Tip 135: Apartment swap for holidays

Paris is one of the most expensive cities to go on holiday. Besides the high cost of accomodation, you will be tempted to splurge on good French restaurants, nice patisserie at every street corner, entrance fees into nice museums and palaces or even to go up the Eiffel Tower via lift. Though, every single money spent gives you the highest satisfaction into the romantic world of Paris. Yet, you could save quite a lot if you do an apartment swap. Then, you could stay a little longer and take your time to enjoy the sights, cover more attractions and soak in the ambience. I am glad I did just that and could afford to spend 6 days of stay in Paris. I was then in London and another French executive who make frequent trips to London was wanting to have an apartment exchange with a reliable trustable person. We invested trust in another human being and gained in both having not to pay a single rent. Assuming USD$200 per night, both of us have saved a combined USD$2000! All it takes is a leap of trust and some basic tips to search for like minded individuals and check their credentials. So daddy felt a little more relaxed to splurge on restaurants and French wine, knowing he has also saved much on the cheapest train fare.















There is an idiom, "penny wise pound foolish". It is true that many times when we try to save the little, we end up risking to lose much more. For instance, inexperienced people who do apartment swaps face the risk of being cheated by hoards of online scammers. In fact, I found a few in the process as well and can share my experience and how best to go about trusting people you have not met on the internet. Firstly, to do an apartment swap, you need to use various internet community website such as gumtree or craigslist or apartment swap websites. Some websites that specialize in this task, would even allow the netizens who have done an apartment swap to rate the people and apartment they have encountered. Then, you need to be communicating with the owner of the property. Especially for European apartments, there are a host of online scammers who would post beautiful apartment photos they do not own. They would then ask you to transfer money into their account as a deposit. Most apartment swaps do not collect deposits. They do it based on trust and common sense. Some may ask you to sign a document to accept liability of anything damaged. But, others simply rely on the other to pay up if they have spent any considerable amounts. So just stay away from people who are seeking to receive money in return else just pay a legitimate hotel. Next, ask for the person's work email or work/personal website to validate his identity. This would give you some security that the person has a valid job and is generally a responsible person. The final thing is to have a back up plan. If the swap does not work, at least you know where to book your alternative accomodation plans. That way you have nothing to lose if the person does not turn up or the apartment turns out to be less than desirable compared to the photos. It seems like a hassle, but you could end up with a good experience no hotel could offer for the price of just trust and some enthusiasm. I got oriented on my trip by a local French person with good restaurant recommendations and had the same on a different apartment swap when staying for 2 days at Oxford.















Any of you done an apartment swap before? Any positive or negative experiences to share?















(Photos show the many sights at Eiffel Tower on clear blue skies. Its simply not just another tower like Tokyo Tower. Photos show views from the first and second level which offers different stunning vantage points of Parc Du Champ De Mars and Jardins Du Trocadero. Also the long queue to enter and the lift experience being a slanting diagonal ride).