When Grace Gagnon uploaded a video of her Boston studio to TikTok in December, asking if anyone in England would switch their apartments with hers for Christmas, she didn’t expect she would get many replies.
The 25-year-old marketing professional had been inspired by the 2006 Nancy Meyers’ rom-com The Holiday, about two women (a British character played by Kate Winslet and an American by Cameron Diaz) who trade homes for two weeks during the holidays to escape their routines and respective romantic troubles.
“It started off as a joke, really,” Gagnon says. “I loved the movie and thought, Wouldn’t it be great to do a home swap like that?”
As it turned out, others seemed to share the sentiment. In the span of a few days, Gagnon’s video went viral, gaining over 3 million views on the social media platform and making national headlines. “People from all over the world reached out, saying they’d be happy to swap,” she says. “I had messages from Scotland, Ireland, Norway, Australia, California, Mexico, Iceland…many were serious enquiries. That’s when I decided I’d go forward with it.”
Gagnon set out on a swap with 22-year-old Flo Patterson from Bath, England. “She felt like the perfect fit,” Gagnon says. “I had this immediate feeling of trust towards her. And I was right.”
The two stayed at each other’s places from New Year’s through the first week of January, crossing over briefly when Gagnon landed in the U.K. Two months on, they continue to talk regularly. “Flo has become a friend,” Gagnon says. “Her family took care of me when I was there, and my friends met her in Boston. It’s been an incredible experience. I can’t wait to do another trade now.”
She’s in good company. Over the past month, Google Trends reported a steady rise of searches related to ‘home exchange' in the U.S., with queries for ‘home exchange programs’ up 180 percent. Home exchange website Love Home Swap saw overall new trials up 65 percent in the first ten days of 2022, as compared to the year prior, with the U.S. specifically up 52 percent. Confirmed home swaps between members are already up 112 percent.
Similarly, on HomeExchange.com, another home swapping company, requests for exchanges in 2021 were up by 31 percent compared to 2020, and up 39 percent compared to 2019. The number of finalized exchanges per day was also trending upward in early February 2022, up 50 percent from 2019.
“We hit a record number of exchanges, even though this isn’t typically the time when the highest number of swaps happen, and this month [February] is on track to be even better, ” says HomeExchange CEO Emmanuel Arnaud. “The trend is definitely going upward.”
Several reasons are to be credited for this newfound popularity—including the pandemic. “Because of COVID-19, many people have become reluctant to stay in hotels, where they have to share common areas—the elevator, the lobby, the restaurant, the pool—with other guests,” Arnaud says. “Whereas if they have a whole home for themselves, they might feel more at ease, and in control of their surroundings.”
The space of a whole home is also a plus when, after two years of restrictions, many of us are using travel as a way to reconnect with family and friends, often under one roof. Home swapping lends itself well to that. “You have more space, and the opportunity to stay in a real home-away-from-home, where everyone can be together,” says Célia Pronto, managing director for Love Home Swap. “It makes for a compelling proposition.”
As with Airbnbs, there's a comfort in having your own space—especially since home exchange stays tend to be longer than standard vacation rentals, often closer to one or two weeks according to Arnaud. This has a unique appeal to people that are no longer tied to an office or the standard holiday calendar.
"For many years, Airbnb has been the great disruptor but now it is becoming the 'disruptee,'” says Jenny Southan, founder of travel forecasting agency Globetrender. “The rise of home swapping circumvents the need to rent homes, and it is ideal for people who can be flexible.”
The value is also hard to argue with. Members of home swapping platforms usually pay an annual or monthly membership to list their homes and search for potential exchanges, although signing up is often free or part of a free trial. The subscription is highly cost-effective: Love Home Swap starts at around $10 per month, HomeExchange is $175 a year (they both also have a point system that lets you earn points when another member stays in your home and you don't stay at theirs, which you can then use to travel when it’s best for you). Last fall, the latter also soft launched a luxury, invite-based offshoot, HomeExchange Collection, for owners of ‘exceptional’ homes. The annual fee: $1,000.
Other websites run equally reasonable price plans: Holiday Swap is $100 a year, Home Link International, the oldest exchange group (it started in 1953) is $140 with a free second year.
That gets you unlimited swaps and, if you travel often—which most home swappers tend to do, Pronto says—can save you thousands of dollars on each vacation. “Besides our fees, no other money ever changes hands between homeowners,” Pronto says. “It’s a straight-up exchange, and I think that’s also very appealing for our users, old and new.”
For most, though, the biggest draw might be the sense of community that comes with home swapping, and the chance to experience a new place like a local. For Debbie Kelley, a fundraiser for University of California Berkeley, those two aspects have been the main reason she’s been doing home swaps since 2006 on HomeExchange—and why others are embracing them, too.
“My family and I must have done at least 40 swaps over the past 16 years, from Ireland to Chile to California’s wine country. Each trip has truly been one-of-a-kind,” she says. “We’ve forged long-lasting friendships with the people we’ve traded with, and explored every destination as if we lived there, often thanks to our hosts’ recommendations, from their favorite bakery and restaurants to their go-to beach. And I have done the same for them. It’s so much more personal than any other way of traveling.”
Indeed, it’s quite common for people who exchange homes to share much more than just their properties. “We regularly hear of members offering their bikes, kids’ toys, gym memberships or even their cars to their guests during a swap,” says Arnaud. “Many create closed Facebook groups to stay in touch. There’s a genuine openness, and a desire to make people feel welcome—and to reciprocate that hospitality.”
Arnaud himself has often had swappers leave him gifts after a stay in his Paris home. “Once, a family from Madrid even left a book for my children, with a note saying it was from their kids, as a thank you for letting them borrow their toys. That’s the kind of relationship people form.”
And, as we ease out of the pandemic, it might just be what travelers are after.