Recently, I got to spend a pretty fantastic four weeks on Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard, spending less than £500 including flights and accommodation. How did I do it?
The answer is – by home swapping.
If you’ve ever seen The Holiday – the movie where Kate Winslet swaps her English cottage with Cameron Diaz’ LA mansion, you get the idea. Home exchanging is a community of people who share their homes with other members of the community -for free. What’s not to love?
Why Cape Cod?
Martha’s vineyard is a small island just off the coast of Cape Cod. It’s a hugely popular tourist resort, particularly with wealthy East Coast Americans. People visit for the sailing, the beaches, the great restaurants and the old-fashioned American charm.
I was seduced by TikTok videos of the “East Coast Summer” aesthetic – think beaches, white wooden cottages, cocktails at upscale beach bars and lots and lots of Ralph Lauren sweaters. It’s seriously dreamy.
It’s also seriously expensive. Renting a cottage or small apartment on Cape Cod can cost upwards of £2000 for a week, which was definitely not in my budget. Instead, I used Home Exchange to find two different beach cottages that I could borrow from their owners for two weeks, using credit I’d earned by hosting other families in my own home.
By lining up two exchanges in a row, I was able to spend an amazing month on Cape Cod. Home exchanging means that I get to travel more, for longer, without breaking the bank. What’s not to love?
Getting to know Cape Cod
I can’t tell a lie. This month on Martha’s Vineyard was my first experience of solo travel, and landing in a tiny resort thousands of miles from home was intimidating.
For a few minutes I did genuinely wonder if I was mad. But then I arrived at my host’s home and it was all so lovely that I immediately decided that this was NOT intimidating, it was a brilliant adventure, and I was going to make the most of every moment.
My first day was the start of a new routine. Breakfast at home, a couple of hours working, and then an afternoon spent exploring – starting with the bustling small town of Provincetown.
For those new to Cape Cod, Provincetown sits at the very tip of Cape Cod, which is confusingly known as the Lower Cape. It’s known for being a home to many in the LGBTQ community, and also many galleries and artists.
I spent a lovely afternoon wandering Commercial Street, which runs behind the beach. There are some tourist tat shops, but as you get away from the centre, you’ll find a series of art shops, galleries, cafes and book stores that make for a great spot to explore. For lunch, I opted for lunch at the Lobster Pot, which is iconic in this part of the world and has an old, laid back charm that’s irresistible.
For the remainder of the week, I explored many of the small Cape Cod towns. My favourites were Chatham (so many cute little shops and a traditional style pub), Wellfleet (home to so many amazing art shops and I bought some lovely pottery mugs to bring home) and Sandwich (the Cape’s oldest town and close to the famous Cape Cod Railroad, which is a famous walking and cycling route).
There are many beaches to enjoy, and I chose a different one each day, walking in the afternoon, and often returning at sunset with dinner to enjoy with the view. I took the opportunity to meet as many people as possible, attending a stained glass workshop, going to the local film festival, and even taking on a little volunteer litter picking in Provincetown.
From Cape Cod, you can also easily take a ferry to Nantucket, which is an exclusive little hidaway that feels like another world. I took the morning ferry from Hyannis, and arrived about an hour later.
Nantucket in May was still decked in yellow flowers from the annual Daffodil Festival, which sees millions of flowers all over the island, decorating homes, shops and the roadside verges. It was absolutely beautiful and I spent a very happy day exploring the shops, and walking along the coast to see the lighthouses.
And on to Martha’s Vineyard
After two weeks on the Cape, it was time to move to my second home exchange, which was on the tiny island of Martha’s Vineyard. It was lovely for me to have Flea join me on this part of my trip – nothing makes a sunset more special than having someone to watch it with!
Our exchange home was a simple 2-bedroom cottage just outside Edgartown. It was comfortable and within easy drive of everything we wanted to see.
The thing to know about the Vineyard is there isn’t a great deal to see. The island is small, and during May, it’s still pre-season so relatively quiet. There are no shopping malls or cinemas – it’s quiet towns with beaches, and lots of great places to eat and drink.
Our very favourite thing to do was head to a restaurant for lunch, enjoy a little light shopping, then head to the beach with dinner, and come home for a movie or a few drinks on the deck.
If you head to Martha’s Vineyard I recommend not missing Lamberts Cove beach, which is quiet and more secluded than some of the town beaches, and offers a spectacular sunset view.
Inkwell Beach is great for swimming, and close to the town of Oak Bluffs, which has some really fun bars and a family video arcade centre, where I won many, many matches of arcade basketball, and lost every game of air hockey (what can I say, you win some, you lose some)
How to get involved in home exchanging
I always get friends asking me how they can do home exchanging and it’s not hard – I promise!
There are a bunch of exchange communities and they work the same way. You pay an annual membership fee, and after that you can exchange homes as often as you choose, without any payment.
I use HomeExchange since it’s the biggest community, with more than 200,000 members in 120+ countries – I’ve never struggled to find somewhere to go through the HE community, so I do recommend it.
As an HE member you can browse the site in the same way you’d use any holiday site, by browsing homes in different places on your chosen dates. If you see a home you like, you can reach out and see if the owners might be interested in a swap with you. It can take a few tries, but all you need is one person to say yes!
To make life easier, you don’t have to do a reciprocal swap where you go to Bob’s house (for example) and Bob comes to your house. You can make a Points swap. This means you might give Bob 200 points to stay at his house, and Bob uses those 200 points to go and stay at Steve’s house, then Steve uses the points to stay at another member’s house. Around 80% of all exchanges work this way, simply because it’s so much easier than finding someone who wants to come to your exact location at the same time you want to go to theirs – but that CAN happen and when it does, it’s so much fun getting to know your exchange partners!
If you have any more questions about home exchanging, this post includes all the info, along with a code to get extra points if you decide to sign up to Home Exchange!
Happy travels!
