We had one full-time AFS exchange student from Germany for a year and we've hosted other young visitors from France during the summer. This all came about after our daughter went to the Czech Republic as an AFS exchange student. Later, we began hosting adult visitors who had come to America, mostly on business-sponsored exchanges. We've had them from Turkey, Russia, and several from Japan. Some were more fun than others, but all of it was worthwhile. The daughter who went to the Czech Republic didn't get along too well with her host family, but moved in with another family later and all was fine. Like the rest of life, it's usually pretty damn fine, especially if you do your best to make it work.