Ever dreamed of a Mexican villa vacation for four? Now’s your chance to win one! Paradise Hunter, a TV show that showcases the vacation home life around the world, is giving away a week in a villa in Akumal on the Mayan Riviera. To enter the contest, you just have to sign up for the [...]

Tweet

Way back in July, I blush to admit, fellow blogger Edie Jarolim very kindly invited me to participate in a blogosphere event called My 7 Links. Edie writes the wonderful pet-lovers’ blog Will My Dog Hate Me?, which is by turns hilarious, informative and heartbreaking, depending on the day. And My 7 Links is sponsored [...]

Tweet

Arranging a short-term rental of an apartment, house or cottage in a residential neighbourhood is one of my favourite ways to “feel like a local.” (Above is the apartment we rented for a week in Buenos Aires.) But the prospect can be a bit intimidating. Unlike booking a room at an international chain hotel through [...]

Tweet

A while ago, I wrote a blog post about the Caribbean island of Montserrat, where I spent a great vacation with my sisters and our husbands. I’ve just found out that our rental villa, Surf Sighed, has its own website. It’s a lovely, affordable tropical rental with a pretty pool deck and great views. If [...]

Tweet

Joyce Copeland‘s love affair with vacation rentals started about a decade ago, when she was planning a vacation for her extended family and spotted a newspaper ad for short-term rentals in Lake Tahoe. “I was astounded by how little money we’d have to spend, and we could bring the dogs,” she says. Joyce often travels [...]

Tweet

The Caribbean island of Montserrat is one of my very favourite places to travel like a local. It’s hard to do anything else; the island has only two hotels and they’re only 18 rooms each, so even at a hotel you pretty much feel like you’re staying with family. Private villas are the main form [...]

Tweet

Welcome2France.com, which specializes in luxury apartment rentals in Paris, has just announced last-minute discounts of up to 25% on some of its properties. Most of the deals are valid February 1-15 and March 1-15, but there are a few available in late March. Many owners require a minimum stay of five days or a week. [...]

Tweet

Think of London and what pops to mind? Big Ben, the West End, Piccadilly Circus? That’s how many tourists experience it, but most Londoners themselves live in rather more ordinary surroundings. And, if Monty Python is to be believed, few are more ordinary than the suburban Sussex town of Esher. (In one Python episode, Eric [...]

Tweet

Interested in renting a house or apartment for your next vacation, but nervous about dealing with total strangers in a rent-by-owner arrangement or a big agency? Don’t despair. According to a new PhoCusWright study of the vacation rental market, there are 1.26 million homes available for short-term rental in the U.S. alone and–here’s the interesting [...]

Tweet

Roomorama.com, a peer-to-peer site for arranging short-term room and apartment rentals, is expanding. The site, founded last fall, matches travellers with renters in several North American cities. Its new incarnation–dubbed, not surprisingly, Roomorama 2.0–adds a new calendar, new pricing options and a jazzier design, among other tweaks. The latest upgrade also expands the service to [...]

Tweet