Vrbo (HomeAway)

HomeAway is an online vacation rental platform that offers more than two million homes in nearly 200 countries worldwide. Their Luxury Rentals websites features a selection of the best places to stay around the world, such as beach houses, cabins, condos and more.

After entering your destination, travel dates and number of travellers, the website will bring up a list of available rentals that match your preferences. Results can then be filtered by a range of different options, such as features and amenities, property type, house rules, nearby activities, reviews and services. I find the ability to filter by reviews to be a particularly useful inclusion as these are based on verified customer feedback and hence give a reliable indication of what the property is like from people who have actually stayed there.

After selecting a property, you will be shown a more detailed profile of the place, including photos, a description, amenities, availability and precise location. You can easily ask a question directly to the owner by filling in a contact form with your message, a good feature that takes away the stress of finding email addresses or phone numbers.

I also particularly like the HomeAway blog, which contains a whole host of different articles featuring inspiring travel ideas, city guides, latest property news and tips and advice for luxury travel. Each post is well researched and has a comments section below for readers to leave their feedback on the topic.

A downside to using HomeAway to find luxury accommodation is the inability to compare prices across other websites. Often, property owners will post the same home across multiple websites, and frequently they can be displayed at different prices meaning it can be good to get an indication of where to find the better deal.

David Jones

I am a professional travel writer and travel enthusiast who traveled the world twice, so I am sharing my firsthand knowledge about everything related to travel and spending time abroad.