I’ve become quite a Home Exchange fan over the past couple of years: We’ve been to Paris, which led us to a Riad in Marrakech, and this summer we stayed at a beach house in Santa Cruz, California. HomeExchange is a community of like-minded travellers, which helps them to travel the world, live like locals and stay for free. They have over 400,000 listings in more than 187 countries, and have facilitated more than 1,000,000 exchanges! The community uses “GuestPoints” as the exchange currency. You can earn points with a reciprocal exchange (a family stays in your home while you stay in their’s) or non-reciprocal exchange (the family that stays in your home gives you GuestPoints in exchange for their stay). You can then use your GuestPoints at a later date to organise an exchange. Our exchange this year was a cosy newly remodelled 3-bedroom craftsman home that had partial views out to the Pacific Ocean. It was just a few minutes walk to one of my favourite beaches in Santa Cruz County! We loved all of the extras – a massage chair, an Alexa that played music for us, a Nespresso coffee maker. And our host left us a handbook with all kinds of insider information (see my post 22 things to do in Capitola).  But best of all, our house came with a cat! My girls have wanted a pet for ages, and this was a great way to have one for a week.     It was like being at home – veggies in the back (she said to help ourselves to the lettuces) and my favourite coffee maker! Our host obviously loved coffee (like me) as she had several different coffee makers and types of coffee.  One of the unwritten rules (or maybe they are written somewhere?) is that you keep open communication with your host. If you use something in the house – just replace it. Communication is key. While we were in our house the string for the blind came off and I let her know about it. The area in Capitola that we stayed in is quite an exclusive area that doesn’t allow rentals – so very few ways to stay here except for to own a house or stay as guests of friends, which is essentially what Home Exchange is. In my past exchanges I’ve been in close contact with the owners while we are there – texting and messaging frequently to ask for recommendations for places to go and eat. And the owner often asks to bring in the mail or water the plants. In our Santa Cruz exchange we looked after a kitty!     I’ve loved some of our past exchanges (a second home in Paris) so much that I asked if he ever rented on Airbnb. He said that he prefers HomeExchange because “people take care of your house like it was theirs”. Which is true. A Home Exchange is like staying at a friend’s house. I’ve also heard some horror stories about home exchanges. Where either people don’t take care of your stuff (as our Paris host said – you come home to a “surprise”) or that the house is not as it appeared on the listing (in some case uninhabitable). My suggestions to avoid bad experiences is to thoroughly examine the reviews of your potential host’s stays. Then see if you can see the flip side of each your potential host’s stay (what they said about your host, and what your host said about the exchange). Note the HomeExchange service offers limited protection. And if you aren’t convinced yet, to give you an idea of cost savings, a week at a Santa Cruz 3-bedroom beach house in the height of summer would have cost between 2,300 – 4,000 USD! That’s a big savings.                 Read my post: 22 Things to do in Capitola with the family. Disclosure: I was given Guest Points for our HomeExchange stay with the expectation that I would write about our experience.