How to think outside the boxy hotel room

If you want your sheets changed daily, your breakfast delivered to your room or even the reassurance of knowing the toilet has been sanitized, you may be a candidate for an overnight stay in one of the 48,000 properties that populate the U.S. lodgings landscape

But hotels, motels and bed-and-breakfasts aren’t for everyone, especially in these economic times when a seven-day stay can cost four figures.

That factor coupled with the growth of the Internet makes the times ripe for exchanging or renting a home.

Home swapping, once conducted largely through snail mail and with catalogs, has gained momentum, thanks to e-mail and the ease of posting photos and descriptions online, but it’s still a minuscule part of the market, said Michael Oshins, professor of hospitality administration at Boston University. “Will [home exchange] be a big driving force? Probably not. It will always be a niche player. For the hotels, that’s not their major competitor. It’s still each other.”

But its devotees swear by it.

Scores of Los Angeles Times readers told us about their rental experiences, which can be arranged through formal organizations that may charge a fee (see reader recommendations at latimes.com/swap) or informally.

Stephanie Anderson of Ventura has swapped living quarters through Homeexchange.com for vacations in the Netherlands, Denmark, Scotland, Canada, Colorado, Washington state and California.

She estimates that she and her family have saved thousands of dollars on accommodations. And, she noted, exchanging with a family with kids also has some built-in bonuses.

“It’s great to arrive and have books, toys, bicycles, snow gear, etc., to borrow,” she said.

And the condition of her home upon return? “We have always returned to a sparkling-clean house.”

Maureen Redfield of San Clemente became an accidental swapper of sorts about a dozen years ago. She and her family were staying at a bed-and-breakfast in Ireland and began chatting with a Swiss family. One thing led to another and they agreed to exchange homes.

The experiment was so wildly successful that it became more than a one-off experience.

“We did this for 12 years, staying in different homes for a month all over Switzerland and making friends of all the previous exchangers,” she said in an e-mail. “We are such good friends that now we just come and visit each other, share in children’s weddings, births, etc. It was one of the most rewarding (and cost effective) things we school teachers ever did.”

Not all exchangers wind up with a castle in the clouds. Ann Radow of Woodland Hills did an exchange in London, where the home was being renovated. The bedroom had no closet and no bedside tables; the home was sparsely furnished and had a musty odor -- not quite the quid pro quo she had hoped for. Still, she has gone on to exchange successfully in France and Ireland.

Pat Heim of Pacific Palisades ran into trouble on exchange No. 2. The house she got in Austria was an architectural marvel (although it was near a train station and an airport, which put it in the rumble zone), but the people with whom she swapped lacked common sense and courtesy.

“It was supposed to be her and two kids, and five showed up for our two-bed, one-bath house,” Heim said. “Then they did thoughtless things. They were supposed to use my car and they had some battery trouble so they took my husband’s battery out of his car and didn’t put it back. They spilled Coke on the back of a white chair and didn’t tell us about it. They dismantled a shower head and left it.

“The reality,” she says, “is you end up making mistakes in someone else’s home, but if you break something, you tell somebody.”

Which brings us to this juncture: Before you head down any road, you need to know your vacation personality type.

For instance, rule out home exchange if you’re squeamish about strangers in your home. Exchanging, says Oshins, the hospitality professor at Boston University, really is a faith walk for both parties.

“You have to be trustworthy, adventuresome, willing to share and not take life so seriously,” he said. “If people are really uptight about their stuff, the last thing they want is a stranger at their house.”

Heim took the leap of faith again, after getting some advice from her first exchange partners. She has swapped at least 15 times and has never had such an experience again.

“We learned to build a relationship with them [the exchangers],” Heim said. “Over time, you get a sense of the person.

“Another important piece of advice: Listen to your gut.”

Looking back, she said, the references she got on her dunderheaded exchanger suggested she should have been more discerning, but she ignored the warning signals.

Still, she’s sold on the exchange method and the bonds it creates. One of their swap mates e-mailed recently to say their dog, a pooch she had grown quite fond of during an exchange, had died. “I’m still depressed about it,” she said.

If you’d prefer to skip the bonding, you may want to consider merely renting a home, which also can save money. The upside is that you take no risks with your own home. The downside: Unlike staying at a known-brand hotel, you have no idea how good or accurate the description of a private home may be -- or, indeed, if the home even exists.

That’s what drove Bob Barnes, chief executive of Zonder.com, to create what he calls “a marketplace where you can search, find and book professionally managed vacation homes, villas, cabins and condos in the Caribbean and Central and North America.”

Stymied while trying to find a vacation home rental in Costa Rica, he perceived a hole in the market. While he doesn’t disparage private transaction rentals, he does note that it takes time to track them down.

His company is designed to save you time and ensure that standards are met. And, he said, from a dollar standpoint, rental homes are a value.

“If you’re traveling with family or friends, [a rental] is almost always cheaper than two, three or four hotel rooms are going to be. Think about it: You don’t have to go out for breakfast, lunch and dinner; you can stay in and have eggs, oatmeal, cold cereal -- have whatever you want.”

Having your eggs, eating them too. Isn’t that what vacation is supposed to be about?

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catharine.hamm@latimes.com