Gone are the days of plugging our ear canals in noisy hostels or dishing out beaucoup bucks on mediocre hotels. We've discovered the manna of home exchanging and it tastes good.
We're currently on our fourth switch, in the Friuli Venezia Giulia region of Italy, after completing others in Barcelona, Paris and Budapest. This is our first exchange in a more off-the-beaten-path place, mostly because BW's ma is with us and she wanted to go "somewhere in Italy but with no tourists." So we did.
Why do home exchanges turn our crank?
1) They make us scour our flat. We clean better for visiting exchangers than we do for ourselves. As in taking-a-toothbrush-to-shower-grout better. Sparkly. And orange.
2) We've met some amazing people. Our current host, an Italian police officer who will be staying in our flat in December, took us sightseeing for a day with his family. We drove to villages we'd never have known to visit, including Portogruaro, which had a Fall festival.
3) We eat out less and source local ingredients for meals. For tonight's localvore dinner, BW made this superb plate of cacio e pepe pasta with tomato salad and par-boiled carrots, accompanied by a glass of the region's Prosecco.
We're currently on our fourth switch, in the Friuli Venezia Giulia region of Italy, after completing others in Barcelona, Paris and Budapest. This is our first exchange in a more off-the-beaten-path place, mostly because BW's ma is with us and she wanted to go "somewhere in Italy but with no tourists." So we did.
Why do home exchanges turn our crank?
1) They make us scour our flat. We clean better for visiting exchangers than we do for ourselves. As in taking-a-toothbrush-to-shower-grout better. Sparkly. And orange.
2) We've met some amazing people. Our current host, an Italian police officer who will be staying in our flat in December, took us sightseeing for a day with his family. We drove to villages we'd never have known to visit, including Portogruaro, which had a Fall festival.
3) We eat out less and source local ingredients for meals. For tonight's localvore dinner, BW made this superb plate of cacio e pepe pasta with tomato salad and par-boiled carrots, accompanied by a glass of the region's Prosecco.
4) You mingle with the natives. Exchange homes are usually in actual neighborhoods, or at least pockets of non-tourist normalcy. Chances are your host will recommend restaurants, shops and other special spots that are off the tourist-crush radar, such as those we visited with our Italian hosts in Caorle, on the Adriatic Sea.
5) You're planted in one spot and get to know it. Whereas I used to city-hop on holidays, we now bed down in a place for a week and really explore what it has to offer. Our home base for this trip, Pordenone, has dozens of nooks and crannies we've begun to poke into, like the piazza and patisserie below.
That being said, we haven't encountered slobby guests or a flea-ridden home yet. Fingers crossed this whole exchange thing continues to go as spectacularly as it has been.
Linking up with Chasing the Donkey and other Sunday Traveler friends.
