That’s because once members sign on to a service, which typically costs $45 to $110 a year, they connect with one another online. So while companies poll customers, they don’t have immediate statistics.  “What I do know is that people who used to do one exchange every year or two are now doing four, five, six or more exchanges within a year,” said Ed Kushins, founder of HomeExchange.com, one of the largest swap services with 20,000 members. “Weekend exchanges are one of the fastest-growing kinds. Even I’ve done it. I live in Hermosa Beach, and I did an exchange in Beverly Hills. It’s only 20 miles away, but it’s like going from one world to another.”  Helen Bergstein, founder of Digsville.com, another service, has seen the same trend. “It’s not just about that two weeks overseas anymore,” she said. “In a survey I did nine years ago, exchangers were mostly middle age and older and went on two-weeks-plus trips once a year. When I did a survey a year ago, the age was lower, with many more families, and they took shorter, more-frequent trips and closer to home.”  Steve and Dian Jahn, of Anacortes, Wash., hadn’t considered doing a weekend swap until they were contacted last year by Greg Cusbert, who lives in Vancouver.  “Greg put forth the idea, and it was a very good one,” Mr. Jahn said. “We enjoy a great getaway in an international city, and Greg enjoys our small bay-front condo in a rural area, so it’s a great change for us both.”  For David and Karen Keane, early retirees who live in Lyme, N.H., short-term swaps are a way to explore New England on a budget. Since joining HomeLink International four years ago, they have traveled overseas once, but also swapped their home, which is near Dartmouth College, for places in Hyannis, Mass., Bar Harbor and Falmouth, Me., and New York City.  “The young lady in Manhattan got sick and didn’t come to our place,” Mr. Keane said. “But to honor her side of the bargain she went and stayed at her mother’s.”  It is because they are not retired that Guillermo Orozco, an architect, and Kent Ducote, a business consultant, self-professed “serial exchangers,” favor short-term swaps.  For the past few years the couple have swapped their 1950s Florida home with period furnishings in Key West, for, on average, two long trips and three getaways within short driving distance. Their close-to-home swaps have been in Hollywood, Delray Beach, at two different homes in Fort Lauderdale, and three times at the same spot in South Beach in Miami.  “Our South Beach exchangers have a 28th-floor condo overlooking the skyline to the west and the Atlantic to the east,” Mr. Ducote said. “We’ve even tried to swap in the Upper Keys or Middle Keys, but people would say that was too close.”  Weekend exchanges are nothing new to Diane Drey, a New Yorker who retired last month. Her 2,800-square-foot condo has “a view of Central Park to die for,” making it even more coveted than the typical Manhattan listing.  “I’ve been doing home exchange overseas and on weekends for 23 years, more than 100 of them,” she said. “I’ve even exchanged kids. I have it all on a spreadsheet.”  Whenever Ms. Drey wants out of the city, she finds a swap. “I went to Philadelphia twice for the weekend, once for an art show and another time to check out restaurants,” she said. “I even went to Darien, an hour away, because the house was on the Long Island Sound. I took my kids and we went kayaking. We do tremendous ski vacations. I used to do so many at one place in Sugarbush that the family admitted that I was using the house more than they were. They sold it, and I was very upset.”  It took Ms. Drey some doing to convince Mel Winokur, her significant other of seven years, to accompany her on his first swap.  “He was like everyone else, very skeptical,” she said. “People always say, ‘Are you out of your mind? You’re going to let a stranger stay in your home?’ So his first time was a long weekend in Cape Cod. It was a good trial run. Of course if he didn’t like home exchanging, I probably would have had to leave him.”  One element of closer exchanges is that what might remain a business transaction long distance has a greater chance of becoming friendlier. While some travelers enjoy meeting to exchange keys and discuss details, and even possibly becoming pals, others prefer to keep their personal lives out of it.  “There’s something about feeling protected from the social rules of acquaintanceship that allows us the freedom to live in other people’s homes without the burden of intimacy,” said Dan Quinn, a psychologist and home exchanger in Berkeley, Calif., who prefers e-mail communication when setting up exchanges. “As a psychologist, this fascinates me.”  So he found what happened on an weekend exchange to Carmel, two hours from home, intriguing. “We were looking around at the bookshelves and things, and then on the refrigerator I saw a photo of someone who looked familiar,” he recalled. “ ‘Holy cow, that’s Josh,’ I said.” Josh was a classmate of Mr. Quinn’s in graduate school. “After looking around, we pieced it together that he was the boyfriend of the daughter of the parents where we were staying.”  Nadia Younes, who swaps her 1920s Spanish-style bungalow in Ventura, holds an opposite view. “I feel like I’ve stayed at a friend’s I don’t know yet,” said Ms. Younes, who has done exchanges as close as Los Angeles, 90 minutes to the south.  She didn’t hesitate to reach out to the HomeLink community when her sister and family had to quickly evacuate their house in the Rancho Bernardo section of San Diego last fall because of wildfires. “She couldn’t get to me,” Ms. Younes said of her sister. “And there were all these places she couldn’t go because of the fires and because the freeway was totally jammed.”  Within hours, Ms. Younes had found a spare apartment in Coronado for the family of two adults, two children and one dog.  While it’s hard to match the drama of Ms. Younes’s tale, Matt Canepa may deserve an award for romance. An American most recently from San Diego, he was living in Todos Santos, Baja, Mexico, when he met Jessica Houts in December 2006. She was on vacation with her family, who were friends of Mr. Canepa’s business partner.  “We were struck by lightning,” Mr. Canepa said. “We had a magical four days, but she was going to law school and was pretty much established in San Francisco.”  So Mr. Canepa “moved” to San Francisco for a couple of months by setting up a total of six home stays in exchange for the oceanfront villa he and his partner had built as a vacation rental.  “I stayed in six neighborhoods around San Francisco,” Mr. Canepa said. “Some of these were fair exchanges, but others were just hovels. I didn’t care. It allowed me to be near Jessica. It gave us the opportunity to know if something was worth pursuing.”  One of his favorite swaps was for the home of Mr. Bollozos, who equally enjoyed his 10 days in Mexico. The two became friends after Mr. Canepa relocated to San Francisco last November.  “Mark came to the engagement party, and he’s invited to the wedding,” Mr. Canepa said. “He’s part of the whole story.”  They’ve also talked about going up to Lake Tahoe to celebrate. Mr. Bollozos has just the place in mind.
In the past, home swapping was the province of international vacationers seeking long-term getaways. But short-term swaps have taken off.