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Home Away from Home (Really!)
9 Reasons to Go the Vacation Rental Route the Next Time You Travel
Picture yourself and your family doing all the vacation-y things that make you happy. Posing with Mickey and Minnie outside Cinderella's Castle, rafting in Yellowstone National Park, browsing the quaint little shops of Nantucket. Now, instead of returning at night to a cramped, impersonal hotel room, envision yourself coming home to, well, a home. That's right. More and more people are eschewing hotels in favor of vacation homes – and Christine Karpinski says it's almost always a better choice.
"For most people, especially families with children, staying in a vacation home is better in every way," says Karpinski, director of Owner Community for HomeAway.com and author of How to Rent Vacation Properties by Owner: The Complete Guide to Buy, Manage, Furnish, Rent, Maintain and Advertise Your Vacation Rental Investment (Kinney Pollack Press, 2004) and Profit from Your Vacation Home Dream: The Complete Guide to a Savvy Financial and Emotional Investment (Kaplan, 2005). "In the past, people just didn't understand the benefits of staying in a vacation home. Maybe they assumed it cost too much, or maybe they simply didn't understand the logistics of finding the right place to stay. But the Internet has changed everything. Not only is it increasingly easy to find the perfect home, it's often less expensive than getting a hotel room!"
Karpinski has plenty of figures to back up that assertion. For instance, HomeAway recently did a side-by-side comparison of two lodging options in Orlando, Fla.: a 228-square-foot King Room at the Radisson Worldgate Resort (a popular three-star hotel) and a 1,700-square-foot private home with three bedrooms. For a party of one to two adults staying seven nights, the hotel room was slightly less expensive: $1,003 vs. $1,050 for the 
vacation rental house. But when you add more guests, the rental home becomes far more reasonable by comparison. While its price stays the same no matter how many people stay there, the hotel's price skyrockets: $1,746 for three to four occupants and $2,619 for five to six occupants.
