THE Golden Gate bridge, cable cars and trams, Alcatraz, Haight-Ashbury, the Pacific Ocean, a night of baseball with the San Francisco Giants ...you can’t put a price on memories like these.

But what makes them especially dear is knowing how little they cost.

We used to go camping, thinking that was about as cheap as it gets. But house swapping, in fact, is even cheaper.

After eight exchanges, which all turned out brilliantly, we are evangelists for a simple but smart way of holidaying.

This year it was San Francisco, where a fortnight cost about the same as seven nights in Benidorm.

Beyond the annual subscription to an exchange agency, the main expense was getting there and back.

But it’s not just about the money. House swapping brings experiences money can’t buy – and tourists rarely enjoy.

We found early on that we behave differently on an exchange holiday.

We do the tourist stuff at a leisurely pace. We feel like locals, with “permission” to potter around enjoying someone else’s lifestyle for a couple of weeks.

Apart from our first swap, we have never proactively sought an exchange.

We just renew our annual membership of Homelink and await best offers.

Others choose a destination and send out offers, but maybe our natural laziness leaves us looking forward to what opportunity the next message might bring.

For those who do their own looking, Homelink listings can be searched online. There are thousands of homes in towns and cities, in countryside and at the seaside all over the world, though most are in western Europe and English-speaking nations like Australia and the US.

Starting with Rome in 2004, swaps have taken us to the Los Angeles suburb of Monrovia, a 19th century city centre apartment in Madrid, a resort near Valencia, another second home near Venice, and a flat in an historic building in lovely Lerici on the Ligurian coast.

We also loved a winter break in the Jura mountains, walking above ski slopes and using forest footpaths to cross from France into Switzerland.

This year it was San Francisco, where we stayed in a beautiful house – a 1923 “craftsman bungalow” with a veranda at the front – in a classy Bay Area suburb.

We had the run of the house, with all its home comforts (we never had a fridge-freezer or washing machine when we used to go camping) plus our hosts’ BMW.

We used public transport for travel into the city, with the option of roaming wherever we fancied inland.

The BMW took us to the Napa Valley – where the non-driving over-21s of the family made the most of a wine-tasting hosted by a genial Sheffield-born ex-pat at the randomly chosen Dutch Henry winery – and into the hills behind the Bay Area to walk among the redwoods.

Naturally, we spent time in San Francisco, a short ride away on Bart – nothing to do with the Simpsons but the Bay Area Rapid Transit commuter system, with a seven-day Muni passport, giving access to the entire city with unlimited use of buses, underground, trams and cable cars, cost $26 each.

One word of warning: when it comes to weather, San Francisco is cool, mostly. Cloud sits low over the city and it can be genuinely chilly, even in summer.

You can tell the tourists, as they wear shorts and T-shirts. And that’s another area where house swapping scored, as our hosts left a cupboard full of warm clothing.

We enjoyed simple pleasures locally – a superb farmers’ market, free opera in the park in Berkeley, the biggest ice creams we’d ever seen at Fentons’ famous creamery, and Friday night at the spectacular 1920s Grand Lake Theatre cinema, complete with Wurlitzer performance.

Why don’t more people try house swapping? Friends and family are fascinated, but something holds them back. They still ask, “Have you had any disasters?”

No, or at least, not yet. Everyone respects each other’s home.

For us, one bonus is that swapping makes us carry out a major house clean at least once a year. When we used to go camping, we would turn the house upside down before going on holiday, so we would return to a home that was still a tip.

These days, we return to a house even cleaner and tidier than when we left. Usually, the only signs that someone has visited are one or two unfamiliar items in the fridge and the odd kitchen implement in the wrong drawer.

• Nick Jenkins registered with Homelink (01962 886 882, homelink.org.uk), a leading home exchange agency, where annual membership (£115) gives each homeowner a web page to list their home with up to 20 photographs, plus access to thousands of listings worldwide.

• British Airways return flights (Heathrow to San Francisco) start at £524 in November. BA reservations – 0844 493 0787 and ba.com