My brave Sam goes down a slide at one of the pools.
We’re back from vacation, and it was wonderful! We headed off to beautiful Sunriver, a resort area in Oregon, and rented a vacation home for four nights. This is the first vacation where we’ve rented a home, rather than staying in a motel or with friends. Despite any reservations we had, it turned out to be a frugal move.
We found our rental on HomeAway.com, and I highly recommend it! It was easy to inquire about the property, and after the initial inquiry, we dealt directly with the owner, who was very accommodating.
We paid $160 a night plus an $80 cleaning fee, which is more than a single motel room for sure, but on-par with, or even less than, a suite. But instead of a single room with two queen beds and one TV, we got a two bedroom, two bathroom, 1200 square foot house with a fully equipped kitchen and private hot tub.
Unlike our previous vacations, where we’d be in our room for an hour, drive each other crazy in the small space, and head off into the city to find some entertainment (usually costing lots of money), we had the option to just hang out and relax, without getting in each other’s way.
Instead of eating at restaurants for almost every meal, we cooked almost every meal at the vacation home. We barbequed on the grill, ate on the patio, and enjoyed the quiet ambiance of the woods around us.
When we tired of hanging out at home, we had plenty to do, since we were in a resort area. We used the bikes to bike the many paths throughout Sunriver. We used the free pool passes to swim in the pools. And we spent plenty of time in the hot tub.
We easily stayed under budget on our vacation, even considering gas costs, because once we arrived at the vacation home, we didn’t have to drive anywhere. Everything we needed was available in walking or biking distance.
So if you’re thinking of planning a vacation, think about renting a vacation home in a resort area as a frugal alternative. I know the word ‘”resort” conjures up images of an expensive country club atmosphere, but in the end, it’s one of the least expensive, yet most fun filled, vacations we’ve ever taken.
July 15th, 2008 at 6:48 am
We’ve used vrbo.com (vacation rental by owner) with great success. It’s the only way to go - especially with large families.
July 15th, 2008 at 8:46 am
Glad you are back, but it sound like you had a blast!
July 15th, 2008 at 9:16 am
I swear by vacation home rentals when we travel. It’s so much nicer than a hotel room and you save tons of money!
July 15th, 2008 at 9:19 am
Looks like it was fun!
July 15th, 2008 at 9:29 am
Last year I went on vacation with my fiance’s entire family and we rented a huge home. It was the first time I had ever vacationed in a beach home. It was really nice to have real bedrooms, a living room and a kitchen. We had teenage boys with us, so it was definitely more affordable to go grocery shopping and cook at “home.” I think that it was much more relaxing than a hotel.
July 15th, 2008 at 5:37 pm
we’ve done the same thing in the past, but renting a house in florida. for new year’s this past year my parents rented a house and invited my husband and i, plus my two sisters and their boyfriends to go down as our xmas gift. so we stayed in a 6 bedroom, 4 bathroom house with swimming pool and hot tub for around $1100 for the entire week. pretty amazing! the house was absolute gorgeous!
July 15th, 2008 at 7:08 pm
great trip! reminds me of when we used to go up to the poconos(in PA) and stay at my grandfather’s time share. We never ate out and there were trollies to all of the fun activities right in the resort area(including a water park and horseback riding). My grandfather has 6 kids with families so they all split the bill and we took turns using the time share all summer. One of our big family pictures was taken there when we all crowded on the balcony, grandchildren and all. Ahhh memories! So glad you’re back!
July 15th, 2008 at 9:57 pm
I use vrbo.com and rent homes whenever we go on vacation - even if it is just the two of us. The best deal I ever got was a week in Colorado in a 1BR condo for $400/week. You can’t beat it!
July 15th, 2008 at 10:52 pm
My mother used to own one of the homes that was rented out by the week. This home was in a tourist town, and she did very well by it. Remember this was in the late 80’s- early 90’s she used to rent out the 4 bedroom house for $600 a week.
She did very well on this investment.
In Big Bear you can buy home to rent out, it is a good investment.
July 16th, 2008 at 9:59 am
Full Disclosure: I do geek work for my day job for some of the Sunriver vacation rental companies and my URL is to my personal blog — not the company(s) I work for.
But you’re absolutely right, and this is a similar message that industry associations have been trying to spread for years: Vacation rental travel, either with a property management company or with a private owner, is much better for the wallet in the long run than a hotel. You can save yourself money by not going out to dinner all the time, and you can save yourself a headache by being able to lock your kids in another room of the house
Private owners are generally going to be cheaper than professionally managed homes, but they’re generally a bit more of a risk. Sometimes they’re not as well taken care of nor do they include as many of the other benefits and local area discounts you can receive if you rent from one of management companies. Nor do you have as much piece of mind when it comes to if you have problems — a company can fix something immediately or send you to another home, if need be). Private homeowners (and this is occasionally a problem in Sunriver) sometimes will try to skirt by local transient room tax laws, which is why they’ll be able to charge lower rates (they get bitten eventually).
I just got back from a vacation on the Oregon coast with a private vacation rental home, and will probably never stay in a hotel over there again — it’s basically the same price for my family and I get more room. What’s not to like?
July 16th, 2008 at 10:14 pm
This is good to hear, as we are thinking of taking a vacation in Sunriver this winter! I’ll probably e-mail you for this place’s details.
Glad you had fun! We’re off to the beach now…
July 17th, 2008 at 9:56 am
Wow–great idea about the home rental. Glad to hear you had a wonderful vacation!
July 17th, 2008 at 7:22 pm
Thanks for the tips! I never thought about renting a home. I bookmarked the site (and the one that people mentioned in the comments). Thanks!
December 22nd, 2008 at 9:57 am
I work for HomeAway and wanted to say thanks for recommending our website in your post. As someone who prefers to stay in vacation rentals, I wanted to let you know about the “Why I Deserve a Getaway from HomeAway” contest in which you could win a $5,000 vacation—on us! Check out http://blog.homeaway.com for more information.
Best regards,
Happy Holidays!