Holidays with 3 children on one income do not add up. I have done the sums more times than I would like to admit, and they never come out the way I want them to.
So we swap.
Home exchange is exactly what it sounds like. You lend your home to another family, and they lend you theirs. Nobody pays rent. You cover the travel and the food, and that is more or less it.
I was nervous at first. Who would want to swap with us? Then it dawned on me that what I think of as home, everyone else thinks of as a houseboat on the Thames. People really want to stay on a boat. The thing I worried about most turned out to be the thing that opens the door.
This October half term it took us to Wales, to a wonderful place on the Gower Peninsula.
If you have never been, go. The Gower was the first place in Britain to be named an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and within an hour you understand why. Huge sandy bays, cliffs, big skies and ponies wandering the commons. And the surf beaches. We surfed at Caswell Bay, a sandy cove with proper waves rolling in, and in late October the sea is cold enough that the children stayed in until their lips went blue and then begged for 10 more minutes.
And there was a hot tub. I got up early one morning, slid into the warm water and watched the sun come up over the water and the Welsh hills. Steam rising, mist in the low ground, nobody needing anything from me. I don't think I had been that still in months.
Why is it good for the soul? Staying in someone else's home is nothing like a hotel. You live their life for a week. Their books, their mugs, their view from the kitchen window. You stop being the one holding everything together and become a guest for a while. Something in you lets go.
What it does for your body
This is the part I did not expect.
When money is tight, your body keeps a quiet alarm running in the background. Every bill, every "can we afford this", nudges your stress response a little further on. Cortisol, the hormone behind it, is meant to rise and then fall. When the worry never stops, it never quite falls. That is the wired and exhausted feeling so many of us carry around and call normal.
A holiday you are paying for can keep that alarm going. You are on the beach, still doing sums in your head.
A swap switched it off. I wasn't working out what each day was costing, and my body noticed within a couple of days. My shoulders came down. I slept properly. So did the children.
The place helped too. Time in nature is one of the simplest ways to bring cortisol down, and research suggests even 20 minutes outside is enough to make a measurable difference. Being near water seems to settle people in a way they find hard to put into words. Add cold sea, wind on your face and long walks back up from the beach, and your nervous system gets a clear message it rarely hears at home. You are safe. You can stop now.
That is what rest actually is. Not a treat you earn, but the moment your body believes it is allowed to stop.
If you are thinking about trying it
- Your home is more interesting than you think. Someone, somewhere, wants exactly what you have.
- Families tend to swap with families, so the board games and the beach towels are usually already there.
- Leave it the way you would want to find theirs.
We use HomeExchange (www.homeexchange.com). If you would like to try it, put my code anna-ab28a in the "promo or referral code" box when you sign up and you will get bonus GuestPoints to spend on your first stay.
Rest doesn't have to cost a fortune. Sometimes it is just a different front door.
If you want more of these, the Reset Letters come out every week at annascaife.substack.com.