marvin kestenbaum

Author: marvin kestenbaum ([email protected]) <BR>Date: 8/27/2001, 1:53 pm ET <BR> <BR>Message: I am planning to exchange homes in England for 3 weeks next summer, I am looking for the a most strategic location. It should be no more than 6o miles outside of London. This way my wife and I can tour the country side by car,and go into London, as we please. Oxford would seem to be a good choice, as it is near London, Bath and Cardiff. Your thoughts would be appreciated

John

I would tend to go with Cambridge and nearby parts of East Anglia. Less touristy, plenty of points of interest, convenient train to London or north. If Cardiff is important to you, though, not as convenient.

Lauren

Home exchange is my balliwick as I have done it 22 times. I have had 4 exchanges in the UK. You MUST have an elastic idea of where you would be content to locate. Please remember getting a fixed idea of staying in one location may mean no exchange. <BR> <BR>You will never get an exchange in London near all the tourist sites. That is where the big hotels are. You are more likely to find an exchange in the suburbs. Please note that, if a car is included with your exchange, it is much easier to drive around to sites in the countryside if you are located in the suburbs. <BR> <BR>I have exchanged outside of London in Staines once (not a garden spot but we still had a fun time, Scarborough in North Yorkshire and twice in and around Edinburgh to enjoy The Festivals. <BR> <BR>I have also done European exchanges in Montmorency (north of Paris), Nancy & Tours in France and in St. Georgen (Black Forest), Hamburg, and Berlin, Germany. <BR> <BR>The rest of my exchanges have been in the US and Canada. Feel free to email me with questions about this fun and inexpensive way to have a terrific holiday.

Joanne

I just got back from a 3-week exchange with a family from Finchley in northern London. <BR> <BR>During the middle week, we drove out to the countryside, spending 2 nights each in 3 B&B's -- in Stratford, Hay-on-Wye, and Bath. This was of course less economical than spending every night in the exchange house, but minimized the time spent driving about. <BR> <BR>If you plan to spend much of your time in London, the commuting cost could add up fast, relative to staying in a suburban part of London (as we did) and then staying in (relatively) cheap B&B's when you want to go afield. But if you really do want to mostly visit Cardiff, Bath, etc., then your strategy of staying in the Oxford area makes sense; we considerred that strategy ourselves. <BR> <BR>At the risk of making things more complicated, I would strongly advise that you try to exchange with a family that has a car with an automatic transmission. Dealing with a left-handed gear shift as well as left-side-of-the-road driving is just too much for many people. <BR>

Lauren

Most people in Europe do not have automatic gearshifts in their cars. <BR> <BR>In doing a home exchange, the more flexible you are, the more likely you will end up with a satisfactory deal. I would never restrict myself to targeting just one place or insisting on an automatic gearshift. A left hand manual gearshift only takes a couple of days to master. The trick is to start out slowly. After a day or two, it will seem totally natural.

Joanne

Lauren, I understand that of course flexibility helps, but many people have had more trouble with English standard transmissions than you might realize. After all, many people aren't even used to any standard transmission at all! <BR> <BR>Although flexibility obviously helps, I had no trouble finding my London-automatic-transmission-4-bedrooms-no-pets exchange, even though I didn't start looking until March. One can always start out aiming high and then get more flexible if necessary. <BR> <BR>Actually, I think that the key determinant in finding an exchange is the location of the house you're offering in exchange, which of course is something that most of us can't do anything about!