In the style of the hit festive film, The Holiday, Matt Bailey and his wife Sophie Addyman, swapped their London flat to spend Christmas in Germany, before flying to Bangkok the following year
The Holiday has become one of the most beloved Christmas movies in the UK. It follows the journey of two women played by Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet, who opt to swap their Los Angeles mansion and cosy countryside cottage during the festive season. For obvious reasons, it’s an enduring festive smash.
For two viewers, the film provided more than a merry thrill. It inspired them to find their own house swap, just like Cameron and Kate, for a Christmas like never before.
Matt Bailey, 47, and his wife, Sophie Addyman, 47, had been watching The Holiday, and the next thing they knew, they were signed up to a house-swapping website, looking for somewhere to spend the festive season. “We were in a flat in London, and it was primarily because we wanted to get away for Christmas,” Matt exclusively told the Mirror.
“We didn’t want to pay extortionate accommodation fees for nice places that we wanted to go.” Soon, the couple found a house swap available in the medieval fairytale town of Rothenburg ob der Tauber, Germany, which Matt described as “one of the most Christmassy towns in the world”.
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Through Love Home Swap, now known as Home Exchange, Matt and Sophie swapped their London flat in Earlsfield with another couple who had a flat that was built into the ancient walls of Rothenburg ob der Tauber. “It was small and cosy, it was just what we wanted,” Matt, a commercial director, said of their accommodation.
Through the direct home swap, they flew out to Germany on December 21 and stayed until December 31. “They have a year-round Christmas museum there, and it was absolutely magical,” Matt shared. “It was like a little chocolate box town.”
In terms of what they got up to during the trip, Matt continued: “We spent a lot of time wandering around. They had a lovely little Christmas market in the town, and we’ve still got a couple of baubles we bought in the Christmas shop there. In Germany, they tend to have their big celebration on Christmas Eve, so we went out for dinner on Christmas Eve, and then on Christmas Day, we just had a nice, chilled day relaxing.
“We wandered around the town while everything was shut. It’s quite a touristy place, so it was lovely to be over there during Christmas time, and we were the only ones wandering around the town and taking pictures.”
When asked if it felt a little strange not being in the UK for Christmas, Matt confessed that “it did a bit”, but they felt “at home straight away” during the house swap and “were able to ease into German life very easily”.
Having completed their first successful house swap, the couple were keen to broaden their horizons and, the following year in 2013, jetted off to Bangkok for Christmas. Matt explained that they managed to get in touch with a couple from Bangkok that had grown-up children living in London, so they were keen to stay in the city over the festive period.
This saw them swap their southwest London flat for a Bangkok apartment in a tower block right in the centre of the bustling and vibrant capital of Thailand. “It was incredibly well located, and it had a shared swimming pool – it was really nice,” Matt said.
“They don’t celebrate Christmas over there at all, so Christmas Day was just a normal day, but we’d arranged to go on a food-based walking tour around Bangkok.
“It was strange though, as we rang home and everyone was there, sitting around having Christmas dinner, whereas we went to a rooftop bar, had a couple of glasses of champagne on Christmas Day. We later met up with an Australian couple we had met during the food tour and went out for drinks with them to celebrate.”
He added: “It was really quiet at first on Christmas evening, but we were told to go to this really lively place, and before we knew it, six or seven like VW camper vans pulled up, opened the doors and bang, it’s a cocktail bar on the street. Everyone’s just sat on the street, drinking these cocktails from these little vans, which were ridiculously cheap and crazy strong as well.
“Then you had a few food trucks outside, so you got street food, and it just sort of seemed to emerge organically that this whole street just became a party.”
Following their Christmas street party, they then flew to one of the Thai islands on Boxing Day for three days, before returning to Bangkok for the New Year, which Matt described as “absolutely mental.”
The couple have since moved out of London to Lincolnshire and welcomed two children, William, 10 and Jack, six, but are still making the most of being able to house swap. Last year, the family went to Bruges, Belgium, on December 27 for a week to celebrate the New Year, and this year they’re heading to Bonn in Germany.
And that’s not all. The family also uses Home Exchange to plan their half-term holidays, with trips to Portugal, France, Spain, Denmark, Iceland, and Wales.
Matt estimates that they’ve used Home Exchange for 12 trips in total, seeing them only needing to pay for their transport and food during each stay, rather than forking out for accommodation costs. They’ve even used Home Exchange as a way to test out an area before moving, with others doing the same.
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