Stay For Free on Your Next Holiday.
“With the recent launch of www.houseswap.co.za, paying for holiday accommodation could soon be a distant and unpleasant memory.”
So says Sarah Curtis of the husband and wife team from the Garden Route who founded House Swap South Africa.
“House swapping has been used extensively for over 50 years in Europe and America. It’s time South Africans also enjoyed the rewards and benefits of this money-saving model,” adds attorney husband, Donald.
Margaret Burrell from Port Shepstone is excited.
“Our budget for our annual vacation was no longer taking us to where we wanted to go, or for how long we wanted to stay. Now that I have created a profile on www.houseswap.co.za , I look forward to finding great matches for house swaps in SA and maybe even other places around the world.”
House swapping is simple: you invite someone to stay in your house and in exchange you stay in his/her house. It allows you to travel locally or abroad whilst staying for free. You live like a local in a real home (or apartment, log cabin or houseboat!) affording you the comfort, convenience and experience that no hotel or guesthouse ever could.
It’s really a win-win situation for both parties and the site has grown exponentially with almost 150 homes listed to date, and a 6500+ Facebook audience keeping track of new house listings. There have already been successful house swaps arranged via our website as shown by some of the feedback our members are giving us on Facebook.
“Our house swap went very well indeed. Cathy’s house in Port Alfred was a basic 3 bedroomed home that they use for their holidays. It had everything we needed to be comfortable and we particularly enjoyed their balcony with a lovely view over Port Alfred – perfect for evening drinks and braai. As we had just dropped our daughter off in Grahamstown to start her first year at University, the house was the perfect location for us to be nearby, but not too close. We were able to visit her before returning to Cape Town to make sure everything was going well and that she’d settled in. I would certainly recommend house swapping and will be keen to do in again in the near future.”
“It works on so many levels” says Thandi of Cape Town who has swapped houses within SA via the more expensive international sites. “I don’t have to put my beloved pets in the kennels, and neither do the people whose homes I stay in. You find yourself making lifelong friends in the process. Plus it saves money in subscriptions to swap locally using a local site.”
The website is geared towards helping you find your perfect swap. You can create a profile to showcase your house and search hundreds of other homes to discover an ideal destination for free.
When you’ve found potential matches you purchase a very reasonable subscription (less than the cost of a single night’s accommodation for the average family) and then contact other members via the site’s secure internal messaging system. All of your private information remains confidential so you control what and with whom you share.
“Although there are several large international house swapping websites, with over a thousand South African homes listed already, there was nothing in South Africa geared toward local swaps. For many vacationers, overseas swaps are budget-breakers when you take into account airline tickets and exchange rates” said Donald.
The average family of four could save anything from R1000,00 to R3000,00 per day on accommodation.
Visit their website at www.houseswap.co.za to find out the full details or get in touch with them at info@houseswap.co.za.
