House swapping can change the way you travel and experience places - here's why

It's a warm late summer evening and we are sitting in the beautifully kempt gardens of The Glen, a five-bedroom Suffolk cottage, when I allow myself a moment of self-congratulation.

About six months ago, after shelling out nearly $10,000 for flights to Europe for my teenage daughters and I, I was looking at double that amount to accommodate us all for the 22 nights of our trip. That was before adding in food and transport costs.

This evening, thanks to two house exchange sites and working the "shared economy", through which assets, such as your home, are traded for mutual benefit, we are in the second of four English home swaps that are providing all our accommodation during our stay.

Even better, the girls and I are luxuriating in a spacious, Grade II listed home, reuniting with four close friends, whom I have been able to host here, in the medieval town of Bury St Edmunds.

This is the second trip to Europe in which I have used house swapping to save money. On the first, in 2019, we found a six-bedroom house in Manchester and a Paris flat overlooking the river Seine and Eiffel Tower.

Flexibility is key to successful home exchanges. While I have a relatively desirable Newcastle home, with four bedrooms, pool and cinema room, demand for swaps here is usually from December to March, and we are travelling to Europe in September.

Which is where non-simultaneous swaps - in which you go to a property on your preferred dates and its owners come to yours at a different time - or, better still, points swaps, come in.

The beauty of the points system, whereby each home owner assigns a nightly price, based on location, property size and amenities, and allows guests to book in using points, is that swappers don't have to be matched by desired destination or timeframe. You simply look for available properties in your preferred destination and book in using GuestPoints. These are mainly earned by swapping your own property for points.

With points in the bank, about five months before our trip, I begin scouring two home-swap sites, LoveHomeSwap.com, which I used in 2019, and HomeExchange.com.

In about three months of searching for possible swaps, I send out dozens of requests, and try not to get disheartened as most are rejected. Eventually offers do start coming back, even if they are not exactly in the locations I am looking for.

This is how we have ended up here, in Bury St Edmunds, a place I have visited only once before, taking in the extraordinary cathedral and an unforgettable meal at Maison Bleue, a much-feted modern French restaurant in the town centre.

Looking for a large home where I can reunite with UK friends, I am immediately taken with pictures of this 1792 cottage, with its five big bedrooms and bathrooms and open-plan kitchen and dining area, based around an Aga cooker. The Glen and its beautiful gardens look perfect for a five-night get-together.

The clincher is the owner Gillian McCartney's response to our swap request: "You would all be very welcome. Our only proviso would be if you could feed our very elderly cat who although 18 acts like a teenager."

In fact, looking after Smudge, the ageing cat, adds to our feeling of being "at home", while 17,000 kilometres away from it. Our hosts our also super hospitable, picking us up from the station and gifting us a welcoming food hamper.

The Glen is so large, set over three floors and two wings, that it takes time to orientate ourselves. But it is not long before we settle in to a restful, convivial stay, cooking in the light-filled kitchen - from making pesto using homegrown basil to roasting a chook - and chatting late into the night, around the dinner table.

Bury St Edmunds is also, as we discover on a walking tour with guide Terry O'Donoghue, a revelation, with a compelling thousand-year history of religious significance, beheadings and persecution. Its abbey, the ruins of which are scattered across gardens in central Bury, was once the largest religious edifice in Western Christendom, built in honour of Edmund, England's original patron saint.

While it has evolved around a grid of medieval laneways, Bury St Edmunds is far from stuck in the past. It is regarded as Suffolk's foodie capital, with new restaurants such as The Lark making waves and the Breton-style Maison Bleue still outstanding.

Revisiting Maison Bleue provides us with the best meal of our trip, with dishes such as roasted ballotine of guinea fowl with snails, garlic and parsley stuffing particularly memorable. Maitre d' Karine Canevet and her chef husband Pascal aren't likely to forget my family either, after my 13-year-old, Freya, requests tomato sauce to accompany her gourmet sauteed potatoes.

After Bury St Edmunds we travel on to Pevensey Bay, on the East Sussex coast, again not a first-choice swap destination.

I have never been to Pevensey, despite living half my life in England, but am swayed by pictures of the three-bedroom chalet with direct beach frontage.

Notwithstanding grey skies and inevitable - "You call this a beach?" - comments about the pebble-strewn coast from my spoilt Aussie children, our stay here adds another dimension to our trip.

Days here are spent fossicking at the water's edge, strolling along the beach for the best fish and chips we've ever tasted, entertaining some UK family to tea and cakes overlooking the English Channel, and playing table tennis, darts and snooker in the home's games room.

