A thrifty couple have found a clever way to save hundreds of pounds on holidays – by trading their home with strangers instead of paying for hotels.
Marguerite Kiely and her partner Oliver Bond have turned to home swapping to explore new destinations on a budget.
The couple, from West Cork, Ireland, first heard about the idea from a friend who had travelled the world with the same method.
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So far, they have completed three successful swaps.
Guests fall in love with the Irish pair’s one-of-a-kind property – adoring feeding the hens, collecting eggs and relaxing by the pool in their polytunnel.
“It’s impossible to say exactly but we’ve certainly [saved] hundreds of euros per trip,” Marguerite told What’s The Jam.
“I think possibly the most surprising thing has been seeing the reaction of people to our home.
“Living in a little rain-soaked corner of Ireland with lots of cows, fields and little else to look at, I didn’t really think anybody would actually want to stay in our part of the world.
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“But it turns out they do.
“It’s been lovely to hear people’s reactions and to see our home through their eyes.”
Having already rented their house out on Airbnb in the past, the couple joined a home swapping platform last summer.
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At first, editorial designer Marguerite tried to arrange a swap in Bergen, Norway, where she’d lived as a teenager, but no one was interested.
So the 47-year-old switched to Berlin, a city she’d always wanted to visit – and quickly found a match.
When the couple headed to the city, a family from Barcelona stayed in their home in a non-reciprocal swap.
Non-reciprocal swaps work through a point system where each home is assigned a value per night.
Hosts earn or spend these points, allowing them to stay in another member’s home at a different time or location, giving much more flexibility than a direct swap.
On a separate occasion, a family-of-four from Brooklyn, NYC, also stayed in their property and even sent updates about their cat, Meowiscles.
Another family also stayed in their Irish home while the pair were travelling in France.
During their time in Berlin, the couple spent countless hours cycling around the city.
Their temporary apartment was close to Mauerpark, built on a former section of the Berlin Wall’s no-man’s-land, where they browsed the bustling Sunday flea market full of clothes stalls and local traders.
Marguerite said: “If we’d stayed in a typical hotel, we probably wouldn’t have seen Mauerpark or explored our East Berlin neighbourhood.”
Before their first exchange, the couple spent days getting their home ready for guests.
Oliver repainted the entire exterior while Marguerite spent three days scrubbing the inside from top to bottom until it was spotless.
The couple say home swapping, which they book through the platform HomeExchange, works because it’s based on trust.
Marguerite said: “Home swapping is built on trust, everyone who joins has to trust others.
“You are opening up your home to others, hoping they will look after it, and likewise, all the other home exchanges are doing the same.
“Everyone who joins has skin in the game and it works to everybody’s advantage when you care and respect somebody else’s home, and they do the same for you.”
So far, their experiences have been overwhelmingly positive, though they’ve had the odd hiccup along the way.
The pair accidentally broke one owner’s coffee machine after putting beans in the wrong chute, leading to a frantic Sunday search for repair shops.
But it hasn’t put them off.
The pair say the savings and experiences are well worth it, and they now dream of organising a swap in California – somewhere they’d never normally be able to afford.
Marguerite added: “If you don’t want people sleeping in your bed or opening your bathroom drawer, it may not be for you.
“But if you would like to travel, see places you may never otherwise have seen, stay in neighbourhoods you wouldn’t have otherwise stayed and save yourself significant amounts of cash, give it a whirl.
“What’s the worst that could happen?
“In my experience, just a broken coffee machine.”
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