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How to book with HomeAway for your family’s best vacation ever

July 2, 2018 by Jill 1 Comment

I recently returned from my San Antonio to Santa Fe road trip with my kids (#SA2SF.) If you’re new to my blog, I took my kids out of school a couple of days early to take them on a three-week long road trip through the Southwest United States. You can see all my #SA2SF posts here. As always, the best way to get real-time info on our family’s travels is to follow my Instagram Feed & Stories. We visited 11 cities in three states in 23 days…that was a lot of traveling and a lot of driving. This post has some fun little vignettes about my family’s travels this past June…I’m excited to share this with you. We stayed in HomeAway vacation rentals in three of our stops (Marfa, Texas, Tuscon, Arizona and Flagstaff, Arizona) and our experience with HomeAway has changed the way we’ll travel in the future and has turned me into HomeAway’s biggest cheerleader. Here’s how to book with HomeAway for your family’s best vacation ever.

This post was written by me in collaboration with HomeAway. All opinions are mine.

How to book with HomeAway to have your best vacation ever|Ripped Jeans and Bifocals

Having the space to spread out, relax, and have downtime during our vacation was EVERYTHING.

Table of Contents

  • How to book with HomeAway for your family’s best vacation ever
    • 1. Set up a profile on the website and download the app
    • 2. Read the fine print
    • 3. Read all the reviews
    • 4. Scope out the neighborhood
    • 5. Research what you want and go for it…
    • 6. Write a review
  • A quick word about resort properties booked through HomeAway:
  • More about HomeAway
  • If you’ve enjoyed reading this, check out more before you go:

How to book with HomeAway for your family’s best vacation ever

How to book with @HomeAway for your family’s best vacation ever #ad #HomeAway

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1. Set up a profile on the website and download the app

Spend a few minutes getting familiar with both. You can do everything that you’d do on the website on the app but I found the site easier to maneuver on PC. My advice is view properties and make reservations on a desktop computer and use the app to manage existing reservations…although the app is certainly set up to to view properties and make reservations. I just find it easier to see on a larger screen and the pictures of the property will show up in more detail.

How to book with HomeAway for your best family vacation ever|Ripped Jeans and BIfocals

Relaxing on the patio after dinner? Yes please.

2. Read the fine print

You’re going to see some properties that will dazzle you…that’s a given with HomeAway. They have some beautiful rentals with some wonderful amenities – like beautiful private pools with a mountain view. But, read the fine print carefully. One of our rentals didn’t come with a TV, and while it wasn’t a big deal for two nights, we did sort of assume we’d have television in the evenings. The fine print will also contain specifics on what’s expected of you in terms of cleaning, deposits, check out and check in times, and so on.

How to book with HomeAway for your best family vacation ever|Ripped Jeans and BIfocals

This vacation rental near Tuscon has a beautiful view of the Catalina Mountains. We didn’t want to leave.

Each owner will set their own policies, and while these things are not usually that drastically different from hotels, there may be variations, so read before you book…and know before you go.

How to book with HomeAway to have your best vacation ever|Ripped Jeans and Bifocals

The privacy and the room to spread out made our vacation the BEST EVER.

One of the properites we stayed in was “off the grid” and we had to transport our trash off property and pay a small fee. It wasn’t a big deal at all but it was helpful to know the rules ahead of time since this is a little different than what we were used to. Taking the time to read the fine print helped us have our very best stay.

And as always, if you have a question about the property, message the owner. It helps to have a profile set up on HomeAway before you message a property owner and it’s really easy to set up a profile.

How to book with HomeAway for your best family vacation ever|Ripped Jeans and BIfocals

Soaking in this hot tub watching the sunset over the mountains = best life.

3. Read all the reviews

You will learn a lot about the property, the area, and the homeowners by reading the reviews and comments of other travelers that have stayed in a rental you are considering. Many of the guests will leave tidbits about their trip, such as what they did in the surrounding area, that can help you plan your trip. This is how we got the idea to go to Biosphere2 outside of Tuscon, Arizona!

It also helps to see how the property owners respond to their guests’ reviews and comments.

How to book with HomeAway for your best family vacation ever|Ripped Jeans and BIfocals

There were so many comments from previous guests about how they loved the mini putting green…my kids loved it too!

4. Scope out the neighborhood

We do this when we’re staying in a hotel…we usually have a good idea of what we want to do in a particular location, so we generally like to make sure that where we are staying is conveniently located near what we want to do. Since many HomeAway properites are located in residential areas, you’ll want to get a good look at the neighborhorhood at what’s around you and gauge how long it will take you to get to and from points of interest.

How to book with HomeAway to have your best vacation ever|Ripped Jeans and Bifocals

Our vacation rental in Marfa Texas was located on a quiet, residential street with a huge outdoor living space. We loved how quiet it was but we also loved that there was a grocery story less than a five-minute walk away.

