Looking for a unique place to stay in Paris, and money is no object? For rates starting at a cool 430 euro (approximately $700 Canadian or U.S.) per night, you can hole up in a 1,050-square-foot houseboat in St. Germain, complete with grand piano. Like many houseboats, it will wobble a bit if a larger boat goes […]

The concept of vacation home rentals got a shot of publicity earlier this month from Barack Obama (perhaps you’ve heard of him?). The presumptive nominee rented an $8-million home in the Honolulu suburb of Kailua for a family holiday. Hey, when you don’t own a ranch in Texas or a seaside compound in New England, […]

VisitBritain is the latest tourist board to realize that many travellers are hungry to meet locals and get off the beaten path while travelling. Its Be a Brit Different website includes blog posts from enthusiastic Britons about their favourite places and activities. According to the Modern Agent website, VisitBritain also has a plan to promote […]

Looking for a way to meet folks abroad? One option for adventurous types: couch surfing. It is, as the Christian Science Monitor put it recently, “the universe of social networking itself, simply pushed into the real world.” In a nutshell, travellers hit the CouchSurfing website and make connections with people willing to offer people a […]

Rentalo.com, the vacation home rental giant, has just relaunched its website. The home page is still incredibly busy–woe betide folks (like me, ahem) who find it hard to read tiny fonts–but there are a lot of useful changes. In particular for travellers who like to live “la vida local,” it’s now easier to distinguish vacation […]

Heading to Vietnam, Cambodia or Laos? You might be interested in checking out Stay Another Day. This organization gives travellers the chance to meet, work with or stay with local people while supporting environmental and development projects. Opportunities include the chance to tour a handicraft workshop near Angkor Wat in Cambodia and to enjoy a […]

The Vacation Home Expo is coming back to the Cobb Galleria Convention Centre in the Atlanta ‘burbs, from January 23 to 25, 2009. I attended the inaugural show in April 2008 and found it a useful way to gather information on a wide range of vacation home rental companies. Granted, many of the exhibitors were […]