Sandra Pearson, a home exchange expert and world traveler, writes about the benefits of traveling on home exchange. **Read below to find out how you can be in the running to win a copy of Sandra’s new book ‘Home Exchanging: Your Guide to Enjoying Free Vacation Accommodations‘.**
The benefits of home exchanging are numerous, with the #1 being the saving of money. Your accommodation expense generally represents the largest portion of your travel budget. The idea of not paying a hotel or inn their nightly room rate and instead travelers swapping their homes is appealing. Plus, we all know the limitations of hotels and that staying in a home offers more space, privacy, freedom and amenities such as a kitchen and in-home laundry facilities!
Enjoy your own balcony in this Tel Aviv apartment, available on CasaVersa
Also high on the list of benefits of home exchanging is living as a local and not as a tourist! One major reason we travel is to learn about the cultures and lifestyles of people who live in different parts of the world. What better way to do this than to immerse yourself into a neighborhood and live among the locals. I’ve always learned more and had a richer experience when I’ve avoided the beaten track and chosen to stay in an area that caters less to tourists and more to permanent residents. Here is where you find intimate and authentic cafes, bistros and individually owned and operated butcher shops, bakeries, small food markets, flower stores and so on.
WIN: A copy of the book ‘Home Exchanging: Your Guide to Enjoying Free Vacation Accommodations’ - read to the bottom of this post to find out how.
The enjoyment for me occurs when the unexpected happens… receiving an invitation from a shopkeeper at a local market welcoming me to join her family for a meal at their home, stopping my rental car to offer an elderly woman a lift into town or finding a restaurant with an eating area the size of a pool table that offers no promise, yet being served the most delicious dinner I’ve ever eaten. Such memorable experiences will rarely happen in touristy areas!
Stay just above a cafe in Palma, Balearic Islands, Spain - this home is available for exchange on CasaVersa
Whether you walk around your neighborhood purchasing items to prepare for dinner in your ‘adopted home’ or sit at a small café and people watch, it will be a far better learning experience for you than staying in an internationally owned hotel chain in a city’s downtown commercial area occupied by tourists.
In the phrase used by CasaVersa, with home exchanging, you’ll ‘never feel like a tourist again’!
This guest post was brought to you by Sandra Pearson, a home exchange expert and world traveler who shares weekly posts about all that is involved in home exchange on her blog.
GIVEAWAY: Sandra has kindly offered a copy of her book ‘Home Exchanging: Your Guide to Enjoying Free Vacation Accommodations’ for CasaVersa members! To be in the running to win, join CasaVersa for free and upload at least three photos to your home listing by December 21, 2013.
About the prize: The e-book ‘Home Exchanging: Your Guide to Enjoying Free Vacation Accommodations‘ offers you practical details to make the experience of home exchanging rewarding for both the host and the guest. The book is in Kindle format, which you can read it on your phone, Kindle, computer or tablet.
GIVEAWAY CONDITIONS
*To be in the running to win, you must join CasaVersa (http://casaversa.com) and create a home profile with at least three (3) photographs of your home or neighborhood uploaded to the site. You must do this by Midnight (12am) GMT on December 21, 2013.
*CasaVersa is free to join.
*If you are already a member of CasaVersa and have at least three photos of your home uploaded, you will automatically enter the draw to win the book. You might like to Invite your Friends though!
*The prize is one copy of the kindle book ‘Home Exchanging: Your Guide to Enjoying Free Vacation Accommodations‘, by Sandra Pearson.
*The winner of the prize will be selected by random at 10am GMT on December 22 from CasaVersa (http://casaversa.com) members who have three photos or more uploaded to their profile. The prize draw will take place at the CasaVersa offices.
*The winner will be notified by the email address they provide when registering with CasaVersa.
*The winner must respond to our notification email within 7 days or they’ll automatically forfeit their prize, and an alternate winner will be selected at random.
*The prize will be delivered electronically with a link via email.
Hey CasaVersa…. Thank you so very much for allowing me to write a guest post for you and your members! Look forward to seeing who the lucky winner will be!