Livin’ La Vida Local: Make Yourself At Home

I blame it on Under the Tuscan Sun and A Year in Provence. Before reading them, I was perfectly content with my old-school scorecard trips. (You know the type: Eiffel Tower? Check. Notre Dame Cathedral? Check.) But suddenly “tourist” seems like a four-letter word and what I aspire to be instead is a “local”—at least for a week or two. Clearly I’m not alone because countless tour operators and trip consultants have recently popped up promising like-minded travelers instant entrée into foreign cultures. However, I’ve learned that you can still “go native” without having to fork over a hefty sum. Whether you want to make yourself at home, make some new friends, or simply make a few changes, these tips will help …

For a full-on cultural experience, nothing beats moving in with a local. If you happen to have genial relatives scattered around the globe, this should be easy enough to do. If not, there are several non-profit organizations that can point you in the right direction. I have friends who swear by Hospitality Exchange, which has been helping out-of-towners link up with resident hosts since 1965. Its premise is simple: anyone who is interested in staying in another person’s home—and is willing to open their own in return—can apply for membership. Once accepted, you pay a $20 annual charge and gain access to a directory listing hospitable folks in over twenty countries.

Another reputable choice is Servas: a volunteer network aimed at promoting cross-cultural understanding that’s affiliated with the U.N. After paying an $85 fee, approved members receive a letter of introduction that is valid for a year. Addresses of potential hosts follow once you have decided on your destination. On one level, Servas delivers more (like members in a whopping 135 countries), and it asks less because it isn’t based on reciprocity. In other words, you don’t have to extend hospitality to accept it. But run-of-the-mill freeloaders need not apply: it’s considered déclassé to plan a visit unless you genuinely intend to interact with your host.

The obvious upside is that such organizations give you the chance to be embraced like long-lost kin when staying in a foreign country. There are, however, obvious downsides, too. For starters, Hospitality Exchange and Servas aren’t travel agencies: they only provide contact information, which members can then use to make their own arrangements. And since the recommended stay in both cases is only about two days, not everyone will feel that making the effort is worth their while. Understandably, not everyone will be prepared to gamble their much-anticipated trip on a question of compatibility either.

As an alternative, some people prefer to escape the tourist bubble by checking into the type of intimate accommodations that natives tend to book when they themselves go on holiday—say a pensione in Italy, a chambre d’hôte in France, or a casa de huéspedes in Mexico. At these low-cost, home-style lodgings (all variations on the Bed & Breakfast theme), you can spend more time with owners and pretend that you’re an invited guest rather than a paying one. BedandBreakfast.com and bedandbreakfastineurope.com  both have listings if you want to go this route. My personal preference, though, is to reserve a vacation rental and settle in for a week or longer.

With this option, I not only get a real “home away from home,” I get a degree of  independence that’s hard to find among hosts and hoteliers, no matter how affable they may be. For hassle-free house hunting direct from owners, my top pick is Holiday Rentals. Along with an enviable selection (think 22,000 properties in eighty countries), it boasts reasonable prices and reliable information on accommodations and nearby attractions. Searching is easy too. I can browse by destination, date, and price or use other criteria to check for features like internet access or suitability for children. If you’d rather have the security of going through a broker, Rentvillas is a good bet for mid-range properties.

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