Villa & Vacation Rentals:
Renting a Home Abroad can be "a Moveable Feast"

by Scott Stavrou

Author-adventurer Ernest Hemingway wrote, "If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast." As someone who traveled the world and spent most of his adult years living outside the U.S., Hemingway knew what it was like to immerse himself in a foreign culture. Today’s adventurous travelers are likewise seeking to know and experience their destinations as fully as possible, to savor a sweet taste of life abroad. Of course you don’t have to write the Great American Novel, Run with the Bulls in Pamplona, game fish in the Gulf Stream or go on an African safari to have a desire to see your destination from the inside vantage point of a local – you just have to rent a home away from home.

If, like Papa, you do opt for strolling outside your Paris pied-a-terre for an early morning café au lait or trout fishing in the clear streams of Spain’s Basque country, a short-term stay in a Paris apartment or a Spanish country villa can make these dreams reality.

But whether your taste for traveling adventure leans toward skiing to the porch of your Alpine chalet, wine-tasting at the vineyard of your Tuscan villa, golfing or salmon fishing in front of your Scottish Stately Home, stepping off a gondola onto the doorstep of your own Venetian palazzo or perhaps windsurfing right up to your private beach in the Greek islands or the sun-drenched Caribbean -- villa and apartment rentals offer today’s discerning traveler the best opportunity to most fully inhabit their destination. Your holiday might only be a week but the memories should indeed stay with you forever.

Today’s technology has made the world smaller than ever before and travel and tourism are the world’s leading industries. Venturing abroad to explore other cultures has become both more popular and more important to the way we do business and how we relax. The modern traveler is more knowledgeable about where they want to go, how to get there and where to stay. With this knowledge has come a stronger desire to more fully discover holiday destinations. And almost anywhere you want to go, there are villa, home, or apartment rentals to accommodate your trip. The choices can be mind-boggling and a little knowledge can go a long way to making your decision-making easier for your travel planning.

Wherever you go and whatever you do there, the most fundamental choice you’ll make is where you stay for your holiday. For those who want to experience their destination first-hand and see things from the perspective of the locals, villa and apartment rentals are undoubtedly an option worth considering. Renting a home or villa has long been a popular travel option for Europeans for their extended vacations and with the help of the Internet and the increase in American’s international travel; home rentals have become an option that more Americans are choosing as well.

The advantages to home and apartment rentals are many. Families are able to inhabit one home rather than several hotel rooms. The cost per person is typically much lower than any comparable hotel room abroad. There are less dealings with confusing local taxes, hotel staffs, tipping, phone tariffs, breakfast schedules and the like. Less noise and aggravation from other tourists or tour groups, less confinement to tourist centers and pricier restaurants and crowded venues. There is the option to minimize expenses by cooking at home. And finally, of course, there’s always more room for just relaxing and inhabiting your own space in a home or an apartment than in any hotel room.

Villa and apartment rentals (often referred to as self-catering property rentals) are an opportunity for travelers to experience how the locals really live, which is the main reason we travel abroad in the first place. Whether you choose to live like the locals in a simple home in the French countryside, or on a secluded Greek island, or like the locals who get served dinner al fresco on their balconies overlooking their private yachts moored in the ink-blue Mediterranean, is of course up to you. There are as many types of home rentals as there are homes.

You should expect your rental property to be fully furnished and most always include at minimum: living room (generally with TV, phones, etc), fully equipped kitchen (along with all the necessary utensils for cooking any meal), full bathrooms and private bedrooms. The additional criterion you use to choose your holiday home will be up to you; you might search for the apartment in the Parisian arrondissement of your dreams or the seaside villa with a balcony overlooking the sea or even with its own private beach. Of course all these options will be reflected in the price of your rental.

The Internet is a rich resource for locating home and apartment rentals around the world. A simple search such as Europe + villa rentals or vacation homes abroad or in Europe or Asia, will yield numerous hits. You should also check with the national or local tourist office of the country or region you are visiting as they often will refer you to specialists in home rentals in their vicinity or at least reputable companies who have worked in their field for some time.

