The way travelling is being done these days are constantly changing. Nowadays, instead of staying inside a hotel for their accommodation, they look for something more exotic and different from the traditional ones. This also open doors for travelers because they get to experience the local culture and tradition first hand and even immerse with the locals like you have been living there for many decades already. The common method for other types of travelers such as volunteers and students to live like how the locals do is by staying at a local host family but home stays is not designed for every traveler. Home stays lack the freedom that should be given to every traveler which includes privacy too. But if you still wish to try something different for your travels, you have the option to rent someone room or home of your destination, called the hospitality exchange.
Hospitality exchange has been around lately and has become a trend amongst travelers because they get to talk with the locals easily and be able to know firsthand what it is like to live in another place. There is its own ups and downs, like any other type of accommodation that you are looking for in a travel. You can find different opportunities to travel through websites online that offers hospitality exchange and these websites let you choose the kind of room that you want to stay in such as a studio, house or full apartment that are cost effective than staying at hotels or hostels. These are the paid type of hospitality exchange while the other one is the free type in which a person will allow you to stay for free at their extra room or couch for you to stay. Depending on the needs of your travel, both options provides unique and fun experience you can never experience with staying at hotels.
The benefit of staying at a paid hospitality exchange is that it is cheaper than hostels or hotels. Not only that, you are given the freedom to cook your own meals as you please and do your own laundry in order to save money from external services. Even other extras like the internet or TV are cheaper compared to hotels. You also get to experience how the locals live their lives daily and even experience that home-y feeling like you are still living at the comfort of your home.