We prioritize spending time on a playground everyday while traveling. However, this wasn’t always the case. There was a time when traveling with our children that the playground was the last place I wanted to be! We were in a once in a lifetime destination, I didn’t want to waste a single second doing something we could do at home!
But at some point in traveling, our perspective changed. Playgrounds became something we looked forward to each day and we’ve seen some incredible playgrounds around the world!
The first two times we took our children abroad, we needed it be under a certain budget. We considered renting out our personal home on VRBO or Airbnb, but having rented out other properties, we were concerned with multiple people coming in and out. We were also concerned with the idea that paying to stay at our home would entitle people to take certain liberties (not keeping the home tidy, breaking an item and not letting us know, ect). So we settled on a Home Swap. We used the website www.homeexchange.com.
Chamonix, France A Short Drive From Our Home Swap
You can sign up and then pay a $220 annual fee to be a member and list your home while having access to hundreds of homes to swap with. We staged our home for photos and posted them to our account which was incredibly simple. Then the searching stage began.
Pro Tip: by filtering your search for properties that want to visit your location, you will have more success in interest in swapping!
We started our journey by looking for properties in locations with airfare deals during our availability.
Beyond The Usual Trail 