She’s been all over the world in 80 holidays.
Lizzi Seear, 51, claims she’s toured 84 countries over the past six years together with her partner, Alun Westoll, 52 — and he or she’s only paid for airfare.
Seear said she was used to discounted accommodations working for IHG Hotels & Resorts, but after switching jobs, she looked for a latest method to vacation on the low-cost.
Cue HomeExchange. The web site boasts listings across the globe with an annual membership that starts at $175 a yr. There are a slew of homes to remain in for no additional cost — the one catch is that you simply swap your private home with the owner of your vacation destination.
“I’ve stayed in some amazing places including a two-week stay in Bali,” Seear told the Sun. “I got to remain in a personal two-bed villa in Bali that had its own private pool and a housekeeper who got here with breakfast every morning.”
“It was an actual pinch-me moment since the whole trip only cost us £400 for the flights,” added Seear, who also revealed she’d traveled to Italy, Spain, Finland, Hungary and Germany.
HomeExchange is a substitute for the favored rental service Airbnb, which has fallen into hot water with NYC officials. The app not only successfully elbowed its way into the housing market and hurt hotels’ earnings, but additionally has some critics blaming it for contributing to the town’s housing crisis.
In January, latest crackdowns targeting the short-term rental site went into effect, barring hosts from renting out an “entire registered dwelling unit” and requiring them to also provide proof of everlasting residence in addition to diagrams and leases. Failure to comply with the brand new regulations could cost hosts as much as $5,000, with Airbnb fined $1,500 per violation.
Seear said she was hesitant to list her unit on Airbnb, explaining she felt higher about HomeExchange due to the “trust” between fellow travelers who’re within the “same situation.”
She said she’s accommodated 48 visitors at her home in Ealing, West London, over six years, recalling the primary time guests ever stayed there was “the weirdest thing,” despite them being “lovely people.”
During times when she was away for work and desired to rent out her home in lieu of a swap, the positioning allowed her to rack up exchange “points” to make use of at a later date. Now, not only does she travel to tourist hotspots — Barcelona is her favorite — she also tries to go to hidden gems.
“I began Baden-Baden in Germany and thought that the Black Forest looked really beautiful,” she said. “We stayed in a very beautiful home, which was a 10-minute walk from the [town] center and right within the black forest.”
The Vodafone worker encourages people to check out house swapping, reassuring reluctant travelers that it’s “not concerning the size, or the placement” of their home. Just “so long as you’ve got a snug bed and clear some space within the wardrobe,” that’s what matters.
“I went to a flat in Bologna, which looked prefer it hadn’t been dusted for a month,” she divulged. “We kept our stuff inside our suitcases, but we were only 10 minutes outside central Bologna.”
“People have to take advantage of what they’ve,” she added. “Your house doesn’t should be large or spacious or in London since you never know where people need to stay.”
HomeExchange seems straight out of the enduring 2006 rom-com “The Holiday” — by which Cameron Diaz’s character swaps homes with a British journalist played by Kate Winslet — and manages to search out small-town love.
An unlikely pair even shared the same meet-cute via the HomeExchange website in 2021, when a Latest York woman switched homes with a Londoner and met her British Prince Charming. But she reported in December she is not any longer with the person.
The 2 women who swapped homes, nevertheless, forged a friendship from the experience.
“Neither of us remains to be with the person we met: Despite grand plans, the stretch of the Atlantic was a greater power than the sizzle of the romantic connection I discovered,” Lizzie Frainier wrote within the Telegraph. “But one way or the other my friendship with Camille grew stronger because the months ticked on.”
