Travel Tools: Vacation Rentals

When you go the vacation rental route, you're not staying at a hotel; instead, you rent a residential property (house, condo, apartment) owned by someone just like you or me.

For leisure trips that are longer than a couple of days, this is my preferred method for finding lodging - especially when I'm not traveling last minute. Here's my take on the pros & cons of this method:

Benefits:

• You get a larger and, with a little research, more comfortable place than you would at a hotel - usually for a far cheaper price.
  
• You usually get a full kitchen, allowing you to save money. Don't get me wrong - I really like to eat out. But when I'm skiing or on a beach vacation, I tend to want to eat breakfast and have afternoon drinks at "home" anyway. It's nice not to have to go out for everything.
  
• If you're traveling to a city, you get a view of what it's like to be a local - rather than just seeing what the central commercial area is like. In the States at least, most downtowns are pretty much the same these days - it's the neighborhoods that make a city great.
  

Drawbacks:

• Since you're booking an individual unit or house, you need to do more research to make sure you're getting a good place. It takes about 2 minutes to go to Expedia, book a room at the Ritz or Four Seasons, and know you're going stay somewhere nice. Finding & booking a great vacation rental will take more time up front - but if you get a place that's 5-star quality but twice the size and half the price, you time time will have been worth it.
• You probably won't get daily maid service, room service, valet parking, and all the other goodies exclusive to hotels. But you won't be paying for those things, either.
• You need to plan a little further ahead. Because of the turnaround time in booking, you need a few days' advance notice to book a vacation rental. City & ski destinations usually have more availability, but for Hawaii I'd plan to book 3-4 months in advance at least. Some of the best places book up 6 months in advance or more for holiday periods.

For me, the benefits certainly outweigh the drawbacks for some kinds of trips.

Here's how you do it:

• Check out available vacation rental options on these sites: airbnb.com, vrbo.com, homeaway.com, and clearstay.com. Tripadvisor has some reviews and contact info too.
• Rule out immediately any listings that look suspicious: ones that don't have plenty of pictures, haven't updated their calendar in months, or otherwise look shady. These will be obvious, and these sites seem to do a good job of policing that kind of thing.
• Carefully examine the pictures they post. Did they include pics of the bathroom(s)? Kitchen? If not, you don't necessarily know what you're getting.
  
• Read the user reviews of any places you're considering. If it's a new listing, there might not be any...I don't automatically disqualify those, but I approach them with more skepticism.
• The most legitimate owners will post the exact street address (or at least the precise unit number) of their place. I don't necessarily disqualify ones that don't, but the more info they provide, the better.
  
• Contact the owner to inquire about availability and payment method. If that particular house/unit has their own dedicated website and live online calendar, even better. If they accept immediate bookings through a site like Clearstay, even better!
  
• Pay with a credit card, if you can. Some places will only accept paypal or personal checks, though. I usually do a little extra googling on those places to make sure there are no reports of scams.
  

Since there aren't necessarily brand names and thousands of online reviews associated with a vacation rental, you are gambling a bit vs. staying at a hotel. With a little bit of diligence and common sense, though, I've never felt even remotely ripped off.

In many cases I have, however, felt sorry for the suckers crammed into cattle-class hotel rooms while I was sprawled on the couch of a luxury condo with a view of the ocean, mountains, or both.