A guest from just down the street, 10,000 miles away

Marci and Derek had a booking at their Snowmass condo from the Heywood-Smith family. In their first messages back and forth, they learned the family lived in Adelaide, Australia. That got Marci’s attention right away. Right after law school, she had spent a year working in Adelaide, and she had lived about half a mile from the Heywood-Smiths’ house.

The connection was immediate. It turned out they had more in common, too. The Heywood-Smiths were taking their family on a month-long trip through several ThirdHome properties, a “ThirdHome-a-thon,” as Marci put it. “People after our own heart,” she said.

Dinner in Cabo

Then came one more coincidence: both families would be in Cabo at the same time.

Marci and Derek invited the Heywood-Smiths to dinner. Derek and his sons had been out on the water and came back with fresh fish, which became a feast of several courses: sashimi, ceviche, and grilled tuna and marlin. Two families who had started out as host and guest spent the evening around one table, half a world from Adelaide and a long way from Snowmass.

“We had the most delightful evening,” Marci said.

What ThirdHome is really about

For the Morrises, the night summed up why they love being members. “If this isn’t the best endorsement for ThirdHome!” Marci said. “And so fitting as we enter the holiday season, making new friends and relationships that will last a lifetime.”ThirdHome members since December 2024 · 35 trips and counting

“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.

Renu Bonner is a loyal Member who has been on over 100 trips with ThirdHome. She was referred by a friend in 2016 and was admittedly a little hesitant about the program at first but soon realized that having a community of like-minded travelers with common standards for travel put her at ease. Then, after her first stay any worries, she had were gone for good.  

Renu keeps a ThirdHome “bucket list” so she knows a multitude of homes she’d love to stay in. That way, when one of these has weeks added, she’s ready to book then and there. Recently she spent the most Keys she’s ever spent on an exchange, but because her sights had been set, she knew it was worth the splurge.  

Time of year rarely matters to Renu, especially with the quality of homes she’s witnessed in her ten years with the Club. She says if there’s a home that you’ve been dreaming of, then just go. According to our veteran traveler, there are ThirdHomes where she’d be content reading a book in a new room each day if the weather required.  

Not only has Renu visited amazing homes, but she’s also built lasting relationships through ThirdHome’s community. She met Leo and Linda P. through a booking. Later, they met for drinks in California and when it was time for Leo and Linda to visit India, Renu provided them with recommendations and when they got there even had lunch with Renu’s sister. On a ThirdHome Adventure to New Zealand early in her membership, she met Jeff and Karen V. from Tennessee and immediately hit it off. Now the group takes trips together, stay at one another’s homes, and even have an Africa trip in the works.  

ThirdHome has given Renu and her family opportunities to accomplish things they hadn’t dreamt of before. She even visited all 50 states without meaning to! However, for Renu going on 100 ThirdHome trips is not the most important part of her Member story. It’s all of the distinct experiences, properties, and opportunities the exchange has provided her, her family, and her friends. ThirdHome has changed the way she and her family experience the world, and she is very grateful for that gift.