Home Exchange in Bulgaria by Olympia
Swapoffi
18 Oct
First Home Swap Experience
We recently had a chat with one of our first members to complete a home exchange in Bulgaria, Olympia. We love Olympia’s passion for home swapping and Swapoffi so it was great to chat to her to find out more. See Olimpia's home.
Tell us about your remote working life Olympia?
I am Head of Customer Operations for an online gaming company. I work fully remote so work from home most of the time. Sometimes I travel for work too. I am one of the ‘pandemic children’ who became remote, so have been a digital nomad for 3 years.
Are you new to home swapping?
I never heard of home swapping before I came across Swapoffi.
There are so many remote workers nowadays so there are more and more ideas and solutions for us. I like new ideas and thinking out of the box. I hadn’t seen anything like Swapoffi around before.
How did you travel before Swapoffi?
When I travel for work, my company pays for accommodation obviously. When I travel personally, I have a Level 3 Genius with Booking.com so I get a big discount, or I use Airbnb. I always look for new ideas so when I came across Swapoffi, I loved the concept of home swapping and was excited to try it. Co-working and co-living are new too, but you pay for them whilst Swapoffi is free.
First Swapoffi Home Swap
You recently completed your first home exchange in Bulgaria through Swapoffi. Can you tell us about it?
I live in Malaga but am from Bulgaria. I visit my family often in Bulgaria but like to have my own space when I go there. Staying with family for more than 3 days is not always a good idea! So, when I saw Ana’s home in Sofia, I requested a swap with her.
We had some chats before we agreed to swap. I could see pictures of her house on Swapoffi and I also took a video to share with her. She did the same for me. You can edit photos a lot. Videos are not so easy to edit so I am very comfortable knowing what type of home she has. We agreed to swap and everything went very well!
I stayed in Ana’s home for 11 days so saved a lot of money through not paying anything for accommodation. This meant I could stay longer to see my family. I can work from anywhere, so it worked out perfectly.
Before you tried home swapping, did you have any concerns?
Yes. I travel a lot and always book my own accommodation, so I like reading reviews to help me choose my accommodation. Swapoffi is a start-up so it will be great when more swaps take place and more people give reviews.
It is natural to be nervous about a stranger coming into your home. You imagine the worst – what if they trash your place? or just damage something. It’s great that Swapoffi does verifications on people and homes, so you can call the police to report that person. Hopefully that will never happen!
Ana was great. I took care of her home like it was mine. She looked after my home too.
So, you had a positive experience with home swapping?
Yes, I loved it! As well as being innovative, home swapping is exciting and different. It’s just a supercool idea that all my friends should know about.
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