A few years ago, when my brood became a party of five, we were heading back to my native land of Canada for a week long visit. There was only one little problem—no one in my immediate family could accommodate my gang in a comfortable manner, so instead of two adjoining rooms at a downtown hotel, we decided to be adventurous and give a home exchange a try. We had heard great things about HomeExchange from our friends in NYC who have literally swapped homes all over the world and raved about it, so we paid the membership fee and gave it a try. Since we were swapping in my hometown of Toronto, it was easy for me to suss out if the owners were exaggerating about the desired location. They weren't. We agreed to swap homes with a family that also had three children roughly the same age as mine. It was a gorgeous house with a huge backyard for the kids to run wild, located on a beautiful tree-lined street that was super quiet—very different from the loud honking of the bustling streets of downtown New York City. My kids loved the toys and all the televisions that this house provided. Since our Toronto swap was such a success, we decided a few months later to try it abroad to Paris, France. Again we chose a family that had three children within the same age bracket. After a ton of e-mails with questions and more questions, phone calls and …
