I love home swapping as a way to see the world and stay for free. Rather than being handed a bill at the end of a vacation, there’s usually a thank you note. That’s my kind of vacation! Registering for a home swapping site is your access to a database of potential travel partners.

The latest home exchange service I’ve registered with is KNOK. What I like is that home exchange suggestions based on my preferences are sent to my email in-box. With suggestions that cover 5 different topics, these updates save me from having to do all of the searching for potential home exchange partners and they keep me dreaming about our next adventure. Their algorithm takes into account your dates, destinations, and preferences. This combination makes for a lot less work than me searching for our dates and destination. KNOK’s premise is that it’s easy, smart, and social. These are all things that I like, too!

Home Exchange Registration

Here are the category suggestions I receive:

1. New members: this section is all about KNOK’s newest members and is a lovely way to add ideas to your dream vacation list. It includes a picture, too, which I always enjoy looking at. Getting a view into how your potential partners’ home looks is always helpful. Each of the photographs shows a number of bedrooms with the maximum number of people it will fit. This helps in our trip planning because I know we need 3-bedrooms for 4 people. Yes, we could make do with males in one room and females in the other but that’s not how we want to travel.

2. My destinations: these are potential partners who live in the city or surrounding areas where we’d like to travel to. You can enter several destinations or just one. These folks may or may not be interested in coming to our city and so they may need some convincing.

3. People interested in my city: these are travelers who want to come to my hometown and there’s very little convincing involved. I don’t have to trot out my letter about why someone might want to travel to the “Great Pacific Northwest” and all of our fabulous natural attractions, wonderful bookstores, brewpubs and restaurants.

4. Dates: while flexibility is key when traveling by home exchange, plugging dates into your profile can sometimes produce results that wouldn’t have crossed your mind, otherwise. This allows you to stick to your scheduled time but gives you great travel destinations that you otherwise may not have considered.

5. You may also like: yes, this is random but with home swapping, you never know! One of our favorite trips we took was to Vienna, Austria and that beautiful city wasn’t even on our radar. Our home exchange partners were going to Greece for 4-weeks and were looking for someone to be in their home instead of it sitting empty. Win-win!

Registering for a home exchange website service is the first step in home swapping.

I love to home exchange as a way to see the world and stay for free. Instead of getting a hotel bill at the end of a stay, you get a thank you note instead. That’s my kind of vacation!

These updates save me from having to do all of the searching for potential home exchange partners. If you’re thinking about planning a trip during the new year, check out KNOK and all that it has to offer. You can’t go wrong with easy, smart, and social!

What are your questions about home swapping? I’m happy to answer them below!

Our first home exchange is here
Travel packing tips with a PDF chart are here
Home swapping and how to prepare your home for one
Our San Francisco home exchange –Part I, Part II and Part III
Save money on your next trip: before and during
Want to keep food costs low while traveling? Try these tips!
I’d love to speak to your group or organization about home swapping ~ just check HERE.