Does anyone have any experience with a vacation home exchange? We would like to exchange our vacation home for one in Italy in June and would like to get input from anyone re: the good vs. the bad experiences. Any input or suggestions would be appreciated.

Glo, I haven't done this yet but am exploring it as well. Have you already agreed on a swap with someone? How did you find your exchange. I've looked at home-exchange and igougo.diggsville. I'd be interested in hearing what you find out. Where is the home you are trading?

Hello,<BR>A friend of a friend told me about hmelink.com and thought that it was a good webpage. All the agencies out there want you to pay a fee before posting your home. We haven't decided on which agency to use yet. We have a house in Sonoma, CA. It's a house in a neighborhood, not a vineyard, but it has a pool and spa, is 10 min. away from Sonoma square, and near many vineyards, restaurants.

Sorry, the webpage is Homelink.com.

Sounds like you have a good place for attracting an exchange. You can search properties free on the two sites I mentioned, but if you want to post yours there's a fee. I would check out the properties available before I committed to one site. And I'd do some corresponding with the trading party before I made the exchanges. <BR><BR>Good luck!

I had a good experience finding a home exchange through homelink.com. I tried a couple of the free ones but the exchanges fell through -- apparently, the fee serves partly to ensure that the posters are serious!<BR><BR>If you search the Fodors boards for past discussions of home exchanges, you'll probably find seveal of the long old threads.

Please help. Homelink.com is a home security webpage by Johnson Controls. Could it be something else?

Eight years ago my husband and I went through www.intervac.com and exchanged our Seattle home and car with a couple from Holland. It was a lot of work writing up letters (in those days when email was an infant) but in the end we loved it and had a great time. We haven't done it since because our house now is way out in the country, but my parents exchanged with a couple in England that year and also had a good experience. <BR> <BR>Intervac publishes a catalog several times a year that you can either buy, or list your home in and then you receive the catalogs as well. We also met some wonderful friends this way who offered to have us stay with them even though we couldn't exchange at the time. I've spoken with many people who have gone through Intervac and haven't heard a single negative thing about the company; maybe because once your house is listed their responsibility ends. Whichever company you end up going through, have a great time!

The webpage is Homelink.org.