My perfect holiday used to be two weeks in a hotel with no cooking, no cleaning and staff waiting on me all day. After we had children we found it easier to choose places where kitchen facilities were included and we did the cooking. It was a generally more convenient option although we tended to stay in Britain because of the cost. Then a friend of mine introduced us to the idea of house-exchange holidays.

At first, the thought of staying in somebody else's home, with all the worries of keeping it clean and tidy and being constantly careful not to break anything, was unthinkable. Equally, I didn't like the idea of complete strangers wandering about in my home, using my bathroom and sleeping in my bed. However, my friend described how she and her husband and their two children had spent two weeks in Florida for the price of the flight. She told me how they had stayed in a lovely apartment in the heart of the real Florida, well away from the tourist traps. They had had no problems with the family of four that had stayed in their house in London.

Because they were so positive we decided to try it ourselves. We joined a house-exchange agency, chose the countries we were interested in visiting and were soon sent information on possible swaps. Finally we chose a family in Vancouver, went away and had the best holiday we'd ever had. That was five years ago. Since then we've been to Prague, Finland, Edinburgh, Washington and Sydney.