Home Exchange

Karen Triggiani likes this story on Haaretz:

They had done a house swap 15 years ago, and that experience made them want to do it again to save the cost of having five people stay in a hotel for a month, and Kramer says: "We preferred feeling like we had a home in the city."

They found the Paris apartment through homeforexchange.com. A year later they found a house in Provence the same way. It takes time getting used to living in somebody else's home, says Kramer, but the owners' absence makes the transition a lot simpler. Even having a stranger living in their home didn't seem to be a problem. They had spent a few years abroad and rented their place out, so were used to the idea.

To deal with the nagging fear of the unknown, Kramer prepared a folder with photographs of each room in the apartment and wrote what appliances there were and how to use them, and the exchanging family did likewise. "The minute you get detailed information from the other side, the surer you are the other side is telling the truth," says Kramer.