You all know I love hotels, but I'm also very practical. When you are staying somewhere for a week, families need to spread out. The all-in-one room scenario gets old, very quickly. As much as we loved our Disney hotel stay, we were ready to get the children out of our room by night five. That's about our limit. Lately, my Skimbaco Lifestyle colleagues have been renting apartments in Europe during their travels. I've been impressed with their accommodations. My mother-in-law also rented a villa in France this summer. This way of travel is becoming more and more appealing to me, especially for European vacations. Today, my Norweigan colleague, give us the scoop on her latest rental in Ireland. I think we all need to bookmark the rental company for future travels.
I have been fan of Leigh’s blog since we connected through Skimbaco Lifestyle, even though our lifestyles and traveling styles couldn’t be further apart. Where Leigh is immersed in the Southern style, I currently
reside in the cold, northern part of Europe, in Norway. Where Leigh seeks affordable luxury, I tend to chase after adrenalin related activities, sometimes camping, sometimes sleeping in a van and only at times finding
myself in more luxurious surroundings, but most often if there is a spa involved.
What connects us is the love for travel, experiencing new and living life to the fullest in our own ways, as all of the editorial team in Skimbaco do, and I was honored to be asked to write a guest post here on Hines Sight. In the last two years, coinciding first with the arrival of our beautiful baby girl and most recently with our baby boy, we have been looking into vacation rentals in our holiday destinations. The reasons for this are
simple, really.
In a vacation rental, be it an apartment, house or mansion, you have more space, the possibility to cook, you are usually immersed in the local culture and the rates are often competitive to hotel rooms. The process is very safe too but it is good to check the terms and conditions of your vacation rental provider. For example FlipKey has a Peace of Mind Guarantee for their guests, which means that FlipKey will reimburse travelers up to $10,000 in connection with rentals they booked through FlipKey Payments.
I have used few different vacation rental services, of which the aforementioned FlipKey by TripAdvisor was the most recent one. Take any of these online services, really, and the principles of using the services
are similar. You can choose by location with dates, and narrow your search down to specific criteria, take family friendliness for example. Once you have found the properties that match your preferences, it is good to contact more than one of them, as the owners are private and the availability visible on site might not be up-to-date. When contacting the property owner it is good to be personable and tell little bit about yourself
and your family, in the end of the day if the owner gets several enquiries for the same period they are bound to go with the one they feel they connect with the most.
Many vacation rental sites have some of the same properties in their portfolios, and what I really liked about FlipKey was that it had some very unique, convenient apartments and houses I didn’t see elsewhere. I
attended the recent TBEX travel bloggers’ conference here in Europe in Dublin in early October, and as I was bringing my little ones and my mother with me, an apartment rental, in the city center was ideal.
After going through the process of finding the rentals I was interested in and contacting the owners, I chose Dublin Holiday Apartments,collection of four luxury apartments right in the city center along the River Liffey.
What happens after the vacation rental booking is bit different from booking a hotel. In this case I immediately got an email from the host,Leah, about payment methods and I opted to pay via Paypal. A deposit of 10% at first, and the rest three days before arrival. Before our arrival Leah contacted me couple of times explaining how to find the apartments, how to get there and how to get in touch if we were delayed. What I loved about this was the very personal service and experience, I felt as if I was welcomed to somebody’s home although in this case the Apartments were for commercial use only, although located in a residential building.
What was the best in our Dublin experience and our vacation rental?
Kitchen to cook, and the fresh Irish soda bread with butter on arrival. I do love eating out when traveling, but at times with the little ones it is easier to explore the local supermarket and stay at home for meals.
The luscious clean towels that awaited us in both bedrooms and in the bathroom. Wish someone would lay them out as nicely for me in our own apartment!
The spacious bedrooms that were more than enough for our party of two adults, toddler and newborn.
The possibility to enjoy each other’s company in the same space, have meals together and when the kids went to bed, have a glass of wine while recounting the stories from our Dublin experiences.
Want a little more room on your next vacation?
Search FlipKey for a rental. I've got my eye on some vacation jewels at my Bald Head Island, my favorite island off the coast of North Carolina.
