Home exchanger profile: flexible, curious, organized

"Make sure you just don't like the idea of house swapping. Complete strangers will be in your house. If you care that someone might break a dish, look through your underwear drawer, or use your spices when they cook their food, perhaps this isn't for you."

— GRETCHEN HUNSBERGER, Newburyport

"Be prepared to put work in up-front. Finding the right match takes time and figuring out the details of the exchange takes more time than booking a hotel. Each party has to want to go where the other one is, and the dates have to work out."

— LISA WEILER, Lexington

"Most visitors have only heard of the city of Boston. People who live in nearby areas should be clear about how close or far they are from Boston without claiming to be in it if they are not. They can stress proximity to transit that goes to Boston, or historical sites in their own town."

— NICOLE FEIST, blogger

"It helps to be very flexible. You can't say: I must go to Paris the first two weeks of July. Why? Because you really don't have a choice! That is, if you have your heart set on Switzerland, and none of the 16 or so property owners wants to exchange with you, you're out of luck. On the other hand, if you see exchanging as an adventure - that's how we got to the island of Syros in the Cyclades in Greece - then you have a better chance of making the exchange happen."

— SCOTT HAAS, Cambridge

"Our exchanges are mainly non-simultaneous. It allows us to exchange at any time, meaning we could have an exchanger use our home in July and we use theirs in December. For second home owners, this is ideal, as you can be more flexible with your schedules."

— KRIS STAYIN, Boston

"You not only have to prep for your travel, you also do a lot of work preparing your home and the arrangements for your exchange family. Just cleaning up every square inch including those tucked away, under the bed, back-of-closet places was a lot. I pack up financial and identity paperwork and bring it to a family member's home. The prep gets much easier after the first time."

— LAURA FOULKES, Westfield

"We found that in the home of experienced exchangers [there was] almost always a well-prepared book containing take-out menus, area attractions, emergency contact names, and numbers as well as information on the major appliances in the home. These books were indispensable resources for us."

— MEGAN POWERS, Winchester