When our son was 1 or 2 years old, we discovered the existence of Home Exchange. (Thanks, Tim Ferriss and your Four Hour Work Week, for that!) We were in the half of people who hear about it and say, "Wait, WHAT? I need that in my life immediately." We have since discovered that almost everyone has a similar reaction OR the polar opposite, which is, "Wait, so people are, like, sleeping in your bed?" There's rarely an in-between.
Anyway, since that discovery a decade ago, most of our more adventurous, extensive traveling has been done within the Home Exchange system. M has a list somewhere, but since he's all the way in the dining room and I'm very comfy in my office chair right now, I'm just going to throw out some destinations I remember from past exchanges. Taos, New Mexico. Amsterdam (twice). Hawaii (twice). Lake Tahoe, California. Chicago, Illinois. Edinburgh. Prague. Dublin. Manhattan, New York. And a whole lotta others, but you get the idea. It's gotten us all over the place and saved us many thousands of dollars in the process.
So our hope is that most of our 2020 travel will continue that tradition. And now, there's a system-within-the-system that will make this work even better for us. It's called the Balloon Program, and it allows you to lend a family your home (as opposed to trading houses) and get "paid" with a credit for hosting. So, let's say someone from Iowa wants to stay in your house in Florida. You don't really have a desire to go to Iowa (nothing against Iowa!), but you're happy to clear out of your house and go visit your grandma in Texas, which lets the Iowa family have your house for that week. The Iowa family gives you the Home Exchange Hot Air Balloon (think of it as bitcoin just for H.E.), and you can then use that Balloon to stay at some person's house in France next year. That's a messy, quick explanation so apologies if it still doesn't make perfect sense.
But the point I'm trying to get to is our strategy now. We're currently trying to work on collecting as many of these treasured balloons as we can, in the hopes that we can use them around the world in a couple years. And if we do that rather than actively swapping houses during our long travel, that also allows us to find one renter of our home for our whole trip, which could potentially cover most of our travel expenses. See how magical that is?
For instance, we'll be visiting family over Thanksgiving. House is empty, let's fill it and get a balloon! Over Christmas break, we'll be on a cruise. House is empty, let's fill it and get another balloon! Someone wants to come here when we don't have a trip scheduled? Let's find somewhere to go so they can stay here and give us another balloon! (We actually have a huge advantage here, because we have a small garage apartment that we can live in for short stretches while others stay in the house. We know not many people have that option, so we're very grateful for this cheat.)
Last week I did a reverse search on Home Exchange, for folks who have Boulder listed on their "places I'd like to visit" section. I blasted out an email, explained what we're trying to do, and invited folks to start a conversation if they're interested. I sent out 70-something emails, and I already have strong interest for hosting folks in November, December, March, April, and June. Bam! Just like that, we might have 5 balloons ready to use in the future.
Home Exchange has taken great care not to assign a value to the balloons, which I respect. A balloon is worth a stay. That stay may be a weekend, or it could be a month. It's whatever both parties agree to when they discuss their plans. We're hoping that we'll typically be able to get at least 10-14 days out of a balloon during our year, but we'll just see how it goes. And of course we know we'll fill in days here and there with AirBnB, hostels, hotels, camping, or whatever. It's just nice to know that we won't be going broke in the process of this trip.
Also, I have to add that the part of me that hates waste LOVES the new sharing economy. How many times have people paid to have a house sitter, while also paying to stay in a hotel? Meanwhile, there's some other family visiting that same town and paying for their own hotel? It's so much waste! Home Exchange saves money in countless ways, in all directions. You can cook meals instead of only eating at restaurants. Want to bring your friend along? Great, you've got a whole house! It makes me giddy how great it is.
Sometimes I taunt the "but people sleep in your bed?" folks with pictures of the great experiences we've had due to this system. Am I smug about it? Hell yes. But I'm smug from a beach house that I didn't have to pay for. So there.
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