GuestPoints in HomeSwapping and how they work | #112
More adventures in HouseSwapping
New readers, please start here 👈
💚 Digital Nomad Stories is a publication + community aimed at those who travel + remote work. If you enjoy it, please become a founding member for only €45.00 per year. Then you’ll get access to full archive, mid-week community threads and the friendly comment section. Note: Content may contain affiliate links.
Edition #112 coming live from Spain.
👋 Howdy loyal readers, hope everyone is keeping well!?
Thanks for opening this edition and swinging by! Nice to see you here.
I am back to work and writing after a nice long holiday break visiting family in Bali. Taking a very decent almost 3 week break there. Followed by some WFA from the many beautiful cafes in Sanur, Bali.
Hold your horses, this edition is not however about Bali as a Digital Nomad destination, nope, as lots and lots can be found on the tinterweb on that topic. Also, for me, Bali is somewhere - that I am not too keen to write on - as I have seen it’s decline over the decades and focus my efforts and travel time there, when I can, on visiting Lombok and other parts of Indonesia.
What it is about is my ongoing adventures to reduce our travel costs down as far as possible in 2024, with a focus on GuestPoints.
My cost savings approach has 3 pillars:
Reducing travel costs via Long Stays:
A €50 lodging + food per day in the Spanish Pyrenees month long trip during January and February
House-sitting as a tactic:
House-sitting as a means to saving on travel accommodation costs, which included a stay for a month in SW France and soon to come time in August house sitting near La Rochelle
Even More Reading: A day in the life of a housesitter in SW France
🐶 Next step: Sign up to the biggest HouseSitting provider platform to get going!
Home Swapping and Guestpoints use as a strategy:
Exploring HouseSwapping and listing our home in Zaragoza, which we leave vacant for up to 4 months a year
🏡 Curious about Home Exchange? Use this link with my sponsor key.
GuestPoints are fab & economical!
We continued to explore the Spanish Pyrenees - one of our favourite destinations - in recent times.
Taking the opportunity with a GuestPoint stay in Jaca itself this time (last time we were about 15 minutes outside that small city).
The picture above shows views around the beautiful Pyrenean city of Jaca.
However it is July and peak season.
Maybe finding a GuestPoint stay would be too expensive in “guest point” currency terms on Home Exchange.
Let’s dig in:
Traditional home exchanges (you come to my home and I go to your home) are no longer the only option. GuestPoints make exchanging your home simple and easy for everyone. Members can now host someone at their home for GuestPoints and use these points to travel to the destination of their choosing!
So we found a 4 night stay in a lovely and homely (I cannot overuse the word in relation to this topic) in Jaca and *only* paid 352 GuestPoints per night for 2 people.
A very reasonable 44 per person per night - in GuestPoints terms and currency.
So, after 6 nights already of GuestPoints, I still have over 1k value in GuestPoints left to spend.
Although, I have yet to actually let our beautiful home in Zaragoza, I am hoping that is just a matter of time (see below)
Pitch:
Our special home-base, which we now offer to others to enjoy, as part of the HomeExchange Platform, which you can view via that link, if you are already a member of the community.
>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>
Affiliates corner: Here are some of the products and services that I rate: Digital Nomad Spain set-up Advice, Nomad Health Insurance from SafetyWing or from Genki - Insurance for Nomads, best mobile laptop stand from Nexstand Laptop Riser 10% off code: ROREMOTE10, for pet and house sitting visit TrustedHousesitters to get 25% off annual memberships use: ROREMOTE25, for HomeExchanging visit this link and for reliable Spanish Accounting and Business Advice via Entre Tramites.
>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>
Plus, we received another positive review (making 2 in total) after the more recent GuestPoint stay on the home exchange platform, YAY!
Building out our profile strength and social proof.
Of course the ideal would be that we don’t just run down our GuestPoints without either accumulating some or doing a reciprocal exchange, so watch this space as I am hoping soonish, we will have the first example to share of what it is like to be a host and welcome some visitors to Zaragoza.
Hopefully I can share that story in a future edition.
👀 Stay tuned and any questions? Share in the comments!
TLDR: 🫱🏽🫲🏾 In case you don’t know me already, I am Ro, I am based in Zaragoza, Spain with my Location Independent, somewhat Nomadic (4-6 months a years of nomading) family. For work, I am a Remote Work and Digital Nomad Expert, Advisor and Writer, oh and a Linkedin Top Voice. You can book a 1:1 here.
All my web and FREE resource links are here.
🙏🏽 This publication is reader supported, pay to subscribe here to show your support.
May the road rise to meet you,
love n light,
💚 Ro