If you find yourself planning a vacation, you probably already know that it takes a lot of time and effort to make sure everything goes smoothly. Booking airline tickets, finding appropriate accommodation, dealing with on-location transport and buying attraction tickets are all time-consuming tasks that can take all the fun away from your trip and leave you stressed out. However, we live in times where all of these chores can be done without ever leaving your home, in just a couple of minutes. You can use one of the many ticket search engines to find you the best deals on cheap flights or trains. When it comes to on-location transport, you can get a good deal on a car rental with one of the plenty of booking sites, which often feature discounts and loyalty programs. But one of the most important factors of every trip is where you'll be staying, and that is why we have prepared this handy list of Top 15 Best Vacation Rental Sites for Holiday, which shows some of the top sites to help you with finding the perfect accommodation.
Airbnb
Being the absolute leader in the field of apartment sharing and homestays, Airbnb is easy to use and offers a convenient way of booking accommodation for your stay. Airbnb’s system is quick and intuitive, and you shouldn’t have any problems using it, even during your first time. Airbnb also offers some of the lowest prices on accommodation available on the market, as the listings on the website are much cheaper than lodgings or hotels, even with discounts. Additionally, you get to meet with the locals who will be your hosts, which gives you the opportunity of spending some time with them and getting to know some insights about the place you will be spending your vacation at.
HomeAway
Looking for a bed and breakfast for a weekend excursion out of the city? Or maybe an apartment to live in for a couple of weeks? HomeAway has everything you need, all packed into one easy to use website. The search bar on the top of the website tells you exactly what to do to find your perfect lodging. After you're done putting in the required information, click search and you will be taken to a list of matches, where you can see the prices, details, and customer reviews of each place. If you're worried about safety, HomeAway provides a basic rental guarantee, along with protecting payments and deposits to keep your experience with the service secure.
VRBO
VRBO stands for Vacation Rental By Owner, which pretty much explains the service. VRBO is a platform for private owners to rent their property to tourists and locals looking for accommodation, including properties of all types, such as houses, villas, apartments, and more. However, while VRBO is mostly similar to other services, such as Airbnb, unlike its competitors VRBO does not allow renting single rooms, only entire homes. This makes VRBO the perfect choice if you don’t feel like sharing the accommodation with the owner or other tourists and would rather have the whole space just to yourself.
Booking.com
When it comes to vacation rental sites for holiday, Booking.com is a very strong competitor to other major brands. Booking.com offers a wide variety of accommodation, including hotels, bed and breakfasts, apartments, and whole houses. You can use the website’s search engine to find your perfect place of stay, which can be done easily with the help of many filters and sorting options. You can choose all of the amenities you want, as well as the expected price, location, rating, and type of accommodation. Booking.com uses a variety of websites to compare prices with, and doesn’t require a service fee from its users, which makes it one of the best vacation rental sites for holiday when the budget is your biggest issue.
TripAdvisor
TripAdvisor is perhaps the most famous site globally for planning, organizing, and booking your vacation. You can find a very wide array of tools on TripAdvisor, the most popular of which is the accommodation search. You can look through hotels and resorts and see which of them offers the best prices. There are also airline reviews, which you can use to guide you through the process of booking your flight. You also get the access to thousands of rentals, restaurants, and attractions, all of which are ranked and have customer reviews, so you can find the best activities to do when on your vacation. TripAdvisor has one of the largest databases online, which gives them access to information and photographs most other websites would skip.
HomeStay
Whether you’re looking for a place to stay during your vacation or want to become a host yourself, HomeStay is the perfect place to begin. HomeStay gives you the opportunity to stay with the locals, who can share some interesting facts and tips about the place you’re visiting. There is no better way to get familiar with foreign culture than spending time at a local’s place. Moreover, a stay in a regular house is much more convenient than staying in a hotel, and cheaper at that. HomeStay also enforces terms and conditions on homeowners to ensure your safety, and you can read the reviews for each listing to get a better grip on what is offered.
InterHome
InterHome has over 50 years of experience and traditions when it comes to vacation rental sites for holiday, so you can be sure the service you’re receiving is professional. InterHome offers over fifty thousand listings of all types, including holiday homes and apartments in 31 countries all over the world. The company also fully handles the booking process, so you don't have to worry about filling out any documents yourself. After you pick a listing of your choice, all you have to do is pay the price and InterHome will deal with fulfillment and key handover. Finally, InterHome also handles cleaning after your visit is over, so you do not have to worry about cleaning the place up before you leave.
