Travel Deal of the Day (September 18, 2007)

Have you considered renting a condo or vacation home during your next vacation? You may be able to save a considerable amount of money when compared with a hotel. Now, there are great resources to find vacation rentals.

The Deal:
Many people only consider hotels for lodging during vacations. You may save money by renting a vacation home or condo directly from the owner of the property. Quite often, you can find vacation lodging in a prime location (such as a direct oceanfront location or a ski lodge very close to the slopes) at quite a discount to an equivalent hotel room. In fact, most vacation rental units are quite a bit larger than hotel rooms and often include kitchen facilities.

How:
The most cumbersome way to find a vacation rental is via the Classifieds Section of a newspaper in the vacation area. This method still works and you can often find vacation listing on the website of the newspaper. A better way to find vacation rentals now is to use Vacation Rentals By Owner – http://www.vrbo.com/. As with any other purchase, since no website can guarantee that every renter is honest, verify the facts about your vacation rental (request pictures of the unit, or, if you know someone in the area of the rental unit, have someone inspect the rental unit) and use a credit card to pay for the rental, if at all possible.