In the midst of planning a recent two-week trip to New York City, Tasneem Amina scanned the options at local hotels and Airbnbs and was immediately met with feelings of sticker shock.
“Every option was at least three times my current rent in San Francisco,” she remembers. “I thought, ‘How can I afford three times my current rent?’”
Thankfully, she didn’t have to. Instead, Amina logged onto Kindred, a members-only home-swapping platform, and used points she’d accrued to book a beautiful home for a tenth of the price. She then spent her stay leisurely enjoying the city like a local, thanks to under-the-radar recommendations her Kindred host provided.
Amina wants to live in a world where people open their homes to fellow travelers. Even more, she’d like those travelers to pay a fraction of traditional costs for travel. This is why she and Justine Palefsky, both former employees at real estate company Opendoor, launched Kindred back in 2021. The pair share the co-founder title, while Palefsky is CEO.
If you look at the numbers alone, many people around the world feel the same as Amina. In early 2024, the company had roughly 10,000 member homes on the platform (mostly within the U.S. and Europe). By the end of the year, the number had risen to upward of 75,000, with a whopping 180,000-home waiting list.
Taking the travel market by storm
Kindred is bringing something incredibly original to the travel market. While house swapping isn’t a new idea, the company approaches it in an innovative way. Potential members apply with photos of their home and their government ID, and after being accepted, they can designate their home as available anytime they are on a trip.
Every time someone stays in a member’s home, they earn a point, which they can then use to stay at another member’s home. Direct swaps are also possible on the platform—but these aren’t required, and no points are used in those instances. Most importantly, all members must have their home on the platform. This ensures that everyone involved in swaps is on board with the concept.
When traveling to a Kindred home, the traveler is required to pay a cleaning fee and a service fee (which range from $15–$35 per day), all organized by Kindred. In addition, Kindred sends all members fresh sheets, towels and toiletries so travelers have clean linens to use for each stay, at no cost to members. No money is exchanged between traveler and host.
Taking on the short-term rental market
The short-term rental market has been in the news for several years now—and not for the greatest of reasons. Several municipalities across the world have attempted to ban platforms like Airbnb (Barcelona, Spain, being a notable example). The reasons are varied, but many of them revolve around the fact that short-term investment properties often sit vacant. This creates a housing supply issue for local residents by spiking housing prices and often pricing out citizen populations.
Kindred is offering an alternative that keeps housing inventory in the hands of locals and, by doing so, helps preserve culture. More than 95% of Kindred homes are primary residences—the platform doesn’t accept short-term rental properties (with very few exceptions, mostly in Europe), though it does allow members to swap the rental property they currently live in.
Tina Žnidaršič rents a flat in London’s Regent’s Canal neighborhood and has been a Kindred member for a few years now. The experience has not only allowed her to travel more, but it has also introduced her to a community of like-minded travelers.
“I really think Kindred is the most sustainable option for traveling to expensive cities,” she says. “To experience a big city while living like a local, in a nice neighborhood, is very special. The homes on Kindred are all of high quality and have a personal touch, versus what you’d find on a short-term rental platform.”
In addition to opening up accessibility based on price, Amina also stresses the company’s community aspect. She says that travel can often feel transactional—you could book a hotel and might only chat with the person at the check-in counter, or you could book an Airbnb and may message the host only one time. Kindred, however, is focused on organically building trust within its community.
“I think it is the community piece that makes things feel richer,” Amina says, adding that she often gets asked if her San Francisco home is on the platform. The answer is yes. “It’s not just that I’m hosting someone in my home and I have credits I can use to travel. When I went to Vancouver, I was watching a cat named Newman, and the homeowner’s name was Danielle. She’s a Taylor Swift fan, so I made her a friendship bracelet that said ‘Karma is a cat’ after the song lyrics.
“Those are the interactions I get excited about—it leads people to create a larger community,” she adds.
Inspiring a “travel-rich lifestyle“
While the concept of home swapping is taking off, there are some who still feel hesitant about the idea. Amina understands, saying that many of us are taught the concept of “stranger danger” as children—“but what we don’t realize is all of the ways we are actually so, so similar.”
There is no “silver bullet” to bringing people on board with the idea, she continues. A lot of it comes down to time and exposure. If more people try it, others may also be willing to jump on board. This isn’t all that different from other disrupting concepts of the past, she notes.
“I can think of a lot of cultural things where I was resistant at first—like online dating,” she says. “When I first heard about it, I was like, ‘I’m sorry, you want me to do that? Go on a date with a stranger I’ve never met?’’’
Amina and Palefsky’s efforts focus on changing culture so people can have, as they call it, a “travel-rich lifestyle at a fraction of the cost.”
“It’s just a different mindset. It’s a different mode of travel,” Amina says. “It feels more respectful. It feels more considerate. It feels more conscious. We really care about seeing the world move in this direction.”
Photo courtesy of Tasneed Amina and Justine Palefsky
