A couple who traded family holidays for home swaps have said the travelling hack has saved them up to £50,000 across 35 countries.
Retired teachers Tim Moynihan, 67, and his wife Elizabeth, 66, joined HomeExchange in 2008 – a platform which allows users to exchange their homes over dates of mutual choosing, or if a member wishes to lend their home without reciprocity, their guest can offer GuestPoints to thank them for their hospitality.
In search of more affordable ways to holiday with their now grown-up children – Matthew, 38, Hannah, 36, Helen, 34, and Rory, 31 – Tim said home swapping has allowed the family to travel the world and stay in properties with “all the home comforts”.
Tim and his wife have since visited 35 countries over the past 16 years, including Iceland, Sweden and New Zealand, completing 84 home swaps in total – and they believe they have saved up to £50,000 by doing so.
The arrangement has also seen more than 40 guests, including couples and families, stay in their four-bedroom semi-detached home in Hadleigh, Essex, which is beside the country park and has views across the local estuary – and they have never had a bad experience.
The annual HomeExchange subscription is £180 and allows members unlimited exchanges, and the couple have stayed in properties including a seafront apartment in South Africa, where they spotted whales just yards away, Hot Springs in Arkansas, where Bill Clinton grew up, and a “James Bond-style villa” in Thailand.
“What we’ve discovered is that you’ve basically got a home away from home,” Tim told PA Real Life.
“The benefits of it are that you get a place that you want to go to, you’ve got all the home comforts, you’ve got people that know the area and, very often, people will leave a house book with tips on what to see and do and to help with managing the house during the exchange.
“Those sorts of things prove invaluable, really, so you get a fuller picture of what life is like in those countries when travelling abroad.
“You get a flavour of other people’s lives because you’re in their home and their personal possessions are there – their family photos, for example – and you can gauge…
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