The Secret to Scoring a Vacation Home That’s (Practically) Free
If you’re willing to trade homes with travelers from France, Japan, even coastal California, you now have your pick from a wider, swankier array of options thanks to the house-sharing boom. Plus: A Scaredy-Cat Guide to House Swapping
SEVEN YEARS AGO, Melissa Andersen quit her corporate job in California to start a business organizing yoga retreats around the world. Pretty quickly, Ms. Andersen, now 34, realized she needed an affordable way to find accommodations and signed up for Love Home Swap, a London-based service that expedites house swaps for a small annual fee, listing places that she and her mother own in Palm Cove, Fla., and Porsgrunn, Norway. Surprisingly, she said, quite a few people were up for the switcheroo. She admits she was “a bit hesitant at the beginning—was it a set up? Would people kidnap me?” So far, she’s had no bad experiences...