How to Star in House Hunters International

My family have just spent the last four days being filmed for House Hunters International ("HHI"). The episode should be aired in the US sometime towards the end of 2014. 

House Hunters International are always searching for new families, singles or couples who are relocating from one country to another. Not only will you have professional footage of your relocation experience, you'll also have your travel costs to your home country paid. 

There are a few ways you can star in your own episode of House Hunters International, but you must have recently moved to another country to appear on HHI.

1. Write a blog. The researchers for HHI will find you if you have an interesting story to tell.
2. Contact HHI directly with a home movie of your relocation story.

What to Expect

It was hard work and not without drama. 

Long Days

Our days were 12 hours long. We were cold. We had to pretty much wear the same clothes for 4 days. We had to repeat ourselves over and over again. 

The filming takes place AFTER you have moved to a new country. We returned to UK to film our back story. This was fun to do. For us it meant that our children put their old British school uniform back on and I had to rustle up a class of baby yoga mums and babies. It was only one day of filming and it was a relaxed fun day. 

The filming in our new country was harder. We were filmed looking around three different properties, including the one we currently rent. This involved hiring a removal company to take out our belongings so it looked like we didn't live there. Then, when filming was over, we put all our belongings back. Once everything was back in place, we had to continue filming until 8.30pm and then be ready to go at 8am the following day. It really was a hard pace to keep up with. 

Pushed to the Edge

My least favourite part of the filming was when I was filmed riding a bike. I love cycling, but I was asked to cycle over a bridge in Amsterdam (equivalent to a steep hill) with 2 children in the bakfiets.  The area was busy, full of tourists, other cyclists, cars and motorbikes. It was hard work as I was asked to go up and down this bridge three or four times. 

My husband and I were then asked to ride some hire bikes. I flatly refused as the bike had a back pedal brake on, which I've never cycled before. I was so tired, the last thing I wanted to do was ride this dodgy looking bike. By this point, it was 1pm, we'd been going since 8am with no food. Eventually, the director persuaded me to cycle this hired back-pedal-brake bike, which worked fine on a flat road. 

We were asked cycle a loop, over one bridge, along a road and then back across another bridge. I cycled down a bridge and the bike wouldn't stop. There was a car in front of me and I was heading straight for it and there was nothing I could do about it. The director ran out in front of my bike and managed to stop it. I was completely terrified. There was a camera clipped onto the front of my bike, so I believe my horror stricken face would have been captured. So embarrassed, but relieved that I didn't come to any harm.

Still Interested in being on HHI?

I would say, 'go for it'. It's a lot of fun and a once in a life time experience.