Ever Tried a Holiday Home Exchange?

The other day I was contacted by a couple from the UK who are in the business of promoting the concept of home exchanges for a way to save big money on vacations/holidays.

The concept of a home exchange is that you save money by staying in someone's personal home, rather than staying in a hotel, B&B, etc. The home owner is not there -- they're off staying in someone else's home...

Just curious. Has anyone here tried this? Know anyone who has? Would you be interested in trying it?

I know the people are probably checked out, but I'm not sure I would want total strangers in my home while I'm not here. And I'm not sure I would be comfortable staying in a stranger's home, either. I think it's a great idea for inexpensive vacations, especially if the home owner leaves some information about the local area for the visitor. But still...

I feel the same way, Yonuh, about having strangers staying in my home. It might be different if one's home is set up for guests, but ours isn't. When we go away for long stretches of time, we have a house-sitter stay here, and that's difficult enough for me...I'd be too stressed out about total strangers snooping through our stuff. We'd have to drastically change our lifestyle in order to be able to put our house in the care of strangers like that.

Having said that, I'd actually probably enjoy staying in someone else's home for a vacation...but that's assuming that people who do put their houses on the market for vacationers have their homes set up for it.