Digital Nomad Life – Why Swap Houses

Digital nomad life is now a thing. Home swapping holidays are on the rise, and here’s why it is such a good idea.

I went to Portugal for a holiday several years ago. When we got there, the Algarve was its spectacular self. The area is jaw-dropping and worth the long uncomfortable flight. But the holiday apartment sucked.

The sunbeds had been claimed by mysterious ownerless towels from 6 a.m., so there wasn’t anywhere to sit by the pool. Most of the towel owners were at the bar, drunk, not even using their sun beds. There was one shop in the area; it sold imported sugary cereals and other things we were trying to get away from.

The kitchen in the apartment lacked just about everything except a fridge and a dodgy hob. There was no Wi-Fi. The TV only had one channel, so we watched Judge Judy for two weeks. Not having basic life comforts – despite the accommodation being billed as 4-star – made life difficult.

The adult entertainment was worse. It consisted of one of the day cleaners doing a Tina Turner act at night in the appalling restaurant – every night. It was simply the best. Not. I thought to myself, there has to be a better way! And there was – home swapping.

FRANCE

I always wanted to go to France. I put the word out and someone from Montpellier replied. And there’s the first good reason why a swap is a great way to go. When you are offered a swap, you consider destinations that you would never consider otherwise.

It would never have occurred to us to have a holiday in Montpellier. There weren’t many tourists there, at all; we were unusual. In fact, we were the only English speakers on the beach. French people asked us where we were from and if we were having a nice time! We were!

We not only swapped houses, but we also swapped cars too. Getting on their insurance policy and vice versa was easy and quick. The Frenchies left their car at the airport for us, and the keys at the ‘left luggage’ desk.

We did the same at our airport. There is usually a ‘left luggage’ desk in every airport where you can leave a package for someone. It only ever costs 5 dollars or similar.

We stayed in touch with the Frenchies via WhatsApp for things like where they parked their car, and to help them work out where our car was. It worked seamlessly.

Digital Nomad On the Road

Once on the road (driving on the right!) we found the house in Montpellier with no problems. And you don’t have to pay wild data fees to navigate yourself in a foreign country. You can now download your route on Google Maps before you go. And even with your data switched off, the pre-loaded maps simply use GPS to navigate you. Yes, using the voice and all! And it’s free (everyone’s favourite price!). 

We arrived to find a house in suburban Montpellier with a pool. The house was close to beaches, one of which was a national park. The couple we swapped with also left us a guide for things to see in the area. This is stuff that never once came up on a Google search in English.

The local activities were wild. We saw 14th Century villages where the locals swim in the river and slide down weirs like a waterslide and sit at the riverfront in restaurants eating bouillabaisse, avoiding wasps who were trying to steal their food.

The holiday only cost us the price of the flights. Free accommodation, plus a free car shaved thousands off the price. Local French food was so cheap I felt guilty handing so little money over.

So there’s the second reason to swap. The money factor. You save thousands without any comfort sacrifice. The comfort factor is in fact better. We had Wi-Fi in the evening. This is often promised in hotels but not always delivered.

Digital nomad life – Other comforts

On the night we stayed in, we watched a Netflix movie and drank glorious French wine (€3 a bottle!).

That’s the third reason to swap: you have all the comforts of home while on holiday. There are more reasons. Usually, when we are on holiday, we ask a relative to stay in our house, or at least check it every few days. It felt good to know my house was being looked after the whole holiday.

Swappers can also feed pets while you are away too. After the holiday, we arrived back to find our house spotless, like no one had been in it since we were away. I was hooked.

SPAIN

Digital nomad life called again and we swapped again to Bilbao in Spain after that. We ended up in an apartment in the Old Town. The city was fantastic. The Spanish people we swapped with told us about a spectacular waterfall that does not appear anywhere on the internet in English. It was in rural Basque country.

So off we went, in their car that we had swapped with our own. The waterfall was insane. We were the only tourists there, nobody spoke English at all, and it was fantastic. This waterfall was like something from a shampoo commercial. I’ll remember it for the rest of my life.

And that is another reason to swap: access to local knowledge that you can’t get on the internet. Usually, the swappers have a “house pack” with all the information you need to have a great stay. The vast majority of this stuff doesn’t appear anywhere in English. It’s a goldmine of experiences you won’t see on TripAdvisor.

SWEDEN

Christmas in Sweden! Frances, an Australian woman living in Stockholm, and married to a Swede, wanted to have a different kind of Christmas, a hot one! She said she hated hotels. “All you do in a hotel is sit on the bed and watch the TV.” She’s right.

Frances used our car. She didn’t have a car in Stockholm, because the public transport is so epic. But she bought us passes to the public transport systems in the city for our family which we used in an unlimited fashion. She also lived across the road from a free, publicly-funded outdoor ice-skating rink – and she had a house full of skates. Digital nomad life rules!

We spent Christmas day ice skating outdoors, and in fact they skated every day, something you don’t do on the Gold Coast! Christmas is celebrated on Christmas Eve in Stockholm – Santa comes knocking at the door with a bag of presents (he usually runs off after knocking, leaving the gifts!).

The neighbours all knock for each other and quickly go back into their own apartments. And we joined in on this deception with other families in the apartment building (pretty much everyone in Sweden speaks English). And there’s the most appealing reason to swap: genuine cultural exchange. You get to live the local culture, rather than a twee version of it in a hotel or apartment.

Iceland  

This is one of the most expensive countries in the world to visit. But, because we swapped houses and cars, all we paid for was the flights. And, we stayed for 10 days, while most people only stay for four days due to the cost of simply existing there. You get so much more bang for your buck when you house swap.

I can’t even begin to explain to you about how epic Iceland is.

Digital Nomad Swaps

As well as homes and cars, digital nomad life means you can also trade other services like gym memberships and private memberships to local clubs like golf and tennis.

You don’t need a fabulous house to swap to a fabulous location. You can have a one-bed apartment in the depths of nowhere and still swap mercilessly. Most of mainland Europeans and Scandinavians live in apartments these days and prefer this style of accommodation.

While someone with a one-bed at the Gold Coast might not get an offer of a swap to a 5-bed Swiss Chalet, you never know your luck. Someone might need your apartment for reasons other than a cultural experience.  

I met an English lady whose daughter lived on the Gold Coast and was about to give birth. This soon-to-be grandmother just wanted a small apartment near the hospital. She herself had a 5-bed mansion in London and just wanted someone to feed her cats and collect her mail while she was gone. The swap she arranged worked out really well for everyone involved.

The world is your oyster. It’s a community of collaborators. But I warn you, once you start, you cannot stop, it will be a way of life for you forever more. ■