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Owner Donna Christman also kindly gives us a local tour, taking in Pevensey Castle, begun by the Romans in 290 BCE, and nearby Eastbourne.

Connections like these with artist Christman, and her daughter Elsa, who takes my teenage girls shopping while her mother and I take in the visiting Turner prize exhibition and Eastbourne's famous pier, are another bonus of our house-swapping experience.

Developing a rapport with owners and seeing where they live through their eyes is rarely possible in hotels or rentals.

In our third home, on the fringes of Manchester, we are met by owners Joe and Chantelle Thompson, and discover that their home and family recently featured in Hello magazine.

Theirs is a story of loss and love that lends staying in their home resonance and texture. For my football-mad family, and especially me, in Manchester to see United, the team I have supported all my life, it is thrilling to learn that Joe was once a professional player, developed at that club's Academy, between the ages of nine and 16, before playing for Bury, Tranmere Rovers and Rochdale. Having survived two life-threatening bouts of cancer, which ended his career early, Joe is now a mentor, guiding young players.

Chantelle and Joe's spacious converted farmhouse provides a luxurious base for our three days in Manchester, during which we watch United at Old Trafford, go clothes shopping at Salford Quays in the city centre and visit the Lowry gallery. The latter, with its distinctive paintings by that 20th-century chronicler of northern industrial life, LS Lowry, is an excellent, free, shortcut to understanding Manchester's soul.

Back at Joe and Chantelle's place, in Bredbury, on the edge of the Peak District, we welcome more UK family to tea, and enjoy hot soaks in the large outdoor jacuzzi. With its large communal spaces, four bedrooms and underfloor heating, this is a palatial house that rents for big money, so being here on a points swap feels fortunate.

The final piece of our swap jigsaw, which falls into place shortly before we set off, is, remarkably, a flat in the street adjacent to where I grew up, in Wimbledon.

Hosted by amiable older couple Gwen and Ray Kaplan, it is the ideal swap with which to bookend our trip, with three nights initially to find our feet in London, a 20-minute tube ride away, and to end it, with a 24-hour stay.

Well-versed travellers, with family in Sydney, the Kaplans leave us a fridge full of food when we arrive. It is another luxurious home, with three bedrooms and bathrooms, and lovely gardens, giving us all the space to unwind. From here we venture to Parliament Square, along the river Thames to Covent Garden, and to Camden Market, where the girls buy jewellery and grungy clothes.

While home swapping has halved the budget for our trip, the experience has been about more than saving money. Not only have we stayed in some lovely, desirable homes but by accepting swaps where they were available we've also had adventures within an adventure, discovering regions we might have missed, otherwise.

Most rewarding of all is the connection we've made with other swappers, and even a spritely geriatric cat, lending each homestay far more individuality than checking into a hotel or rental.

Be flexible: When looking for a suitable swap consider areas beyond your target area. After 25 unsuccessful swap requests in Manchester, we widened our search to the city fringes, finding three semi-rural properties available.

Be patient: Months of planning went into securing our four swaps. The success rate was 1 in 8 requests.

Use GuestPoints: GuestPoints can secure swaps without the need to host guests simultaneously in your home; useful when looking for swaps during warmer northern hemisphere months and our winters. Not all owners are open to points deals but many welcome them to build their own balance, enabling them to travel elsewhere, using points.

Accumulate your points: GuestPoints are earned in various ways, including activating membership, contacting 10 properties and by referring friends to HomeExchange. The main way of earning points is to swap your home for a set "price" per night. If you know you'll be away from home, for instance over school holidays, open it up for points swaps.

Be respectful: Communicate well with your hosts before a stay - setting up WhatsApp groups with owners is recommended. Treat swap homes like your own, stripping beds and leaving no mess.

Homeexchange.com is the world's largest house-swapping site, having acquired lovehomeswap.com in 2023, with 150,000 members in 145 countries. It inspired the 2006 movie The Holiday, in which Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet swap LA and London homes and find love in the process. Annual membership costs $US220 ($350). Other exchange sites include aussiehomeswap.com.au

Our home swaps:

Wimbledon: homeexchange.com/homes/view/2311354

Bury St Edmunds: homeexchange.com/homes/view/2373304

Pevensey: homeexchange.com/homes/view/2381304

Manchester: homeexchange.com/homes/view/2381251

Our Newcastle home: homeexchange.com/homes/view/2328388

The writer travelled with assistance from HomeExchange.com and visit-burystedmunds.co.uk.