ORLANDO, Fla. – According to Value Penguin, lodging costs for a vacation take up about 26% of total expenditures for domestic trips and 21% for international trips. According to Hotels.com, the average hotel room costs about $141 a night. The average Airbnb costs between $60 and $80 for a couple, but what about just swapping a home with another family?
Where do you stay on vacation? What about swapping homes? Home Exchange offers 400,000 homes in 187 countries. It costs $150 a year or $15 a night. They also cover up to $1 million in damages.
Love Home Swap offers 10,000 homes in 100 countries. They offer three different memberships costing from $11 to $15 per month and you don’t have to swap homes at the same time. Love Home Swap offers a two-week free trial before it begins to charge you for the first month.
Own a second home? Turn to Thirdhome.com. There is not an annual fee to join, just pay an exchange fee to swap. They use a key system which is based on the value of the home and the time of year, but they expire in 15 months. They also cover up to $5,000 in damages.
A recent study by Johns Hopkins warns that smoke and carbon monoxide detectors are missing in up to half of the homes they surveyed, so be careful.
Contributor(s) to this news report include: Keon Broadnax, Producer; Jamison Koczan, Videographer and Editor.