As we sat at our kitchen table in Lund, Sweden, gazing out at another day of chilly July drizzle, it was hard not to think about the Swedish family living in our home back in Minnesota, basking in Minnesota sun and warmth, splashing in Minnesota lakes.
Oh, we had thought we were so smart.
For years, I’d been saving information about house exchanging. What could be slicker? Free accommodations, free use of a car and, best of all, a foothold in another culture-a chance to meet people other than waiters, hotel clerks and shopkeepers.
We’d even bought our house with an eye toward the day we’d advertise in an exchange catalog: “Overlooking Mississippi in city of lakes . . .” I knew few people abroad have heard of Minnesota, but everyone from Shanghai to Stockholm has heard of the Mississippi.
So we sent in our ad, a photo of our house and $57.50, and in late January, to my great excitement, a thick catalog arrived, bearing our ad and thousands of others from people who wanted to exchange houses-mostly, as I soon found out, with people in California, Florida, Tuscany and the south of France.
But I plugged away, spending hours and hours poring over the catalog and putting together packets of photos, maps, tourist brochures, glossy postcards and an introductory letter, which we sent to 20 families in Germany, Britain, Switzerland, Norway and Sweden.
There wasn’t exactly a rush to exchange with us, but eventually we struck a deal with a family in the 1,000-year-old university town of Lund, Sweden, just across the strait from Denmark, and that July, we got on the plane with our 2-year-old daughter.
A few days later, our vacation scarcely begun, we wanted our own house back.
It wasn’t a disaster, not at all. But as it turned out, we had made, through good old-fashioned American naivete and idealism, some pretty predictable mistakes. We’ll exchange houses again someday-but next time, we’ll be a little wiser.
This is what we’ll do next time-and what all exchangers should do if, like us, they have little vacation time and want to make every day count:
– First of all, ask yourself if you really want to spend two to four weeks-the length of time most people want to exchange-in one place; most Americans, especially younger ones, are used to packing as many sights as possible into their relatively short vacations.
– Decide what type of home and location you want before you start considering offers.
In the Twin Cities, we live in an old house that’s close to everything, in a neighborhood with lots of mature trees and green space and shops within walking distance. Yet, in 1,000-year-old Lund, we ended up in a treeless, brand-new development of identical apartments and townhouses on the outskirts of town. Why? Partly because, though this was to be our sixth trip to Europe, we were laboring under the illusion that Europe is so wonderful it’s enough to be there, and we simply assumed everything would be fine.
Next time, we’ll request pictures of the house and its surroundings (photos of the interior wouldn’t hurt) and ask these questions: Are there shops within walking distance, or do you have to drive everywhere? What is the neighborhood like? How far is it to the city center?
Others may want a quiet, isolated location-if so, ask about that, too.
– Ask what there will be to do in the area when you’re there.
Most Swedes, like many other Europeans, go on vacation for the entire month of July, making our quiet development downright desolate. In addition, most of the university students had left for the summer, giving the ancient city center an air of abandonment. Find out whether there will be festivals and other fun things going on.
– Be realistic about life in other countries.
In Europe, homes simply don’t have the square-footage and yard space they do here, even if their owners are well-to-do. We assumed our Swedish doctor and lawyer would have a nice house. And they did, for Sweden-a tiny, semi-detached house with postage-stamp yard. And summer weather across much of Europe is cool, even by Minnesota standards: 70s, even 60s. We had terrible weather, which is nobody’s fault: 10 days in a row of gray skies and cold drizzle.
– Hedge your bets.
We picked our site in part because it was close to beaches, for swimming, and countryside, for bicycling. But when the weather was bad, which was most of the time, we had little to do except tour in our car. Lund is said to have the highest number of museums per capita in the world-but how much time can a family with a 2-year-old spend in museums?
– Don’t think of yourself as a cultural ambassador unless you get some encouragement.
We had high-minded ideas about learning about another culture and making friends in other countries; the Swedish family simply wanted a nice vacation. We plastered a map of the Twin Cities with dozens of little yellow dots, keyed to a list of attractions and favorite spots, and bought them guidebooks, but when we got to their house, we spent hours trying to find a supermarket because they hadn’t left us a town map.
And we plied them with questions about Sweden, but received none about the United States. (Except “Where do all the poor people live?” It turned out they were radical socialists, so maybe they thought they already knew all there was to know about our heartless society.)
We did, however, become good friends with some of their neighbors, a workaholic Swedish couple who had foregone the annual summer migration. Christer and Ulla were friendly and endlessly helpful, inviting us over for meals, explaining how appliances worked, lending us a bike cart and sorting out ferry information for us; they even went to bat for us over a $50 parking ticket, and Christer took my husband to work out with the local karate club. Making friends is easily the best part about house exchanging.
– Don’t invite your exchange family to stay with you as guests for more than a couple of days, if at all.
Our Swedish family, like most Europeans, had more vacation time than we did, so we invited the mother and three children, ages 8 months, 3 and 8, to stay with us for a week while the father attended a seminar in Chicago-and were crushed when we received no thanks after a hard week of cooking, tour-guiding and picking up toys.
The fact is, exchanging houses is a gamble. No matter how many questions you ask and pictures you receive, you’re still betting your house, your car, all your possessions and your precious vacation time on a stranger’s good will and truthfulness. And even if the exchangers mean well, accidents happen. When we got home, we found a $300 bill for a new clutch on our car, a rusted lawnmower and a broken piano pedal, pruning shears and toaster.
Believe it or not, we did do a few things right:
– Choose a spot from which you can make excursions.
We spent four days touring Denmark, which we loved, and dipped briefly into northern Germany. We drove through Sweden’s glass-blowing region and on to Oland, an island off the east coast. Each time, it was nice to return “home.” At the end of our trip, we tacked on a couple of nights in nearby Copenhagen, which became an instant favorite.
– Exchange in a country you couldn’t afford to visit otherwise.
Sweden is horribly expensive, and when we were there, a new tax had put a 25 percent hotel and restaurant tax on top of the regular 25 percent tax on consumer goods. So we bought hot dogs from street stands when we had to eat out.
– Invest some time and effort into your introductory packet.
Minnesota is a hard sell abroad. We included lots of appealing pictures and information on fun things to do in the summer-to the extent that, as I was assembling the packets, I remarked, perhaps prophetically, that we’d be crazy to leave. Next time, though, we’ll send less elaborate packets to more people; postage is expensive.
Arranging an exchange for your home and castle can be bruising. I took the time to painstakingly translate our letter into German for two families, but neither bothered to reply. The Swiss family we wrote to didn’t write back, either-but they called, late in the process, obviously after their first choices had rejected them. Another German family replied with questions; we answered them-and never heard from them again.
Despite the risk, house-swapping can be a great deal, especially for families with young children. We solicited exchanges only with other families that had children; I still can’t decide whether that was a mistake or not. Our daughter had toys to play with, but wear and tear on our house was greater because our exchange family included three children, and their harried parents had little time for keeping the place up. Yet we didn’t want to spend our vacation worried about damaging the household of a fastidious older couple.
Retired people, who have plenty of time and flexibility, the nicest homes and, often, vacation places, are naturals for house-swapping.
And yet anyone who has an intrepid spirit and a little luck ought to be able to arrange a good exchange. There are pitfalls to be avoided-but also prizes to be won.
