Emi and family

"We are a family of four, from Italy. We begun home-exchange in June 2002 and now, at the end of this year (2006), we’ll do our tenth.

I think that home exchange is really an exciting experience and at this point I can’t imagine any better way to spend my vacation time!

We swap our second house, so for us it is easier to arrange a home exchange, because we have the opportunity to swap non-simultaneously- and people with whom we exchanged in Italy did the same.

However, when we exchanged homes with people from Holland, France and Germany, our exchange partners always left us their first home. That’s really what I like most, because it’s a full immersion into another way of life in another country: it’s a bit like swapping your life with somebody else’s life for a while, with its tastes, hobbies, shops, everyday life, etc.

As far as I know, here in Italy home exchange is not very common. For one thing, people like to keep their privacy. Nevertheless, I think home exchange is going to develop. This is probably not so much due to its financial advantages but because home exchange is a great vacation alternative. It is an entirely different experience from going to a hotel and being a detached anonymous tourist. It’s about people who are curious about other cultures, traditions and customs.

That’s why it is easy to become friends with follow home exchangers –if you want- and that’s what happened to us with some of our exchange partners in Sicily and Bavaria, Germany. We keep in touch by writing to each other frequently and occasional visits. Both parties are from places, I probably would have never considered for a vacation if it had not been for home exchange, because they are off the beaten tourist tracks. But our home swaps with them have been a wonderful experience! Their homes, the locations and amazing sights. For me, it’s beautiful to know, that in a far away place somewhere in the world I have new friends and I can count on them. I would have never met without home exchange.

My family and I look forward to our next home exchange… in a small mountain village in Southern Germany…"

Emi and family, Viterbo, Italy