To read more about Satu's travels, visit her own blog Destination Unknown.
FTC Disclosure: Satu stayed at the Dublin Holiday Apartments while in Ireland courtesy of FlipKey. Opinions about her experience are her own. All other costs including travel and food on this trip were Satu's own expense.
I have been fan of Leigh’s blog since we connected through Skimbaco Lifestyle, even though our lifestyles and traveling styles couldn’t be further apart. Where Leigh is immersed in the Southern style, I currently
reside in the cold, northern part of Europe, in Norway. Where Leigh seeks affordable luxury, I tend to chase after adrenalin related activities, sometimes camping, sometimes sleeping in a van and only at times finding
myself in more luxurious surroundings, but most often if there is a spa involved.
What connects us is the love for travel, experiencing new and living life to the fullest in our own ways, as all of the editorial team in Skimbaco do, and I was honored to be asked to write a guest post here on Hines Sight. In the last two years, coinciding first with the arrival of our beautiful baby girl and most recently with our baby boy, we have been looking into vacation rentals in our holiday destinations. The reasons for this are
simple, really.
In a vacation rental, be it an apartment, house or mansion, you have more space, the possibility to cook, you are usually immersed in the local culture and the rates are often competitive to hotel rooms. The process is very safe too but it is good to check the terms and conditions of your vacation rental provider. For example FlipKey has a Peace of Mind Guarantee for their guests, which means that FlipKey will reimburse travelers up to $10,000 in connection with rentals they booked through FlipKey Payments.
I have used few different vacation rental services, of which the aforementioned FlipKey by TripAdvisor was the most recent one. Take any of these online services, really, and the principles of using the services
are similar. You can choose by location with dates, and narrow your search down to specific criteria, take family friendliness for example. Once you have found the properties that match your preferences, it is good to contact more than one of them, as the owners are private and the availability visible on site might not be up-to-date. When contacting the property owner it is good to be personable and tell little bit about yourself
and your family, in the end of the day if the owner gets several enquiries for the same period they are bound to go with the one they feel they connect with the most.
Many vacation rental sites have some of the same properties in their portfolios, and what I really liked about FlipKey was that it had some very unique, convenient apartments and houses I didn’t see elsewhere. I
attended the recent TBEX travel bloggers’ conference here in Europe in Dublin in early October, and as I was bringing my little ones and my mother with me, an apartment rental, in the city center was ideal.
After going through the process of finding the rentals I was interested in and contacting the owners, I chose Dublin Holiday Apartments,collection of four luxury apartments right in the city center along the River Liffey.
What happens after the vacation rental booking is bit different from booking a hotel. In this case I immediately got an email from the host,Leah, about payment methods and I opted to pay via Paypal. A deposit of 10% at first, and the rest three days before arrival. Before our arrival Leah contacted me couple of times explaining how to find the apartments, how to get there and how to get in touch if we were delayed. What I loved about this was the very personal service and experience, I felt as if I was welcomed to somebody’s home although in this case the Apartments were for commercial use only, although located in a residential building.
What was the best in our Dublin experience and our vacation rental?
Kitchen to cook, and the fresh Irish soda bread with butter on arrival. I do love eating out when traveling, but at times with the little ones it is easier to explore the local supermarket and stay at home for meals.
The luscious clean towels that awaited us in both bedrooms and in the bathroom. Wish someone would lay them out as nicely for me in our own apartment!
The spacious bedrooms that were more than enough for our party of two adults, toddler and newborn.
The possibility to enjoy each other’s company in the same space, have meals together and when the kids went to bed, have a glass of wine while recounting the stories from our Dublin experiences.
Want a little more room on your next vacation?
Search FlipKey for a rental. I've got my eye on some vacation jewels at my Bald Head Island, my favorite island off the coast of North Carolina.
To read more about Satu's travels, visit her own blog Destination Unknown.
FTC Disclosure: Satu stayed at the Dublin Holiday Apartments while in Ireland courtesy of FlipKey. Opinions about her experience are her own. All other costs including travel and food on this trip were Satu's own expense.
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