Hello everyone. I am Jan, a legal professional working in San Francisco, CA. I am new to this forum, and newish to HomeExchange in general. Glad to make everyone’s acquaintance in this community of home exchangers.
As someone new to HomeExchange, I have only had two exchanges so far, and on both occasions, hosting two couples (one from the LA area and another from the D.C. area). Unfortunately, I haven’t had the pleasure of being a guest in someone else’s home. In the times that I was looking (in LA, NY and Japan), I haven’t had much luck. Hoping to turn around my luck in my coming trip to Barcelona and Athens this coming October 2024. Kindly wish me luck.
Also, for those who might be interested - I am keen to exchange homes longer during Christmas holidays (this year 2024, from about Dec. 21 to Jan. 6). So please suggest a destination - my only requirement is that the place should not be too cold! (SF Bay Area, for the uninitiated, has mild winters, and definitely no snow).
Hi Jan, welcome to the forum and the HE site. I hope you’ll enjoy exchanging, good luck with your upcoming exchange as a guest , Barcelona and Greece are great destinations ! Finding exchanges in Europe is fairly easy, especially in Spain and France as there are so many more members than elsewhere. Some of the most difficult places are NYC and Japan , so not surprising that you’ve found that more difficult. Having experience of exchanging makes it easier. You’re reply rate is at 88% , so you seem to have some unanswered requests, try to keep it at 100%.
If you use Facebook you can also join the groups reserved for subscribed members, you’ll connect with many members who have experienced and post their advice and availabilties.
The groups are HomeExchangersInEnglish
HomeExchangersenfrancais
HomeExchangersenespanol.
Membership requests are validated once a week on Sundays!
Thanks for the warm welcome, Susan. I appreciate it. Great tip on the response rate - I really should pay attention to my messages.
As to Facebook, I am not a user of the platform, so I guess, I am somewhat of a disadvanatge of not meeting/talking to the home exchange group there. But I hope this forum will provide a redundancy for that, so that the likes of me (Facebook shy/guardian of privacy ) will have an alternative forum to discuss exchanges.
) will have an alternative forum to discuss exchanges.