The Experiment: Book a trip with VRBO.com
On a Sunday morning there are few things as good as blueberry pancakes delivered by room service to your hotel room. You're cozy in your hotel-provided bathrobe as you sip hot coffee on your balcony. Sure, that's a happy thing. But hotel rooms are also small and if there are more than two of you, it can get a little snug. This is what we were thinking last year when we booked our trip home to Cape Cod. So if not a hotel, what then? During our search for a place we stumbled across VRBO, Vacation Rental By Owner, a website that connects homeowners and vacationers.
VRBO.com is easy to use. Just plug in a few parameters like place, bedrooms and amenities desired along with the dates of your trip and in a few moments the site will give you availability and cost. When I searched for a home on Cape Cod for this past week, the house above came up. As we browsed through the photos we fell in love with this shingled cottage. I read the ultra positive reviews and sent an email requesting the dates. Immediately the owner emailed me back. It was an easy contract and here we are.
There are so many benefits to renting a house versus a hotel room. For one, if you are traveling with friends or family members, a house gives you a space to spread out together. On the day we arrived, some of us went to the market to stock up the kitchen while others made beds and got the house in order. The first night was rainy and as our friend and exquisite chef, Louise, made dinner, the rest of us set the table and sat around the kitchen drinking wine and listening to the rain fall.
Mornings were fun and relaxed. Whoever work up first made coffee and put out the pastries. One morning we made scrambled eggs and bacon and just sat around the kitchen table trying to live in the moment so we could remember how much we love being together.
At night we sat curled up in the theatre on comfy couches with blankets watching "The Big Chill" or sitcoms. You couldn't do this with your family or friends spread out in multiple hotel rooms. There were so many moments we would have lost if we had decided to go the hotel room route instead of VRBO.com.
The Experiment Results: VRBO.com led to one of the best weeks of our lives. I highly recommend using VRBO.com to find a vacation rental. It's a happy thing.
