Swapping spree
Want to travel the world without dishing out a fortune on hotels? Home exchanges are an increasingly popular way to vacation, thanks to the kindness of strangers . . .
On Fran and Richard Bukrey's vacations to France, Ireland, Spain, Mexico, Vancouver, Florida and Seattle, the Evanston couple didn't shell out money on hotels. They weren't crashing at friends' houses, either.
They stayed in homes. Strangers' homes. And strangers stayed in theirs. It's called home swapping, a concept that started decades ago as a way for teachers to take cheap vacations.
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It's now a thriving travel trend, thanks largely to the almighty Internet and an assist from the hit flick "The Holiday," in which Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet trade abodes to escape bad relationships. (Imagine how big home swapping would be if it meant that you, too, could end up with Jude Law.)
More than 100,000 home swaps take place around the world each year, according to HomeExchange .com, a leading Web site with more than 18,000 listings in 100-plus countries. It costs $99.95 to join for a year.
Members use the site to advertise their digs and to contact people in places they'd like to stay. If a family in Fiji is hankering for a week in Chicago, both parties pick a date, drop their respective keys in the mail, and that's that.
One HomeExchange.com user swapped his place for a 40-foot yacht; another handed over his villa in Italy for an RV in Oregon.
You might be thinking, "I like the free lodging part, but I don't want someone going through my underwear drawer."
Fran Bukrey admits to being a little apprehensive when she joined the network about four years ago. Bukrey and her husband's first swap called for trading their Evanston apartment for a Seattle pad overlooking Lake Union.
"I remember driving up to the place," Bukrey said. "I took out the key and said to my husband, 'This key is either going to open this door and we'll have a wonderful time, or the key won't work and someone is in Evanston cleaning out our apartment.'"
Suffice to say there was no need to file a police report. And after opening up their home more than a dozen times to strangers since then, the recently retired Bukreys have yet to have a home-swap horror story.
"The reason I trust it is that there's reciprocity," said Bukrey, a former special education administrator. "When they're in your house, you're in theirs. I'm not as comfortable with the idea of a rental, where people think their obligation ends when they write the check."
An important part of being a successful swapper, Bukrey said, is being flexible about when and where you want to travel. You might wait a long time holding out for a Paris apartment on the banks of the Seine in the middle of June. It also helps to be upfront about your expectations and what you have to offer in return.
"I make it very clear that we live in a quiet yet hip kind of urban community outside of Chicago," Bukrey said. "We're not in the center of downtown if that's what you wish."
One of the most interesting trades the Bukreys made was when they spent a month in the south of France, living in a tiny hill town in a house dating back to the 16th century. They shopped for food at surrounding villages' markets, bought wine directly from local winemakers and woke early each morning to get fresh bread before it sold out.
"When you want the experience of actually living in a place -- saying hello to the neighbors, being part of the community -- that's what I get out of this," Bukrey said. "Other vacations, you go to a hotel and you have the more typical tourist experience. With this, you live like a local."
When the Bukreys stayed at a Spanish apartment on the Mediterranean in a small town outside Valencia, "we got to see how Europeans vacation," Bukrey said. "My husband swears he heard an American accent at the ATM one day, but I never did."
They've swapped for an old house in the colonial, ex-pat haven of San Miguel de Allende in Mexico, as well as a home on a canal in the Florida Keys and a town home in the trendy neighborhood of Kitsilano in Vancouver. They've even stayed in the Sun City retirement community near Phoenix, Ariz.
Last spring, they spent two weeks in a spacious vacation home on Ireland's Dingle Peninsula.
"My sister came and some friends met up with us," Bukrey said. "We had breakfast with the cows each morning. It was exactly what we were looking for."
Over the years, the Bukreys have turned down plenty of people wanting to make an exchange, usually because the timing wasn't right (London) or they weren't that interested in visiting a certain place (Texas).
The Bukreys are in the enviable position of having two homes to swap: their Evanston apartment and a vacation house in the Northwoods of Wisconsin. As a result, they've built up a backlog of places they still have to visit.
Not a bad problem to have.
"You can do so much more," Bukrey said, "when you don't pay a hotel bill."