Fear of home exchange Blonde is planning to exchange her home in Florida for one somewhere that isn't Florida. Ideally she will be able to spend a month or so on another continent in 2016 and not incur any expenses for her lodging. And no, the plan is not to meet people in bars or bus stations and just sleep around. (Why do we have to talk about the 70s anyway?) However, … [Read more...]
Search Results for: home exchange
Home Exchange – Wish we knew then what we know now
Don't we all! For one thing we wouldn't have married the men we did. Whoops - got off topic - sorry! This is supposed to be about our home exchange experience! Late last year Blonde listed her (then) Boston home on HomeExchange.com . A fellow blogger had convinced her to take the plunge. The process is like Match.com. You put a picture of your home looking better than it ever … [Read more...]
A home exchange and a flatulent turtle in Madrid
After 5 weeks in Spain Blonde and Brunette were fairly bedraggled. We'd had a wonderful time but had also had many frustrations, not every single one of which was our fault. Maybe. We had arranged to exchange Blonde's condo in Boston for both a condo in Spain on the lovely Costa Brava and a home, from the same family, in Madrid. We knew the home in Madrid was in the suburbs … [Read more...]
Home Exchange – Why didn’t I do this years ago?
For a good 10 years Blonde has contemplated the idea of doing a home exchange in order to travel more cheaply (financially, she's already quite cheap morally ) and stay longer in one place (sounds sexual too). But contemplating and actually doing it never got together (home exchange, that is) until meeting Nola of NewTakeTravel at the TBEX bloggers' conference in Girona, Spain … [Read more...]
Home Exchange? Home Away?
For several years Blonde has been "planning" to do a home exchange. This planning has entailed thinking that it would be really cool if someone with a fabulous place contacted Blonde and said "we would be honored to have you come stay at our castle in the glorious location you've been dreaming of and in return can we maybe sleep at your place in Boston one night"? Blonde would … [Read more...]
Calella de Palafrugell; a seaside jewel on the Costa Brava in Spain
We spent 9 weeks on the Costa Brava in Spain in less than a year. We explored, and were charmed by, many of the seaside towns. Our absolute favorite was Calella de Palafrugell. It's understated posh (meaning people who are there must have money but don't flaunt it), small and so easy to navigate that even Brunette could kind of find her way around after 3 weeks. … [Read more...]
3 free fun things to do in Barcelona
Barcelona is the favorite city of both Blonde and Brunette and one reason is that, although there's no shortage of interesting places with high admission fees, there is also a good selection of free (and legal) things to do. The nightly music and light shows at The Magic Fountains top our list of attractions. On our last visit to Barcelona we stayed in the Sants-Montjuïc … [Read more...]
2013 in review – no wonder we’re tired!
It was a dark and stormy night. No wait, it was a bright and sunny day and Blonde and Brunette were out and about on a dolphin-delight wave runner tour of the Everglades with Captain Ron's. Brunette had purchased a condo on Marco Island, Florida in the summer of 2012 and this was her first official snow-bird winter. Simultaneous with Brunette's fun-sucking husband getting onto … [Read more...]
Valencia: Slightly quirky, very hot and with much to offer (like us)
When Blonde and Brunette began to plan our home exchange trip to Spain we wanted to throw in a few extra destinations. Much consternation ensued as to how to get from place to place with one firm decision being that we would drive from Calella to Valencia. At least until we found out that sounded tedious. Then we switched to taking a high speed train - which we missed by two … [Read more...]
Places we’ve loved: Akureyri, Iceland
Blonde was fortunate enough to win a trip to Iceland courtesy of SadCars. Brunette has a highly uncooperative respiratory system that would clearly have gone on strike in the chilly climate of Iceland. Luckily we have a third "honorary" sister, "Pinky". (OK "Pinky" refers to {some of} her hair color. You should respectfully think of her as Nola of NewTake Travel but we … [Read more...]