Rent an apartment when vacationing in a city

After you have gone on one or two guided tours, explored some cities on your own, you may want to consider renting an apartment and use that as your home base. VRBO or vacation rental by owners is a good place to find a rental apartment for your vacation. We typically found this to be a great option for visiting cities, especially in Europe. We have rented from VRBO in Budapest, Barcelona, Madrid, and Rome, and all have turned out well.


An apartment is better than a hotel room because you typically get a living room, kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom - - there is more space than a hotel room and you can have your breakfast in the comfort of the apartment. It’s cheaper too, especially if you are traveling with family.


You can browse the VRBO website for apartments in the city you plan to visit. Look for ones in the area where you want to stay and pick one with a number of good reviews. You have to spend some time selecting the apartment and then you can typically reserve it by paying an advance through Paypal and pay the rest in cash when you arrive. Often owners will send you tips on exploring the city and also arrange for airport pickup.


Apart from the rental apartment, you’ll need to arrange your own airfare and plan an itinerary for what you plan to do during your vacation. You’ll find it helpful to have a guidebook with good maps of the city.


If the sights you want to visit require entrance tickets, you should try to buy the tickets online and save the hassle of standing in line.


You may also want to make reservations at restaurants you plan to visit. Just remember that everything is in your hands and you do what you want to do at your own pace. So you do need to spend some time planning, but typically we have found this to be the best way to explore a city on our own, at our own pace.


In future videos, I’ll give more details for some of the cities, such as Budapest, Barcelona, Madrid, and Rome, that we have already visited.


Until then, I hope you are already planning your upcoming trip :-)

Here's some more information to help you...

An alternative to VRBO is: HomeAway Vacation Rentals, (I think HomeAway, in fact, owns VRBO, but they seem to display different selections, so it's worth checking in both sites - note to myself: we have to do this in the future). And here are two more sites you can check: Vacation-Apartments.com and Flipkey.


Please see my previous blog post on exploring a city on your own (after booking air and hotel from a tour company). There I provide links to guidebooks for many different cities, including Budapest, Barcelona, Madrid, and Rome.


If want to graduate from being a renter to owning a vacation property that you can rent out (no, we don't own any such property, but thought you may be curious :-) then check out the following books:




Tags: travel, world+travel, Budapest, Barcelona, Rome, Madrid, Paris, 

NBTMV - Book air and hotel, then explore city on your own

After you have taken one or two escorted tours and feel comfortable traveling around, you can start booking just the air and hotel from a travel company and explore the city on your own. In this video, I give you some pointers on doing this yourself.


This approach is usually good for a major city. You’d book the air and hotel from one of the same travel companies that you used for guided tours. Some offer choice of hotels at different locations for different prices, so you’d have to read up a bit and try to pick a hotel at a convenient location or just go with the lowest cost one. After you book, remember to get the visa, if you need one.


You’ll be exploring the city on your own, so you also must take care of the transfers between the airport and the hotel. You should search and see if there is a train, metro, or bus available for the trip from airport to the hotel and take it, if it’s available.


To plan for sightseeing on your own, you should get a guidebook for the city and study it a bit before you depart. If you are unsure about what to see, a good option is to take a half- or full-day city tour and get an overview of the major attractions.


Mastering the local public transportation options is also helpful. We usually take metro or tram as much as possible.


You should develop a rough itinerary as well. I typically divide the day into two halves and just allocate activities to each half-day, along with times for lunch and dinner. Remember not to cram in too much in a day. If possible buy tickets online (before departing on the trip) for any museums or other sights that require tickets. That way, you can avoid any long lines for the tickets and save some time.

We also consult Tripadvisor to find some restaurants that we may like to try. After returning from the trip, you may want to post your own reviews, as we have done in our own reviews on Tripadvisor for any hotels and restaurants we try out.

That’s about it. With a little bit of peparation, you should have a great time exploring the city of your choice on your own.

Here's some more information to help you...

You can use this approach to visit many prominent cities around the world. Here are some candidates: London, Paris, Rome, Florence, Venice, Barcelona, Madrid, Budapest, Istanbul, Prague, Lisbon, Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, and many more. Browse the Independent Vacations in Gate1Travel for more ideas. Another option is to pick a city and then look for Flight+Hotel packages on travel websites such as Expedia and Travelocity.

Pick up a travel guide for the city you plan to visit and study it before the trip. Check out the map to pick a good location for the hotel. Here are some possible travel guides:

Tags: travel, world+travel, Budapest, Barcelona, Rome, Madrid, Paris, London