“Simple Ways to Avoid Mistakes When Booking a Vacation Rental” plus 1 more |
| Simple Ways to Avoid Mistakes When Booking a Vacation Rental Posted: 17 Apr 2010 03:32 PM PDT Mistakes are costly when it comes to booking a vacation rental. It's only natural to expect an uneventful vacation—except of course for the fun things you can include in your remembrances—but the rental is often the root of the problem. So to make sure that you end up with the right property, there are some things you need to always consider. | First of all, you have to know which vacation rental you have to book. There are several things that affect this choice, and the principal key is your location. Of course, if you plan on going to a metro area, it's always best to stay in a place downtown or a condo while beachfront properties are best for resort locations. Nevertheless, your personal preferences also affect this factor. Another determinant for the vacation rental of choice is the people going with you. If you are taking kids, space is clearly a major criterion. You need to make sure that there is enough to preoccupy the kids. The number of persons also affect the choice as in you have to make sure that the rental home can effectively accommodate every person or pet going with you. Yet while the property itself is a vital consideration for your choice, the way you can use the home is another, which is why reading and understanding the property owner's or manager's terms and conditions is of vital importance. The problems with renting vacation rentals oftentimes can be blamed to forgetting to read and understand the terms and conditions of the property. Before you rent anything, you have to know how you can be held liable. For instance, if damages are found after your stay, how much do you need to pay to cover the costs or do you need to pay at all? If natural disaster strikes the area you're visiting while staying at the house, can you reimburse your rent? These things and more are all crucial questions. And if the terms and conditions are a bit vague, it would be best to ask the owner or manager directly. Finally, make sure that the vacation rental you plan on booking is indeed a real property. There are renters victimized by fraudulent listings often ending up with a foreclosure property. You have to know first if the house you're about to book is indeed free of hitches to ensure safe vacation.
Mark Michael Ferrer Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
| Posted: 18 Apr 2010 11:36 AM PDT Joe Meighan glances down at a yellow notepad, on which he has scrawled nine travel commandments – some conventional (No. 3: Eat a big breakfast), some sensible (No. 5: Go to bed early), some curious (No. 7: Avoid car rentals). Commandment No. 2 is a common recommendation, a staple of travel advice Web sites and guide books. It is paradoxically the most logical and the most difficult for travelers to obey. Pack light. This becomes important when you have a spiral-bound itinerary filled with seven pages of flights, when you are checking into 29 hotels, when you are celebrating your 43rd wedding anniversary with an epic 11-country, 70-day trek around the world. Last August, 71-year-old Joe and his 73-year-old wife, Mary, of Wyckoff filled two suitcases and two carry-ons. Joe packed two pairs of sneakers, 10 pairs of socks, a few light shirts, a few heavy shirts, a windbreaker, some rain gear and his toiletries. Mary packed summer clothes, a few sweaters and thermal underwear. They found room for a six-page copy of The Record's July 5, 2009, Travel section. "Mary gave me a plastic bag," Joe said. "We kept it folded." "You're lucky you didn't ruin it in the water in Bora Bora," Mary said. They pulled it out atop the Great Wall of China. They found a stranger willing to take their photo in front of Sydney Harbor. They carried it to Australia, to Germany, to Tahiti. In doing so, they became poster grandparents for The Record on the Road, our Sunday feature that encourages readers to send in photos from exotic destinations while holding a copy of the newspaper. They sent us 20 photos, each one a different snapshot from their once-in-a-lifetime trip. "I always dreamed of going to places, but I never thought I'd get there," Mary said. "When you see it from your dreams, it's one way. When you see it in reality, it's a little bit different." So she did not expect to see a set of candles illuminating the walkway leading into Petra. "You have to see it at night," Mary said. "Twenty-five hundred candles," Joe said, "in paper bags on the ground." "I couldn't get over the silence," Mary said. "It was almost like a religious experience." They did not expect the scene that unfolded in Bora Bora. "Outside, moonlit night, [they're playing] Broadway music," Joe said. "It just took my breath away. The stars, the music … it was just a gorgeous night." Or the light show that drenched Hong Kong's harbor. "I was so tired from walking, I didn't want to stay out," Mary said. "And I did stay out. And I'm so glad I did." In China, they took a river cruise on the Yangtze River, walked along the Great Wall, visited the Forbidden City and stopped by Tiananmen Square. In Australia, they stood near Ayers Rock as the massive structure changed colors. In India, they drove down poverty-infested roads, past animals of all shapes and sizes. Joe began laying the groundwork for the trip at least eight months before their Sept. 1 departure from Newark, but the seeds of this vacation were planted at a Catholic Youth Organization dance in 1964. "I was getting a cocktail," Mary said. "There were no nice guys." In walked Joe. He had to make a decision: Ask this pretty young lady with the Irish brogue to dance or let her finish her drink. He let her finish the drink, a move that proved prudent. Within two years, they were married. Their honeymoon was a 21-day train trip across North America that included stops in Chicago, Tijuana and Los Angeles. Along the way they visited the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone National Park. A wonderful vacation, they agreed, but not nearly as complicated as the trip this retired paper company salesman had planned for 2009. Joe sketched out an itinerary and kept a running dialogue with Josephine Vitello, a Lynnfield, Mass.-based travel agent. Joe offered her broad brushstrokes of the type of trip they wanted to take; Vitello countered with finer brushstrokes, providing a detail-oriented itinerary that guided Joe and Mary through city after city after city on this 70-day excursion. Like every trip, there were some bumps. They missed their connecting flight in Seoul. Mary turned an ankle in Jordan. In Germany, they got to the airport so early it wasn't open. Four times, they shipped stuff home, sending two boxes to their home and two more to their daughter Susan's address. A few things they didn't mean to ship. "Both of us were missing clothes," Mary said. "We forgot we mailed them." "Mary lost her pants," Joe said. "I wrapped them around a souvenir," Mary said. For the first few legs of the trip, the photos came courtesy of a Panasonic Lumix. On their flight from Bora Bora to Tahiti, Mary leaned over to Joe and sheepishly whispered, "I lost the camera." She picked up a replacement Canon Powershot and continued firing away. All told, the Meighans snapped more than 800 photos, a modest average of 11-plus photos a day. "We recommend everything," Joe said. "The two countries that had the most to offer were Australia and China." They traded domestic comforts for foreign adventure, missing several big events, including most of Major League Baseball's postseason. "I did," Joe said. "And you know, people over there didn't care. … They could care less. 'The Yankees? Who are the Yankees?' " "There was a lot [I missed]," Mary said. "A decent cup of coffee." "A drink," Joe said. "Probably a glass of wine. … A glass of tap water. I got so fed up with bottled water." They think it was worth it. Mary never imagined she would eat seaweed soup. Joe never thought he would try scorpion fish. Their final flight touched down in Newark on Nov. 10. Joe said he kissed the ground. Then he began making plans for their 44th anniversary. E-mail: kerwick@northjersey.com Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. 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