Traveling is always a great time. You get to see new things, eat new food, and best of all spend time away from work. While many people travel to unique places few stay in a unique house once they get to their destination. That’s how we used to be everywhere we went. We focused mainly on the location and thought little about where we would be spending the night. That is until we discovered our first unique vacation rental.
What is a Unique Vacation Rental?
I am so glad you asked! The answer is honestly very big. You see by visiting the right website you can find amazing places to stay. Even places you may have never thought would be an option. For instance, if you really like being near the water? Well, how about a houseboat right on the coast of your favorite summertime destination.
Worried about sleepwalking and getting a wet wakeup? Yeah, I get that. Maybe history is more of your thing anyway. So how does a 12th-century castle in Scottland sound? Pssshhh castles so big and pretty pricey. You were probably just watching HGTV and thinking I only really need like 200 square feet. Well, don’t just think about going tiny, give it a try in one of the hundreds of tiny houses available for rent.
As you can imagine this could go on forever. Through the rental website, you can actually filter by unique home type. Here is a full list of the various unique property type options.
So Where Do You Find These Unique Vacation Rentals?
Don’t worry I am going to tell you all you need to know. We started by using the HomeAway website. We actually have a full post about that website here. That website is a great place to find a nice house to rent for a trip. However, it does not offer the ability to search for unique properties. To do that you need to use Airbnb. It gives you the ability to search for a unique vacation rental in a few different ways.
The most common way is to search for properties available where and when you want to go. Then click on more filters on the navigation bar and scroll down until you see unique homes. From there click show all unique homes. Go ahead and pick all the unique options that you want. It is worth noting that you may not see all the options shown in the picture we showed before. That is because it normally filters out the options that are not in the area you picked. Once you are happy with choices click “Show X Homes” to view all the properties that match your criteria.
That’s a great way to find a unique vacation rental somewhere you already plan on going. What if you just want to stay in a really cool house and don’t really care as much about the location? You are in luck that is super easy as well. From the Airbnb homepage, you can scroll straight down and find the heading “Explore Airbnb”. Right below that is the “Homes” button. When clicked it will take you to another page that shows you a few options. I personally prefer to scroll down and find where it says “Top Rated Homes” and clicking through to see them all. Once you get to that page you can filter down like we showed before or just browse the whole list. Most of the options on that page are very unique.
The final great way to search is by general locations. If you do not want to leave your country just search for it. For example, I could just search the United States and it would show me result only in the United States. If you want to stay even more local, search by your state or province. For example, I could search Tennessee to see results pretty close to where I am. Then just filter down the results like on the other two ways. You may be surprised what unique place might be hiding right around the corner from you.
Our Experience
You are likely to hear some horror stories about using Airbnb. Do not forget though that the same can often be said about hotels. We personally have never had an issue staying in a property we rented from one of these websites. The properties have always been as advertised, clean and usually nicer than we expected. We have also found that the owners are normally very nice and a pleasure to work with. The ones we have dealt with have all seemed to be willing to interact with you as much, or little, as you would want.
With that being said we cannot speak to every rental or property owner. So if you decide to rent a property be sure to read the reviews. This is the best way to find out what the home is really like and if it matches what the owner says. You need to make sure you read more than just one review. People have a tendency to exaggerate their experience whether good or bad. So make sure you get a wide polling.
If a property does not have any reviews we almost always pass. I know that probably sounds bad, but it just makes us feel better in our decision. For this reason, we try to always try to review the properties we stay at whether good or bad. It helps the owner and the next person trying to make their decision. You should also do the same.
We really cannot recommend using a site like Airbnb enough. My wife and I actually agreed that we will pass on a hotel whenever we can. Instead of trying to find a really cool place on Airbnb. I mean, who wants to stay in a boring place on an amazing trip? With a unique place to call home for the length of your trip, it may become the highlight of your trip. It became the highlight for my dad on our trip to Tampa in March this year. He still often talks about the house we stayed in and how much he enjoyed being able to walk right out to the bay every morning. Sitting on the dock to drop in a line and enjoy a cup of coffee. So where will your next memory be made?
Thanks For Reading!
Have you stayed at a unique vacation rental? Please let us know in the comments below. Again we thank you for reading this article and for visiting our site. We would appreciate it if you would share this post on social media, so we can reach more people.
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