Swaphouse is a free platform to swap homes with fellow remote workers and digital nomads around the world.
💸 Free accommodation - no required fees
🌍 1710+ homes available in 74 countries worldwide
🧑💻 WFH-friendly homes with verified Wi-Fi speeds
+ 333 others joined this month
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Hey everyone! I’m Tobi, the founder of Swaphouse.
My wife and I were tired of spending a fortune on Airbnbs and hotels while working remotely and traveling to other countries, so we thought—why not swap homes with other remote workers and skip the costs altogether?
That idea turned into Swaphouse: a free community where remote workers and travel lovers swap homes, save money, and explore new places—without sacrificing comfort or a proper work setup.
We’re a tiny team of two, bootstrapping this project out of pure passion. One of the most common questions we get is: “Is it really free?” — and yes, it is! Swaphouse is a side project we’ve been building in our evenings and weekends. I still work full-time as a Product Manager, and this has been our way of combining our love for travel with something useful for the remote work community.
Our vision is simple: make remote work and travel more accessible, affordable, and community-driven—so more people can explore the world without spending a lot of money on accommodation.
We’re active users ourselves too. Over the past few months, we’ve swapped homes in Munich, Malta, and Paris. You can read more about our story here: swaphouse.io/about — and if it sounds like your vibe, come join us!
Here’s what makes Swaphouse different:
🌍 1700+ homes in over 70 countries — From Bali to Berlin, Portugal to South Africa. Our map keeps growing every day.
💸 Totally free — No fees, no required memberships, no hidden anything. Just honest home swapping with awesome people.
💻 Remote work-ready — Every home comes with at last one workspace and solid Wi-Fi. We built a Wi-Fi speed tester into the platform, so you know exactly what kind of speed to expect before you swap.
💚 Swipe, match, swap — Swaphouse works like a dating app, but for homes. Heart the listings you love, and if they heart you back—it’s a match! You only chat when there’s mutual interest, so your inbox stays clean and relevant.
We’re building a global community of people who want to travel more, spend less, and feel at home wherever they go. If that sounds like your thing, come join us. Feedback, support, and new homes are always welcome!
Would love to hear your feedback, ideas, or questions 🙌
Check it out at swaphouse.io
How is this different or better than noadexchange.com, myplace.co, livekindred.com, homeexchange.com ?
Great question! Swaphouse stands out because it’s completely free and designed specifically for remote workers—every home has solid Wi-Fi and a workspace. (Noad has a similar focus, but it seems they’ve paused new signups, so not sure if they’re still active).
Our swipe-to-match system is what really sets us apart. You only connect with other swappers when there’s mutual interest (you both like each other’s homes). This avoids random messages and saves time—something we found to be a major pain point on other platforms.
Hi Tobias, thanks for sharing Swaphouse with the Travel Massive community!
The site looks great, and nicely designed UX, well done!
A few quick questions:
1. What are your future plans for Swaphouse? Where do you see the most growth?
2. What is your business / revenue model if the platform is free?
3. I notice you have a few locations such as Hobart (my home town) listed as destinations, but without properties listed. Are these placeholders because they are places your community has requested? Just curious!
Thanks for your kind words and good questions, Ian!
1. Currently, we see the most growth in Europe, which has about 60% of the homes listed. But our top priority is growing the community and home listings organically across the world. Since home swapping is still new to many, we see a big opportunity in making it feel easy, safe, and trustworthy—which is why we’re actively building features to support that experience. (You can check out a few recent updates here: swaphouse.io/updates)
2. In the future, we may offer optional paid options like identity or home verification, insurance, or access to premium features on the platform. We also see potential in partnering with companies to offer Swaphouse as a perk—so employees can truly work from anywhere (maybe even swap homes with colleagues across offices). That said, our current focus is fully on growing the number of listings and building a strong, active community.
3. It’s actually a mix of both—some destinations are based on community searches and requests, but for most we already have homes listed. Right now, we have homes in 679 different destinations, but we only show homes on public destination pages once there are 3 or more in a specific location. We did have one home listed in Hobart, but it’s currently unavailable. That said, we do have two other homes live in Tasmania at the moment!
Just added our house in Mexico. Let's do this! We are/were on Noad but I think they're kaput, unfortunately. My travel blogger agency worked with them in the beginning to help them scale, but then they raised prices when they only had about 100 homes instead of doing the opposite to kick in the network effect (like you all are). Hope this works out better with a price that can't be beat.
Thanks Tim, so great to have you on board! And yes, we’re learning from those who came before—our focus is all about growing the community, not chasing quick wins. Listening to the community members is also a big part of that, so if you ever have ideas or feedback, you can share them with me directly via Swaphouse Support on the platform.
Great idea! I signed up.
Amazing, thanks for joining Christine!
Very cool concept and clean, nice looking UX. Congratulations, Tobias!
I have just listed my flat in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. One question I have: we only get notified of an interested person if we have also liked their flat, right? I believe this limits the opportunities of finding a swap, because I might consider a swap in a destination I haven't search for, but knowing someone from this place is interested in my home could spark the interest of moving forward with the swap to explore new destinations I'd otherwise not considered travelling to.
Are you thinking of a way to allow users to be notified when they property receives a like?
Or do you see a flaw in this scheme I am proposing that I am unware of?
Cheers!
Thanks so much, Rodrigo! And awesome to have your flat in Rio listed 🙌
Great question—and you’re absolutely right in your thinking. We actually already do this! When someone likes your home, their listing will show up in your ‘Match requests’ tab. That way, you can discover potential swaps in places you might not have searched for, knowing they’ve already shown interest in your home, just like you described.
Appreciate the thoughtful feedback—keep it coming! 😊
Cool, thank you Tobias!
Hi Tobias, this feature has worked out perfectly...and now I'm day dreaming when should I go to one of the 13 match requests I've received! :-)
BTW, today I have stumbled upon a reddit thread about the increasingly dissapointing Airbnb listings...it can probably give you some interesting insights:
www.reddit.com/r/digitalnomad/comments/1hn0p6h/digital_nomads_are_we_done_with_airbnb_my/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
Cheers!
So great to hear Rodrigo, super curious where your next home swap will be!
And yeah, that Reddit thread really hit home. Struggling with overpriced Airbnbs and unreliable Wi-Fi was exactly what pushed us to start Swaphouse in the first place. What we really love about home swapping is the personal connection. We’re still in touch with everyone we’ve swapped homes with, which is really cool.
That is very cool. Congratulations for developing such an amazing platform to bring people together!
Keep up the great work, Tobias!
Great to see Swaphouse here 🙌🏽 Truly a game changer. We’ll done