Atraveo
Atraveo is one of the largest home markets on the Internet, filled with over 300,000 properties which you can stay in during your vacation. Atraveo features a wide selection of property types, allowing you to choose not only from houses and apartments, but even countryside lodges, villas, and ski huts. All of the listings have been carefully checked by Atraveo to ensure your safety, so you don’t have to worry about the conditions of your lodging. If you still have doubts, Atraveo features a verified customer review system, where customers can leave their opinions about each and every listing. If you have any questions or problems with the booking process or the property, Atraveo features a multilingual customer service which is always ready to resolve any issues you might have.
Expedia
Expedia is a huge website, which deals not only with vacation rentals, but also attractions, activities, cruises, car rentals, hotel booking, and flight ticket purchase. Virtually every step of your vacation can be planned and booked with Expedia, which searches through over a million offers to get you the best deal available. Expedia also features no cancellation fee for most of the offers, so if anything happens and you can’t use your rental, you will get your money back. If you want to save some money, make sure to register as Expedia member, as you will be eligible for special prices and exclusive discounts. You can also browse through flash sales, which are last-minute offers at a very affordable price.
HomeToGo
While HomeToGo does not take part in the process of booking or renting, it is one of the most useful search engines out there to find vacation rentals and hotels. HomeToGo features a simple interface, in which you put in the location of your stay, the date, and your total number of travelers. After you click search, HomeToGo searches through over 18 million offers from all over the world to find the best one for you. The website also cooperates with over a thousand vacation rental websites, such as VRBO or Airbnb, to bring you as many offers to choose from as possible. If you can’t decide on where to go for your vacation, the main page of HomeToGo.com features a list of the most popular vacation destinations, which can help you in making your decision.
Stayz
While Stayz is a more specific choice of a vacation rental service, it is one of the best available options if you’re looking for accommodation specifically in Australia. Stayz lists over forty thousand various rentals all across the continent of Australia, ranging from apartments to villas. All of the properties have been vetted by the company, and all the payments are monitored and secured by them, which ensures the safety of your experience. Stayz is also a part of the Expedia family brand, with strong connections to one of the most renowned booking websites in the world. Stayz also allows you to look for specific amenities, such as free wi-fi access or pet-friendly properties.
Homelidays
Homelidays, similarly to Stayz, is a good choice if you’re looking for accommodation in a specific country, which in this case is France. However, Homelidays is not limited to France, even though most of its listings are based in that country. You can also find places to stay in Italy and Spain, with about 10,000 properties shared between the two countries and about 15,000 properties in France alone. While Homelidays is a good in-between for people looking for an apartment, the online reviews mention a lot of hassle and problems for landlords trying to use the platform, as customers often report problems with high fees and additional charges to advertise their properties, and even costly payment fees.
Trivago
Trivago is one of the most popular metasearch engines in Europe, which looks through accommodations offered by many different websites and picks the best deals for you. You can enter all of the details you’re looking for in the simple search bar on top of the website, after which you will be transferred to a list of matches. Moreover, if you can’t decide on where to go on your holiday or are looking for some useful tips, Trivago hosts hundreds of useful articles you can read to get educated. On Trivago you can find hotels as well as vacation rentals; however, remember that Trivago only lists the best offers and does not act as an in-between with the landlord.
Casamundo
While Casamundo is not as well-known as some of its competitors, it is still a worthy option to consider when looking for a site to book your holiday rental. Casamundo manages over 700,000 rentals in Europe and within the United States, which makes them one of the world’s leading online platforms for booking rentals. Casamundo features a very simple booking process which takes only a couple of minutes to finish from the start. The company also manages a professional customer support service, which you can use at any time to resolve any problems and figure out any doubts you might have about the booking process.
Holidu
The best way to save money on a holiday trip is to use a search engine like Holidu, which compares the prices from hundreds of websites to find the perfect vacation house for you. It also compares the same listings shared between various websites to find which one of them is priced the cheapest. Holidu features its services all over the world, and you can find their listings in the United States, Italy, Croatia, France, Spain, Germany, and more. As of now, Holidu features in total over fifteen million listings, all of which have access to customer reviews, which are useful in finding out more about the quality of every property.
