After five years of home exchanges, with twenty exchanges made through Homeexchange.com under our belt, and having saved over $37,000 while vacationing, we now find ourselves returning to favorite locations, as well as continuing to visit and explore new destinations. This adds another benefit to home exchanging - returning to a city, or even a home, you already know and with which you feel very comfortable. We don't waste time trying to figure out where the best restaurants, stores, and golf courses are, and are able to jump right into a vacation knowing what we want to do and where we want to go once we arrive.
Welcome Back To Scottsdale, Arizona
We had stayed in in Scottsdale a year ago when we went to watch our daughter play waterpolo for the San Francisco Olympic Club in a masters tournament held at Arizona State University, and decided this year to return to watch the team play again, as well as to enjoy a few days of desert golf. Since Scottsdale is a very spread out community we decided to try a different area this time and found this gorgeous desert home located about twenty minutes from the ASU pool, and close to numerous golf courses. This home, unlike the one we exchanged for last year which was a second home, was Lynda and her husband's primary residence. We have always tried to stay away from primary residence exchanges as they seem more difficult to coordinate and sometimes seem cluttered and inappropriate for an exchange. However, we could not have been more wrong about Lynda's beautiful home! I felt like I was in a luxury resort with elegant decore, an amazing back yard with pool and spa, an outdoor living room, and views out over the desert.
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| Just One Of The Little Spots To Enjoy A Good Book In This Lovely Desert Oasis
Linda and her husband thoroughly enjoyed their week at our home in Lake Tahoe, skiing and playing in the snow, while we enjoyed their Arizona sunshine for the week. We have even agreed to make this a repeat exchange next year. We have come to thoroughly enjoy the Scottsdale area, having surprisingly fallen in love with the desert, and are looking forward to making this an anual trip without having to buy a home there to enjoy it!
A Return Trip To The Palm Springs Area 
We love to golf, and many of our vacations are centered around playing at beautiful golf courses. We decided to return to the Palm Springs area again after having exchanged for a wonderful place last year in La Quinta, located right on the PGA West Golf Course. I contacted the owner of that home again to inquire about another exchange, but unfortunately he had sold the home, so we looked for another place in the desert to make an exchange. We found a home in the community of Rancho Mirage in a gated subdivision, but not on a golf course. It proved to be large and very comfortable, but certainly not up to the same standards as the one we had stayed at the previous year. This home is used mainly as a rental property, so, like other rental homes we have exchanged for in the past, it did not have the personal details and care that a vacation home or a main home has.
Even though the home was not quite what we expected, we enjoyed a lovely week of golf at some spectacular golf courses, such as Silverrock in La Quinta and the JW Marriott Desert Springs Resort Golf Course in Rancho Mirage, and look forward to returning to the area next year to play these courses again, without having to buy a home of own in the desert.
Returning To Our Favorite Exchange On Balboa Island
Last year we exchanged for a charming cottage on Balboa Island in Orange County, California which has proven to be our very favorite exchange so far. We were in Orange County for a week looking at wedding venues for my son's wedding to be held there in June of 2012, and Maria and her husband, who live in their Balboa cottage full time, spent two weeks in our ocean view condo in Costa Rica, telling us we could return when ever we wished to spend another week at their home. We decided to take them up on their offer and will be returning next month to spend a week there during the actual wedding celebrations in Orange County. I can't wait to return to this special home on such a unique island in Southern California. I already know that I can walk one block to Starbucks, two blocks for an amazing Italian dinner, drive over the bridge into all of the shopping centers of Orange County, take the ferry over to the beach, take a long morning stroll around the complete island, and sit on my front patio while chatting with the friendly neighbors. Feels like I'm coming home!
Some things I have learned after making twenty home exchanges:
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