Countless Stories: Bruce and Teresa’s ThirdHome Journey

“I hope more members recognize the value and take that first step toward their own journey. Maybe someday our paths will cross somewhere, perhaps on one of the beaches of the world.” – Bruce R.

When Bruce Royer and his wife, Teresa, joined ThirdHome in 2012 through their second home in Topanga, California, they weren’t just looking for a new way to travel, they were looking for a way to build travel into their lives. Fourteen years and nearly 100 exchanges later, Bruce calls it “the best travel decision we could have imagined.” By the end of 2026, he’ll cross the finish line on a goal he’s been pursuing one adventure at a time: 100 trips with ThirdHome.

For Bruce, an award-winning filmmaker and founder of Royer Studios, travel and work have never been separate pursuits. Since 2014, he’s built a “working vacation” into his routine, spending roughly one week each month somewhere new, with his laptop open in the mornings and adventure waiting in the afternoons. A ThirdHome apartment in Paris’s 6th arrondissement, steps from the Luxembourg Gardens, became his home base while he filmed an episode of his travel series. A pair of exceptional exchanges in southern Costa Rica did the same for another episode. “Travel is a choice, but where? Often, availability through ThirdHome drives our decision about which destination to explore next,” he says.

That availability has taken Bruce and Teresa, often with friends and family in tow, everywhere from a 13,000-square-foot Argentine estancia, where a gaucho named Don Chaz greeted them on horseback and the staff hosted a traditional Argentine barbecue, to a Four Seasons residence on Costa Rica’s Papagayo Peninsula. It has also introduced them to hidden gems such as Guanajuato, Mexico, and Sumartin, Croatia; destinations inspired by ThirdHome availability. Some of Bruce’s favorite trips haven’t required a plane ticket at all: Palm Springs, Santa Barbara, Mammoth, San Francisco, and Napa are all within driving distance, proving that the ThirdHome lifestyle doesn’t always require a passport stamp. So far, they have enjoyed 25 close-to-home exchanges and counting.

If you ask Bruce his secret, it isn’t luck, it’s flexibility. “Be flexible with your dates rather than committed to a specific destination and keep a reserve of Keys on hand for when opportunity presents itself,” he advises members. That approach once turned a six-day gap in his itinerary into an unplanned stay in Cannes, which became one of his all-time favorite cities. It has also led him to 52 Keyless exchanges, stretching the value of his membership even further.

But ask Bruce what he loves most about ThirdHome, and the homes themselves are only part of the answer. It’s the community. Over the years, he and Teresa have built genuine friendships with fellow members around the world—from a Swiss host who welcomed them with a fondue night, to a Budapest member who arranged tickets to a sold-out opera, to a French château owner who greeted them upon arrival with several bottles of local wine and a tour of the extensive grounds. “ThirdHome is a community as much as it is a travel club,” Bruce says. “Sometimes, the hosting members help make the destination unforgettable. We certainly make an effort to enhance our guests’ experience while they are staying at Tuscali.”

As Bruce closes in on trip number 100, he’s already looking ahead to the next hundred and to welcoming new members into the fold. “Every one of our nearly 100 exchanges began with a single booking,” he says. “I hope more members recognize the value and take that first step toward their own journey. Maybe someday our paths will cross somewhere, perhaps on one of the beaches of the world.”

From Topanga to Buenos Aires, from working vacations to lifelong friendships, Bruce Royer’s journey is a reminder of what membership can become when you embrace it fully: not simply a way to see the world, but a life built around it.