I’m an Empty Nester who Loves to Travel. Here’s How I Afford it.

My husband, Jeff, and I have been empty nesters for a long time now. It’s hard to remember having to fit travel into school holidays and softball tournaments, compete with hordes of tourists, and pay high-season airfares.

Our new life began when we took our youngest child and all his possessions to college. There was an awkward moment after we lugged his stuff up to his room. “How about we take you and your roommate out to dinner?”

“Uh…That’s okay,” he stammered.

Hiding our disappointment, we hugged him goodbye. “Learn a lot, have fun and don’t party too hard!”

It was a long, silent drive back home to an eerily empty house. Exhausted and a little sad, we flopped on the sofa with a glass of wine. “Now what?” we said. Then: “We’re finally empty nesters. It’s time to travel!”

But we still had a household to run, a mortgage, insurance and taxes to pay, and cars to maintain, not to mention college fees. Travel was expensive, and we’d need to find the extra money.

The solution was all around us. We could swap or rent out our home!

We had lots of questions: Was it safe? Would guests damage our things or upset our neighbors? Would it be more work than we could handle? Would anyone actually want to stay in our ordinary suburban home?

Weighing the pros and cons, the risk and extra work seemed worth it. The next week, we listed our home on VRBO and HomeExchange.com, and crossed our fingers.

Our first exchange inquiry was from a woman in Paris who’d grown up a couple of miles away from us. She was bringing her daughters to visit their grandmother, who turned out to be someone we knew. She was delighted with our house, and we loved her spacious, light, perfectly located apartment the elegant 7th Arrondissement. We were hooked.

Over the years, we’ve swapped with a man in Barcelona (a huge half-furnished apartment in the center), Santa Barbara (a ’50s house in a gated community on on the beach), San Miguel de Allende (a sprawling home filled with art and antiques), Chicago (a cluttered apartment near DePaul University), Amsterdam (an artist’s studio in a landmarked building overlooking Vondelpark), and, this year, Paris (a renovated second floor apartment in the trendy 11th). One year we even swapped a week in our rental apartment in Rome for a tchotchke-filled place a few streets from Sacré-Coeur.

But exchanges can be tricky to set up — people want to swap for a week in the summer, while we like to travel for a month or more in the spring or fall. So we also rent out our home. The rent helps stretch our budget, giving us more flexibility to choose when and where we travel.

To our surprise, it turns out that lots of people are happy to stay in our ordinary suburban home: tourists, people relocating to our area, writers seeking a quiet place to work, professionals on short-term business assignments, and neighbors doing home renovations. One of our first rentals was to a couple who were returning to California after a year abroad. They’re still good friends.

Neighbors report that our guests have all been friendly and respectful. Except for a few minor problems — a drop of wine on a carpet, an occasional missing spoon — there’s been no serious damage. Setting up and managing exchanges and rentals is a lot of work, but we don’t mind at all, considering what we get in return.

Since we left our son at college, we’ve traveled for 2–4 months a year. It’s a great life, and we’re so grateful to be able to live it. We’ve met wonderful people, and learned so much from the different perspectives and the challenges that traveling offers. We’re slowing down a little (those suitcases are heavy!), but travel keeps us alert and engaged as we get older. We have no intention of stopping!

A version of this story originally appeared on TravelontheHouse.com.

Have you ever swapped or rented out your home to help pay for travel? Please let us know how it worked out.