LaurenKahn1

If you refuse to include a car, I, for one, will not exchange with you. In fact, most long distance exchanges include the cars.

I cannot say there have not been problems with exchange vehicles, but they are not the norm. If driving (and I drove about 6-7,000 kilometers during my recent trip to Australia and NZ), I am much quicker to stop for the night in a borrowed car than I would be with my own.

Recently my NZ exchangers were hit in a parking lot when someone backed into them. They repaired the car and paid the deductible (which is always discussed at both ends before the exchange). I still need to call the insurance company to tie up a couple of loose ends. It was a hassle, but it could have happened to me in a parking lot in NZ. With everything online these days, I was able to see the damage to the car half a world away and email the insurer to assure them my exchangers had permission to drive the car, etc. The insurance company refused to pay for the rental car for the exchangers while the car was repaired. I paid for a piece of that in recognition that they had paid the deductible. I am not about to get involved with nickle and dimeing people and end up leaving my exchangers feeling hostile.

The more things you insist upon when swapping, the fewer deals you will get. I will not do pet care aside from throwing fish food in a tank and flushing dead fish down the toilet. However, I insist on the exchange of cars. Most of the time everything goes smoothly.

Jayne11159

The operative phrase is "most of the time everything goes smoothly". Because if is doesn't and your "tenants" seriously injure or kill someone in your car, you will pay dearly. If loaning my car is the deal breaker than I'll gladly pay for hotels. My husband had an elderly client who lost everything because they let someone borrow their car and they caused an accident with serious bodily injury. IMO, it's just not worth the worry when rental cars are relatively inexpensive especially if you aren't paying for hotels.

annetti

Hi Jayne and Lauren:

Exchanges are very individual. What works for one person will not work for another. I just don't do car exchanges. It has not been a free ride for us. I, also don't do pet care, since my husband has allergies. I, also only exchange with couples or singles, since my home is small, so you can see it gets more restrictive and more restrictive when we do home exchanges. In fact, we recently added another restriction. We pick places with good public transportation since both of us are fatigued with the daily commute/travel here in Southern California. It is sheer luxury for us to let someone else manage the driving and not worry about finding parking.

With all these restrictions in place, we have found an exchange each year. We have exchanged with Australia, France, Germany, Switzerland, and Canada with NO car exchange. We have another exchange tentatively planned for Philadelphia, again with no car exchange planned. Some of these people have had cars, and some have not, but they were okay with the "no car deal." Sure, we have missed out on wonderful exchange opportunities, just recently two exchanges in Victoria and Toronto disappeared when they realized we were not flexible on the car exchange part, but since we are pretty flexible on where we go, we still have plenty of opportunities. We have decided that if we are not comfortable with an exchange for whatever reason, it just does not make sense to do the exchange.

And I agree with you, Jayne it is not worth the aggravation and possiblitity of problems. I suppose, I worry too much, and worrying should NOT be part of my vacation when I am trying to enjoy myself. I still remember the midnight knock on our door in England when our home exchangers' neighbors told us our home exchangers had not been able to contact us since we had been gone for a few days, and that our car was severly damaged 600 or so miles from our home. Talk about hassles. It ruined our vacation and three trips to the body shop at home really inconvenienced us, not to mention the hassles with our insurance agents, the other insurance agents, police reports,car rentals, and the unpleasantness of our home exchangers, too. It was not a pretty picture. Lauren, I know it works for many people and they are fine with it, but for 4/6 of our first 6 exchanges, there were some accidents or car problems. It was not hassle-free. Good luck to everyone involved and best of luck in planning your exchanges, however you do them.

annetti

Coincidentally as I wrote the above, I checked my e-mail soon after and we just received a home exchange offer from Toronto that was pleased to note that we did not want a car exchange, so there are plenty of people out there, though again I note not as many that insist on car exchanges, but plenty of people who prefer not to exchange cars as part of the deal.

danon

here are plenty of people out there, though again I note not as many that insist on car exchanges,..."

WE had both. Because we like big cities (and European countries have great public transit), we often used their car much less or not at all ( in UK and Ireland).
I would say it has been half and half .
This year we have had 4 ( no-sim) exchanges, all from major European cities - only one couple wanted a car.

annetti

Hi Danon, Great to hear that your home exchanges have not always depended on a car exchange, although I do think that non- simultaneous exchanges rely less heavily on people's expectations that a car will be part of the deal.

It was our second Australian exchangers that pushed us towards the no car exchange policy, when they declined our auto exchange offer. We realized how relaxed we were on that holiday without the car exchange and that was the beginning of the end of car exchanges for us.

On a couple of exchanges, Lyon and Frankfurt, we rented cars, being from a car oriented state such as California, we thought we would have to have one for outlying areas even if we did not need one in the city, but we found we let the rental cars languish in the home exchangers' garages and used public transit instead, so we don't bother arranging car rentals beforehand and have instead purchased eurorail passes. What a pleasure that has been for us. Another bonus of not using cars is the isolation factor is cut down. We have met a lot of people this way and have gotten some good travel tips along the way.

danon

I" do think that non- simultaneous exchanges rely less heavily on people's expectations that a car will be part of the deal.'


could be. We have two properties : one is right in the center of downtown - car exchange usually not required, and another in the country - the car is needed to get around.

As I said, even when we had the car available (Vienna, Paris, Oxford, Dublin, Edinburgh)we found it , like you, more relaxing not to drive.
We did drive to visit nearby places when we exchanged with Nice , San Remo and Denver.
I don't think we ever asked anyone for the car exchange.

LaurenKahn1

I don't have a second home and therefore only do simultanous exchanges (swapping my regular house, not a vacation property). The only exceptions to my no car/no deal rule is if the exchange is downtown in a large city or I am driving to my exchange location and take my own car.

In all my 37 exchanges I can think of only one (aside from the ones where both parties drove to the exchange) where I did not get a car. That one was in Rome and we were on a fairly central bus line. Even when I am in a large city, a car makes it possible to do side trips more easily (if you are not initmidated by the driving) than negotiating public transportation because the house is often in the suburbs if it is near a city and not downtown.

I just, by the way, drove 6-7,000 kilometers in Australia and New Zealand.

annetti

"I just, by the way, drove 6-7,000 kilometers in Australia and New Zealand."

That's another reason, I don't do car exchanges, since we live in California and the distances can be vast, people drove an inordinate amount of miles in our cars, visiting San Francisco, Las Vegas, the Grand Canyon, Palms Springs, local driving as well,sometimes all in 5 weeks. Our cars felt tired and old after the ordeal.

LaurenKahn1

What is the point of a home exchange if it is not to see the sights? To sit in the house?

I do not put any limits on my car. Some have driven it quite a bit, most have not because I live in suburban Washington, DC. Since I am driving their car, the risk is mutual. The fact that they are using your stuff while you use theirs is your insurance.

Fine, you do your exchange with rental cars and I will do mine with a car swap. I don't expect my exchangers want to spend their holiday locked into my house looking at its four walls. I expect them to tour. Some locations require driving and some do not. How much I drive or don't depends on where I swap. Please remember those 6-7,000 kilometers occurred during 3 back-to-back swaps and two months. In Europe I generally drive about 3,000 kilometers on a one month trip, so Australia/New Zealand was about the same.

You sound like someone who really is not made for home exchanging. Insofar as I am concerned, I want my swappers to have a good time. You are not exchanging just homes but hospitality as well.

My exchangers drove my car about 2,000 miles while I was gone, by the way, but I have had deals where I drove less than they did. When I did not get the car in Rome (they did not have one), I included my car anyway. Without a car it would have been difficult for my exchangers to have a good time at my place.