The joy of meeting
Hospitality and Friendship at the Heart of PLU
This summer, we had the pleasure of opening our home to fellow home exchangers. What started as a simple hospitality stay quickly turned into long conversations, shared meals, and the kind of laughter that makes you forget you had only just met. There is something magical about welcoming people who already feel like friends, simply because we belong to the same community.
And last Friday, in Paris, we experienced that same magic again. A group of us gathered for a PLU meetup in the city, and it felt as though we had known each other for years. That was the case for some of them, some others were friends we only met virtually as we swapped together without meeting. We exchanged stories about our travels, our swaps, and even our little mishaps—because let’s face it, home exchange always comes with its share of funny anecdotes. It was a beautiful reminder that PLU is not just about homes; it’s about people.
Whether it’s hosting travelers in our home in Normandy or meeting other exchangers in a café in Paris, or a food court, these encounters are the essence of what makes PLU so unique. The hospitality, the trust, and the genuine joy of connecting with “people like us” go far beyond the walls of our houses.
Organizing or joining a meetup is a simple gesture, but it creates lasting memories. It transforms home exchange from an online platform into a real community, one where we share not only our homes but also our lives.
Because in the end, the true spirit of PLU is this: opening doors, building friendships, and discovering that wherever we are in the world, we are never really far from home.
That’s why I’d love to encourage more of us to create these opportunities. Host a coffee or an aperitif in your hometown, suggest a picnic during your exchange abroad, or simply invite a fellow exchanger for a walk or a meal. It doesn’t have to be complicated, the smallest meetups often turn into the most memorable ones.
People Like Us is the world's most trusted home exchange community. We believe in sharing, trust, generosity, respect, communication, equality, cooperation, honesty, hospitality, friendship, flexibility and adventure. We take pride in our homes and we care about the environment in which we live: our village, city, country and our planet. We care about the ethos of home exchange and we do it because we love the experience and the friendships that it generates.
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