “dress up” your basic home exchange listing. Here are some suggestions: Set up your own personal web site dedicated to home exchanging. Have sections devoted to your family, your home, pets, neighborhood and more general location. Describe any previous home exchanges you ...
More About: Tactics , Home , Listing

Successful Home Exchanging - Setting Up Your Listing
2008-03-22 16:46:00
Part Thee of a Series. The way in which you set up your online listing for the world to see is often pivotal to your home exchange success. You need to clearly describe your home and the amenities it has to offer, then you need to introduce your family, your children, teens and give their ages. ...
More About: Home , Listing

Successful Home Exchanging - More About Selecting A Club
2008-03-18 18:17:00
This is part two of a series I?ve been asked to write covering successful home exchange procedures. In my last post I began working on the process of selecting the home exchange club you decide to sign up with. Here are a few more thoughts about that same subject: A Genuine Home Exchange Businesses should be ...
More About: Tricks , Club

Successful Home Exchanging - Selecting a Club
2008-03-15 19:40:00
This is part one of a much requested series I’ve been asked to write covering successful home exchange procedures. The first thing you will need to do is select a club. It’s very inadvisable to even think about cutting out this comparatively small expenditure and go it alone with classified advertisements or an ad on Craigslist, ...
More About: Home , Tricks , Club

A Guide to Setting Up Your Home Exchange
2008-03-13 13:49:00
Despite the fact that Exchange Home s.com has always offered what we call our ?Hints and Advice book? in PDF format, for either reading online, or downloading to your computer, where it can be printed, if desired, I?m still frequently asked to include some clear directions for locating and arranging a successful home exchange in this blog. Of ...
More About: Tricks , Guide

A Home Exchange Membership Involves Hard Work
2008-03-07 22:42:00
Home Exchange Blog: We make a point of recording all the activity of our members in various administrative logs. Not for any purpose other than to record how they navigate and use the web site. It has often proved to be a very useful tool when planning site improvements. One very useful record the logs do ...
More About: Home , Tricks , Work , Hard

A Home Exchange Will Always Conquer Bad Weather
2008-03-03 22:50:00
All last night our house was battered by violent storms:thunder crashed, lightening flashed, wind gusts rattled the patio furniture, and whipped the rain against the windows. The type of weather my mother had described as a "wild night at sea"!
More About: Weather , Home , Exchange , Conquer

Rate Your Past Home Exchange Partners
2008-02-22 18:27:00
With the launch of our brand new web site, one new feature we’re offering is the opportunity for you to ‘rate’, or leave feedback on your past home exchange partners. When you think about it, cumulatively there must be many thousands of completed home swaps that can be rated. All you need to do is ...
More About: Home , Exchange , Past , Partners , Rate

A Home Exchange That Cost Much More Than Expected!
2008-02-20 22:01:00
I received this hilarious email from a member last week and just had to share it with everyone. The member didn't want me to include her name, so I'm going to refer to her as 'Susan'.
More About: Home , Exchange , Cost

Home Exchange Listings Without Photographs
2008-02-10 21:35:00
With the launch of our new home exchange web site, we introduced a new search option that allows both visitors and members to search our database of listings and specify that their results should only show listings that have photographs. We included this option because many people had requested it. They did not want to ...
More About: Home , Tricks , Listings , Exchange , Photographs

Orphaned Home Exchange Listings
2008-02-08 18:06:00
I’m puzzled. Why would someone spend what has to have been a significant amount of time compiling a home exchange listing, edited it at least a couple of times, added several nice photographs, then not pay to display it? Even more puzzling—when I’ve emailed them to ask if they didn’t understand that payment of a fee ...
More About: Home , Listings , Exchange , Administration

New ExchangeHomes Home Exchange Web Site Goes Live
2008-02-02 18:30:00
Well, it’s finally happened! After what seemed like an eternity—well, months and months—our brand new web site is finally live. Several times I began to think that it was never going to happen, but it has, and all we’ve received so far is praise. Everyone seems to love it. As it’s been used, a few minor ...
More About: Home , Site , Exchange , Live , Homes

Lifetime Home Exchange Memberships
2008-01-24 15:40:00
Recently I’ve noticed a few negative conclusions an associate company has arrived at regarding multiple year and lifetime memberships. I agree wholeheartedly with every observation she has made, unmanaged and unsupervised any membership that extends beyond an initial year can quickly become outdated, both in its descriptive text and the published home exchange dates. More ...
More About: Home , Exchange , Administration , Lifetime

Home Exchange Member Duped
2008-01-20 18:11:00
Since my last post regarding the rogue Chinese “Home Exchange Company”, I’ve been in email correspondence with a lady who read the post and contacted me, hoping I might somehow help her. “Faye” quickly explained that she is does not belong to ExchangeHomes .com. She is a member of club whose name I won’t mention, which, she ...