Hotels Vs Self Catering - Holiday Rentals

It always surprises me that so-called travel experts concentrate so heavily on hotel accommodation and frequently completely ignore self-catering accommodation for touring holidays. An apparently expert site in the US, giving its expertise to people travelling to Germany, Austria and Switzerland, devotes a lot of attention on its site and in its newsletters to getting the best deals for hotels and meals, while ignoring the advantages of self-catering.

Even the most basic of self-catering offers the advantages of more space than a hotel room and a lower price per head, as well as the possibility of making significant savings on restaurant meal costs with the option of eating in - which can involve little cooking if you buy ready prepared meals or take aways. And you just have more flexibility - you can have breakfast in your dressing gown and just a cup of coffee and a slice of toast if that is all you fancy. You can make yourself brunch mid morning if you want to sleep late and then set off sightseeing. You can make yourself a picnic lunch if you are going off walking or the budget is getting a bit strained. And of course you don't have to worry about restaurant opening hours in the evening and can have a midnight snack any time you want.

Of course, there are disadvantages - most holiday rentals don't offer a daily cleaning service - but many people are irritated by the arrival of housekeeping in hotels at inconvenient times and the feeling that you need to be out of their way while they clean. And you won't normally have a flunky to help with your luggage. The lack of 24/7 concierge service could be a nuisance, but holiday rentals with on site managers or owners may well be prepared to give tourist advice, book tickets, recommend restaurants if you ask.

Perhaps the biggest problem with booking a holiday rental is finding one which has flexible booking periods - but there are many of them out there and they are easy enough to find by typing the dates you want into the search engines on the major rental sites and seeing what comes up.

Another problem is quality - how do you know that the apartment you book will be clean and well equipped? With a hotel there are international standards - they are not foolproof but they can be a good guide. There are rating systems for holiday rentals but few owners have their property rated. You need to look carefully at their entry on the website, preferably go to the owner's own website - see how much care they have put into providing information on their website: that is a good guide as to how much care they have put into preparing the accommodation.

At our holiday apartments in Bayerisch Eisenstein in the Bavarian Forest, we have met many creative travellers using holiday rentals while touring. The 17-18 year old Inter Rail group from the UK (hugely entertaining, although we might take a damage deposit next time!). The large walking groups from the UK who book our apartments for a whole week and get more space for less money than they would in a pension, and we organise breakfast, evening meal and a coach trip to Cesky Krumlow for them. The Australian family travelling the world for 4 months with 2 teenage children and an 8 month old baby. The American family doing a stop over on their way back to Dubai. And the family who just wanted a few days stopover on the way back from their holiday in Spain. (The last 2 examples involved some unusual logistical solutions). And many more.

With a full service 5 star apartment, 3 double ensuite bedrooms, kitchen/dining room, large sitting room, 2 balconies and private garden costing just Euros 145 per night in total, wfirst day's breakfast provided, large CD and DVD collection for evening entertainment and supplies of food and drink to buy, and owners always available with advice and help if needed, is there really a comparison with staying in a hotel. Unless you want to be pampered by lots of staff, or use the hotel swimming pool, it really is no contest!