Vacation without hotels via Jewish home swap site
02.07.2005, 07:22
If you've ever considered vacationing in Disneyland but don't want to pay hotel prices, perhaps you ought to consider swapping homes with the owners of a two-bedroom condo in North Hollywood, California. After all, they're an hour away from Disneyland, close to a kosher butcher - and have lots of toys.
Hotels in Lisbon
At least, those are some of the attributes they listed on a Web site launched from the Old City of Jerusalem last month called Jewish Home Swap (www.jewishhomeswap.com), a free service that gives people an opportunity to save on vacation costs by exchanging their homes with other people on the site. Users can also arrange to host and be hosted by the other party, or put their homes up for rent or sale.
"It's an affordable way to vacation in another part of the world or in Israel," said Miriam Roberts, a 28-year-old computer programmer from Los Angeles. "I think the most important issue is you save money on
hotels."
The concept for the site is based on international home swap Web sites like Homeexchange.com, which boasts more than 7,000 members and this week had 13 postings from Israel. The site charges $49.95 a year for membership, and similar sites charge $30-$40 a year. But Roberts, who runs several for-profit sites, says she does not plan to charge for this one.
Besides price, the main difference between Jewish Home Swap and the other sites is evident by their names: Roberts' site targets a Jewish audience.
"I just thought I don't really feel comfortable switching homes with a non-Jew, but I feel comfortable switching homes with a Jewish person," said Roberts, who is Orthodox. "It's really important for Orthodox Jews who want to be near a synagogue when they vacation."
And what if people who don't keep kosher want to stay at the homes of people who do?
"That's for people to work out themselves," said Roberts, who moved to the Old City with her husband four years ago. "You can say, `Listen, please don't cook here.' A lot of people don't cook on short trips."
To guard against bad experiences, Roberts recommends getting copies of the other party's identity documents, like a driver's license, and making a contract - something she has done while subletting her apartment during trips to the United States. She also plans to add a review feature to the site, to let people comment on their stays at other people's homes.
Roberts launched the site in part because she would like to swap her "charming and very airy" Old City apartment with people in Australia, Hong Kong and the north of Israel.
But of the seven home swap postings up by mid-week, the only ones from Israel were in Jerusalem. There were also postings from Monsey, New York ("We are in a very Jewish area") and Annapolis, Maryland ("We have three kayaks you are welcome to borrow"). Although there are sections for Europe, South America and Africa, and Australia and Asia, word of the site does not seem to have spread to those regions yet. Roberts expects it to take at least six months until the site grows substantially, and hopes there will eventually be between 500 and 1,000 people posting to the site.
"It's like a bar - you don't want to go in if there are no people," said Roberts. "The more people who post at the site, the more people are going to come visit it."