The Best Way to Vacation as a Family/Renting a Vacation Home

So, let's face it, mom and dad--you want a vacation with your family but somehow, it never ends up quite being a vacation for you. You head off for Yellowstone trapped in a car for days with children who continue to say "He's on my side" or "Are we there yet?" Or you head off for Disneyland and run yourselves and everyone else ragged for days in order to make the most of your time and money. I know the drill.

However, my family rented a vacation home in Captiva Island, Florida and then in Cape Coral, Florida. We actually loved it so much that we ended up buying a home. Vacation homes are the ultimate choice. I will never again vacation in a hotel. We basically rented a home for a week and did whatever we felt like doing whenever we felt like doing it. And it worked for all of us. We were actually depressed when the week was over and relaxed. Our days went something like this--Wake up around 8 or 9, grab a bowl of cereal (from the groceries we chose ourselves) and hit the pool until noon. Shower, go out for lunch, either sightsee a little bit or watch TV or whatever. Mess around, go to a museum or tour until suppertime. Either eat out or come back home and grill out, then hit the pool again until bedtime. I realize my child will never "see the world" this way, but there is still lots of time for that. I also know that kids are incredibly over-scheduled in our rat race world, and giving her the tools to just sit back and enjoy life are important as well. Best of all, I did not come back exhausted. I came back relaxed and even a little tan.

For this kind of relaxation, Disneyworld can wait another year or two..According to a website called bargaineering.com, here are the top 8 reasons to rent a vaction home and skip renting a hotel room.

1. It's cheaper. It's exceptionally cheap when you go during the off-season, usually almost 50% off the peak rates. The vacation homes are usually very large so when you finally calculate the cost per person, it's quite affordable.
2. It's negotiable. Hotels are not very good at negotiation, unless you're a savvy customer or use something like Priceline, the price is whatever you can get through a travel search site. Demand for vacation homes, especially in this recession, is down and you can use it to your advantage.
3. You have kitchens and grills to cook yourself. Most hotels, unless it's suites, won't have any type of kitchen or even a microwave. You can continue to save money on your vacation if you take advantage of the kitchen and the grills usually made available in vacation homes.
4. A pool of your own! If you're in a vacation home usually frequented in the summer, chances are it has a pool that you can use all to yourself.
5. Plenty of communal space. If you want to play board games or yard games, it's pretty much impossible in a hotel. With your own vacation home, you have living rooms and other communal spaces you can take advantage of.
6. Parking aplenty. If you go to a hotel in a resorty area, usually you can park one or two cars a room in the hotel parking lot. With a vacation home, no one is monitoring so you can pack in as many as you want.
7. Free Wi-Fi. The last home we stayed in had free Wi-fi, which was a great perk. While paying $9 a day at a hotel isn't horrible, I don't plan on being tethered to a computer so $9 to check my email is a bit much (I know there are lots of hotels with free Wi-Fi, but many still charge!).
8. More likely to be pet friendly. A vacation home is more likely to be pet-friendly, which means you can save on kenneling costs. Hotels? Forget about it, you have no chance.
   (bargaineering.com)

With all that said, consider a vacation home for your next vacation. A hotel implies that you will use it to sleep and do other things that exhaust you no matter how worthwhile they are. A vacation home means that you can spend your vacation actually relaxing and come back rejuvenated.

Works Cited
7 Reasons to Skip Hotels and Rent Vacation Homes. http://www.bargaineering.com/articles/7-reasons-to-skip-hotels-rent-vacation-homes.html