We love to travel locally. We love to discover local restaurants and bakeries. We love to live like locals. And that’s what the Local Travel Movement aims at doing. There is a difference between a tourist and a traveller. And the concept of home swap is just apt for this discussion.

At first, the idea of swapping your home may seem quite peculiar because it moves between two extreme poles: those that love it and those that have never heard about this topic and would never do it. There are people who are quite open about the idea of exchanging their homes and there are those that absolutely reject the idea because it is so new to them. Imagine the idea of letting a stranger into your house and having them use your things and your bathroom and your kitchen! It is a little difficult to assimilate in the beginning especially when we’ve been taught from young to beware of strangers and what better place to feel protected than your home?

Swapping your home through Knok is precisely the method that will open up frontiers. It is the ideal way of discovering the local perspective of a city. Recently we came across the Local Travel Movement, a movement that connects independent travellers with local people. It is a movement that help travellers get under a place’s skin (and let it under theirs), while also saving money by spending it locally! The principles match exactly with our philosophy in Knok. We love it when our users come back from swapping their homes and share how lovely their experience was living the city as a traveller and not a tourist. Check out the Local Travel Movement values and a few pointers on how to become a local traveller!

We love to help our users discover the famous places that only local people would know like having the patatas bravas of the Bar Tomás in Barcelona or having a Nutella Crepe in the Navigli area of Milano rather than the center. This what we love in Knok. This is what we want to form part of. The Local Travel Movement is just another like-minded movement that we are proud to be part of!

Read the original version of this article on the Knok blog