How to Choose A Vacation Rental For Your Next Vacation

Ahhh….. You have managed to save the funds and take the time off of work to bring the family on the best family vacation. Around the kitchen table, you’ve voted on a destination together, and chosen the highly anticipated dates of travel. Everyone’s excited! Now, the hard part. Finding an affordable home away from home. Where will you house your family on your travels? The options are plentiful and don’t always have to include expensive hotel stays. Aside from airfare, hotel and housing is usually the next biggest expense, sometimes costing a couple of hundred dollars a night. With a little research, you should be able to choose something that suits your personal needs and budget, whether it be a beach house rental, a Disney villa rental, or an enticing AirBnB location the kids will love. If you know where to look, you can find a convenient place for under $100 a night.

Here is a list of our favorite home-away-from-home hotel alternatives:

1. Airbnb is the Uber or eBay of travel.

It’s the website that brings private rentals to those seeking hotel alternatives and is the perfect holiday rental for anyone who is looking for a cost-efficient and convenient method for their sleeping accommodations. It started when two people set up air mattresses in their living room for travelers, and then cooked them breakfast in the morning, thus the name “Airbed and breakfast.” It is now available in over 190 countries and over 34,000 cities worldwide, hosting over 2.5 million vacation rentals by owner.

2. Beach House Rentals.

Does your dream vacation include some much needed relaxing beach time, but a five-star beach resort just doesn’t make the vacation budget? Believe it or not, there are holiday houses to rent that could provide your family with beachside memories to last a lifetime, with the freedom the kids need outside of a sometimes restricting hotel grounds.

You can find many choices, from oceanfront villas to intimate beach-side cottages. Most beach house vacation rentals include a great selection of amenities from private and beach club pools to hot tubs, jacuzzis, tennis courts, and playgrounds.

3. Timeshare Rentals.

If you find yourself returning to the same vacation spot frequently, you may want to consider purchasing a timeshare. Sometimes called vacation ownership, these accommodations usually consist of condominium units where multiple parties hold the rights to the use of the property, with each owner having an allotted time frame. With the changing needs of vacationers, timeshare ownership has become a very popular form of a vacation rental over the conventional and often extremely expensive resorts, hotels, and motels.

4. Vacation Rentals.

In this genre, you can find homes, apartments, villas, and cabins that offer affordable lodging pretty much anywhere. They will usually be more spacious than hotel rooms, definitely less expensive, and offer you a kitchen to cook some meals in. This a great option if you have a larger family or are traveling with additional families and want to get some good quality family time together.

With the Internet and all the information now available to us at our fingertips, traveling can be creative and personalized to fit each family’s needs. You can travel so much longer, with less time, and with less money. You don’t need to find a hotel in the vicinity in which you’ll be vacationing. You can find an available private rental home that gives you privacy, perfect location, kitchen facilities, and that home away from home feeling. Most importantly, private rentals and alternate accommodations usually are extremely cost-efficient.

And if you need more tips on how to stretch your vacation funds, our top 20 ways to save money on your next vacation should come in handy. And if you really want to make that vacation cheaper, or less expensive, you should apply a few travel hacks to save some money. And if you are looking for inspiration on where to travel for less, our list of cheapest places to travel can help.

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