Family saves £6,000 on holidays by swapping homes with strangers

Henry Vanderpump, 42, his wife Elliw, 39, and their two young children have had two home exchange holidays in the past two years and have another planned this summer. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing BBC News.

In each case, they have stayed in another family's home, while that family stays in theirs, a five-bedroom house in Tarporley, rural Cheshire. Neither side pays anything for their accommodation, although they do pay an annual membership fee to Home Link, the listings site they use to book the trips.

So far, the Vanderpumps have stayed in similarly sized properties in Hamburg and Copenhagen, and Henry says they have saved around £2,500 on accommodation per trip, plus a further £700 on transport, as they also swapped cars. "We used to have one holiday a summer, now we have two [because of the savings we make from home exchanges]. And the kids love the idea of living in someone else's house while that person is living in theirs."

Home exchanges have been around since at least the 1950s, but an increasing number of people seem to be embracing them because of the rising cost of living, or simply to experience a new type of travel, commentators say. Henry says the best thing about swapping homes isn't the savings but getting to visit places off the tourist trail and have a "really authentic experience".

When the family visited Hamburg in 2024, they stayed in a suburb and lived "like a German family" for a week. Last year, they stayed in "a very Scandinavian house" in suburban Copenhagen, which was "all on one level and had no clutter". "They also left us several electric bikes to use," Henry says.

May Burrough, 38, a chief operating officer from London who has done 34 home swaps over the last three years using HomeExchange, reckons she has saved about £5,000-£8,000 through swaps in places like Barcelona and the Swiss Alps. She loves the "community feel" of home exchanges and says she's only ever had one "semi-negative experience" when a booking she thought was for a whole flat turned out to be a room in a flat share.