Timeshares Have Given Us Fantastic Vacations For Free

Hold up, I am not trying to sell you a timeshare. I am not even trying to get you to sell your timeshare. Based on that title, you might be getting your guard up. I just want to explain how my family has enjoyed fantastic vacations as a result of our timeshare. Really, these have been elite resorts that we have had the privelege to stay at; All because of our timeshare.

Your family is probably like mine. You work hard all year and when vacation comes, you want to kick back and really enjoy yourself. We have found that vacations can be a tad pricey, especially the ones we like. Over time we have figured out a way to have great vacations but keep the costs in line with our budget.

Enough talk; how do you do it? Well, we bought this timeshare in Hawaii years ago. We didn't know much about timeshare except for the fact that the resort was spectacular and that there are another 5,000 resorts worldwide that you can trade for using a process called "timeshare exchange". That term was foreign to us but I did some research and figured out how it works. We love our resort but we like to see other places too. Simply put, we find owners of other timeshares and we trade their "time" or "week" for ours. We go there and they go to Hawaii.

It's really quite simple. We ask them "Would you be willing to vacation in Hawaii this year instead of going to your resort again? If so, we can exchange our weeks". That's it. If they say yes, we exchange our week with them for their week. The cost to trade is NOTHING and we get to stay in a beautiful resort in the destination we wanted to travel to. Not only that but there are no taxes or other annoying fees added in.

We always did our research beforehand so we knew that their resort had everything we wanted: beautiful pool, large rooms, Jacuzzi tub, oceanfront view, kitchen etc. Maybe you have stayed in hotel rooms with amenities like that. I have seen those rooms and they are called the Presidential Suite and over a thousand dollars per night. That's slightly out of our budget. Even an average hotel room is $150 per night. That's over $1,000 for the week with all the taxes. Our way is far less expensive and nicer.

If you are traveling with your family or even as a couple, eating out can be the most expensive thing you do on vacation. And I find that after a while it becomes a chore to pick a place out, get there, order, etc. So every here and there we like to prepare the meal ourselves. We make it fun as a family. We shop for groceries at the local supermarket and have a good time making something local or unusual. We would choose a couple of the nights to prepare dinner in our kitchen with local fresh food. This was always fun. Somehow cooking in this new kitchen seemed like more fun than our own. We also whipped up a batch or two of frozen margaritas to enjoy while watching the sunset from our balconies overlooking the beach or mountains (when was the last time you did that at a hotel - no way). If you're in wine country, wine is a perfectly suitable substitute.

And sometimes during the week you or the kids will want a quick snack before or after dinner (keep the savages calm) and it's nice to just go to the kitchen rather than room service. Later you can sit the kids down to relax after a long day of sight-seeing or amusement park rides and pop in one of their favorite movies in the in-unit DVD player with some microwave (in-unit) popcorn. And then you can spend some time unwinding in the Jacuzzi tub with a bottle of wine. It's nice to have "space" some times.

One of the things I always appreciated was the knowledge we received from the timeshare owner about the destination we were going to. And it was always so good and accurate; like knowing a local when you travel. Where to go; what to do; where to eat; where the discounts were; all great. And that always saved us money and lots of time on vacation. They certainly know the area, they're the experts. They own there. I know many people use Exchange Clubs like RCI and Interval and pay hundreds of dollars to do an exchange which add to your vacation costs. We used this strategy I am referring to (trading on your own) for years and traveled to amazing places all over the world. We created a system just like that on the Internet. It's fast, easy and free.

In closing, whether it was the whole family or just the 2 of you, timeshares can bring you luxury vacations all over the world. It cost us less than staying in a hotel room and helped us save money many other ways. And with the extra money we saved, we had more money for fun, food, and exploring.