Home Swap May Solve Vacation Dilemma

Let’s start planning next year’s vacation. But instead of searching for hotels in the distant city, beach area or countryside that you hope to visit, consider exchanging homes.

It’s never too early to begin your search and let others know that your house or apartment will be available. It can be a slow and tedious process to find a home that is suitable for you and that is owned by people you trust with yours.

Home exchange can make a distant vacation affordable because there’s no bill for lodging. You save on meals, too, by preparing your own after shopping in nearby markets. Often you get to drive the distant family’s car if you let its members use yours. And instead of being anonymous tourists in a sea of strangers, you find yourself among welcoming neighbors, eager to know and help you, because they’re friends of the people who normally live where you are staying.

But there’s a downside, too. You have to keep house: cook, wash dishes, make beds, vacuum and all that. Your home-away-from-home may not come with a car and may not be centrally located, requiring you to depend heavily on public transportation. And there is that gnawing, often persistent uncertainty about what’s happening at your own home.

Obviously, home exchange isn’t for the wanderer planning a “this is Tuesday so it must be Belgium” grand tour. It is for the traveler who plans to stay put for a week or more or to use one place as a base for day trips elsewhere.

So how do you plan? A good starting point is the directory of an international association that specializes in home exchange. They include:

Intervac (care of Intervac U.S., P.O. Box 590504, San Francisco, Calif. 94159; 800-756-HOME (4663) or 45-435-3497): Founded in 1953 and run in the United States by Paula Jaffe and Lori Horne of Tiburon, Calif., it lists 10,000 homes in more than 30 countries available for exchange. Annual membership fees start at $65, for which you get three directories. Senior rates are slightly cheaper, and a fourth book and postage are extra. Members fill in a registration form to create their own listing, using abbreviations such as “dr” for clothes dryer, “np” for no pets and “ub” for use of boat. For an extra fee, your listing can include a photo of your home. Intervac issues guidelines and advice and assigns each member a listing number to prove affiliation with the program, but it does not arrange or monitor exchanges. Once you have the directories, you’re on your own.

HomeLink International (care of HomeLink USA, P.O. Box 650, Key West, Fla. 33041; 800-638-3841): This 40-year-old organization, formerly the Vacation Exchange Club, is run in the United States by Karl Costabel who claims 15,000 members in 50 countries. About two-thirds of its listings are in Europe and North America, with substantial numbers in Hawaii, the Caribbean, Australia and South Africa. It issues three directories and three supplements a year at annual membership fees beginning at $78, including a listing. Publication of photos is extra.

Loan-a-Home (7 McGregor Road, Woods Hole, Mass. 02543; 508-548-4032): It has been run for 28 years by Muriel Gould and is popular among educators and scientific researchers who are planning sabbaticals or long-term assignments in distant places. Many listings in the annual directory and supplement ($40 a year) are near universities or in such cities as New York, Paris and London.

Teacher Swap (P.O. Box 454, Oakdale, N.Y. 11769-0454; 516-244-2845): It is run by Ron Frevola, a high school English teacher, and his wife, Ellie, primarily for current, former and retired teachers with generous vacation time but limited incomes. You get one directory and two supplements a year for $42 if you list your home, $50 if you don’t.

Some companies will arrange home exchanges. For example, Agency Alpha International (Suite 13, 11789 Montana Ave., Los Angeles, Calif. 90049; 310-472-7216) arranges them between the United States and England or France. It gets air tickets and sets up car or limousine transportation and household help. Annual fee is $65, plus $300 for each home exchange they arrange.

In addition, several agencies with Internet sites have entered the home-exchange business. They include:

the International Home Exchange Network (www.homexchange.com) the Internet Home Exchange (www.wln.com/%7Eexchange/ default.htm); the Travel Exchange Club (www.horizon.bc.ca/travex/ home.html, which is also reachable by phone at 800-549-9076).

If you’re doing it yourself, as most exchangers do, be realistic about where you might go. A lot depends on the location of your vacation and your own home. If you owned an apartment in Atlanta at Olympics time, you probably could have swapped it for a home almost anywhere. But if your home is Sioux Falls, S.D. - well, it may be a fine community, but a Parisian is unlikely to want to swap with you unless he or she has an assignment to work there.

Get a directory and get your home listed in it. Write a standard letter to be sent to potential exchangers describing your home and family, the neighborhood, transportation, attractions, access to services. Be precise about what you are offering and expect: use of the family car, household help, availability of baby sitters, approval to bring a pet, swimming pool privileges, shopping within a short walk, whatever.

Be as flexible as possible about dates of availability. Ask to be considered for a future swap if one can’t be arranged now.

Make about 100 photocopies of the letter, half to be sent in response to directory listings that attract you, and half to be kept for incoming inquiries. The more letters you send, the less likely you’ll be disappointed.

Once an exchange has been arranged, be certain that both homes are adequately insured. A pre-swap visit would be ideal, but may not be practical. However, the more correspondence and phone calls you have with a prospective exchanger, the better you’ll get to know each other. That will increase the likelihood that both homes will be in good hands.

If you want to know more, get “Home Exchange Vacationing” by Bill and Mary Barbour (Rutledge Hill Press, 211 Seventh Ave. N., Nashville, Tenn. 37219; 800-234-4234), $14.95 plus shipping. The book is loaded with anecdotes and sound advice, including what to do in case of an exchange disaster.