The savvy web-surfer might well find a homeowner abroad that rents his own home or his holiday home for parts of the year. Those experienced and comfortable with international dealings may find this a viable option if they’re prepared to do their own legwork and take on the tasks of making international contacts via email/phone/fax and surmount any language barriers and handle currency exchange or bank wire transfers for payments. The Internet is rife with villa and vacation sites that allow homeowners to post information about their property along with contact information for interested parties to go directly to the owners.

The other on-line option is renting through an established villa or vacation rental agency. For travelers who like the security of dealing with American companies, there are also a host of experienced villa, home and apartment rental specialists in the U.S. that offer private property portfolios throughout the world and give clients the safety and opportunity of dealing in their own currency and having an American contact to coordinate all the details such as payment, directions, arrival details, local contacts, security deposits, etc.

However, the first thing to do is make some decisions about your trip. Have an idea of where and when you’d like to go and what your accommodation expectations and budget are. A youth hostel budget is not going to get you into a luxury seaside villa anymore than it will get you a suite at the Ritz. And if all the amenities of home are important to you, you might well find that you’re not suited to villa rentals, which may leave you without the security of an English-speaking concierge, CNN, or your morning paper. However, if gaining first-hand knowledge of your destination is your goal, there’s no better way to do it than by living where the locals do – by renting their homes or apartments.

Whether you find them online or through a recommendation or referral, some things you should look for when dealing with an agency or homeowner are: how long they’ve been in business, do they have toll-free phone numbers, do they have a real brick and mortar street address, do they have pictures of the properties, have the properties been inspected, do they have local contacts to coordinate your arrival, do they have a cancellation policy, do they offer cancellation insurance, and finally do they have intimate first-hand knowledge of the properties they offer and the areas they represent?

Work up a sample budget along with your itinerary. To make finding the right home away from home as enjoyable and simple a process as possible, know where you’d like to go, how many bedrooms you need, what budget you’re comfortable with, what activities/locations are of most interest to you and what additional qualities are important to your trip, i.e. swimming pool, beach access, seclusion or central location, balcony, bbq, furnishings, views, phone, fax, laundry, computer hook-ups, special needs for children, maid or cook service, etc.

As with any travel decision, the more informed and realistic you are, the more likely you are to find what you’re looking for. Ask for some comparisons or quality grading criterion. While $1,000 per week might not get you a luxury villa on the Amalfi Coast, it might well get you a lovely Tuscan farmhouse for your group.

As with most travel options, home rental prices tend to vary with season, with summer high-season rentals often booking from 6-12 months in advance and costing as much as 50% per more than off-season rentals. Plan accordingly. Typically, home rentals work on a weekly basis, with one-week bookings the norm and the majority of rental properties have set start/end days, most frequently working on a Saturday to Saturday basis. With home rentals it’s often wise to confirm your property booking prior to making airfare reservations.

The more experienced and successful villa rental agencies offer a wide range of properties, from simple economical apartments, condos, and houses to fully staffed villas, castles, and chateaux. Many travelers choose a vacation rental in an outlying area nearby several places they wish to visit, establishing a home base and making short excursions. Villa/vacation rentals have garnered a large and dedicated following in recent years and will undoubtedly continue to do so as international interest grows and as the Internet widens the scope of our connectivity. Because the world’s leading travel media have written positively about the vacation rental option, our choices have increased. The only thing to be aware of is to make sure you deal with reputable homeowners or agencies and have realistic expectations.

Finally, for concerned and educated travelers, opting for a stay in a home or an apartment abroad is a way to express their respect for a foreign location by avoiding contributing to over-development from tourism and hotels. Seeing the world from the vantage point of the locals is not only economically rewarding, it’s also environmentally respectful. What better way to exhibit your respect for your destination than by achieving "resident status" and becoming a part of the local culture, by sleeping where they sleep and eating, shopping, and living where they live.

If you want to savor life abroad for your next holiday, a villa or apartment rental might well be the way to stop dreaming your life and start living your dreams.
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Scott Stavrou is a professional freelance writer and member of the International Food, Wine & Travel Writers Association as well as the author of one European travel guidebook and many articles on European travel. In his work in the villa rental and travel industry, he has visited thousands of villas throughout the world.