It also helps to know things like where the local grocery store is or if your rental is close to restaurants and pubs. As a mom traveling with kids, I liked being able to know that my vacation rental was located on a quiet street versus near a place where we’d encounter lots of nighttime noise. Every traveler has different wants and needs so take some time to make sure the neighborhood you are selecting meets yours.

5. Research what you want and go for it…

…AKA don’t wait to book when you find the perfect property. This isn’t like booking a hotel. The property you are looking at is one of a kind and others are probably scoping it out, too. If you think it’s “the one” (after reading all the fine print and reviews) then book it. It might not be there later!

How to book with HomeAway to have your best vacation ever|Ripped Jeans and Bifocals

This rental with the amazing view of the mountains and this fabulous pool cost a fraction of what a hotel would have cost, so I’m glad I hit “book” when I saw it.

Most HomeAway rentals allow a full refund if you cancel within 30 days of booking and a partial refund if you cancel within two weeks of booking. If you’re booking property fairly last minute you’ll need to make sure you are well aware of what the cancellation policy is.

6. Write a review

After your stay, hop back on the HomeAway website and leave a review of the property. When I was deciding which HomeAway vacation rentals to stay in, I found reading the reviews of other travelers to be the most helpful thing so make sure you pay that forward. Also, the property owners are genuinely interested in making sure your stay was the best it can be and they want to know if something wasn’t quite right. And, of course they want to know if they’re doing a great job, so tell them!

How to book with HomeAway to have your best vacation ever|Ripped Jeans and Bifocals

Staying in a vacation rental versus a hotel allowed us to save money, have more space, and in general, have a more relaxed experience on vacation. Having room to spread out (versus endruing mega togetherness in a small hotel room) saved the day and saved mama’s mood more than a couple of times.

How to book with HomeAway for your best family vacation ever|Ripped Jeans and BIfocals

This is such a simple thing but it’s one of the BEST memories of our vacation. I made fresh-squeezed lemonade in our Tuscon rental. “Mom, I didn’t know you could DO that!”

And, although I’m not a huge fan of cooking, doing dishes, grocery shopping and laundry while I’m on vacation, having kitchen and laundry facilities available made my life so much easier. Laundry facilities enabled us to travel lighter and having a kitchen made for some easy mornings.

How to book with HomeAway to have your best vacation ever|Ripped Jeans and Bifocals

Our rental in Marfa, Texas was called the “Fancy Pony Land House” and I loved the retro, artsy, quirkiness of the decor. I also loved that I could ease into the mornings and let my kids hang out in their PJs a little bit longer.

Eating familiar cereal while watchin familiar televisions shows (come on…you let your kids watch TV at breakfast, too, right?) made a huge difference for us when we were out of our element and out of our comfort zone.

I love giving my kids the experience of traveling and seeing different places and I love being able to give them little touches of home while we do it. That is what makes HomeAway so perfect.

How to book with HomeAway for your best family vacation ever|Ripped Jeans and BIfocals

The view of the Coconino National Forest from our balcony in our Flagstaff HomeAway vacation rental. I wish you could smell pictures because this mountain air was amazing.

Check out their site, look around and create your profile. It’s easy. The hard part is deciding where you want to go.

A quick word about resort properties booked through HomeAway:

There are various hotels and resorts that have partnered with HomeAway, meaning that properties that are part of hotels and resorts may come up in your search terms. We stayed in one of these properties and it was absolutely amazing…in fact, it was the perfect vacation property for our family and we’ll definitely be open to this type of rental the next time we use HomeAway.

How to book with HomeAway to have your best vacation ever|Ripped Jeans and Bifocals

Having the space to spread out and let my kids roughhouse a little bit without “shushing” them because our hotel neighbors were on the other side of a thin wall was amazing.

How to book with HomeAway to have your best vacation ever|Ripped Jeans and Bifocals

Eating familiar breakfast while watching familiar cartoons made getting up for a 6 a.m. hike go (almost!) smoothly.

The amenities may be more in line with what you’d expect from a resort versus a private vacation rental, such as pools, community centers, restaurants and bars, housekeeping, and so on. This type of rental just might offer the best of both worlds. However, I recommend calling the front desk in advance of your trip to make sure that the reservation booked through HomeAway is properly showing up in the resort’s system. We didn’t do this and we had some snags at check-in. It was resolved quickly and having the booking information at my fingertips – thank you HomeAway app – made things go smoothly. A phone call in advance of our travel would have saved me some time and stress but both HomeAway and the property were great and got me taken care of.

When you are booking directly with the owner, you’ll have solid communication with the owner in advance of your trip. Typically the owner will contact you shortly before arrival to provide details of how to enter the property. We loved the experience of staying at a resort that was listed as a HomeAway property but I recommend double checking your reservation to have the smoothest arrival possible since you’ll be doing more of a standard hotel check in.

How to book with HomeAway for your best family vacation ever|Ripped Jeans and BIfocals

More about HomeAway

HomeAway has been in the industry for more than 10 years. From cabins, beach homes and condos, HomeAway has more than two million unique places to stay worldwide, so no matter where you are going, you can probably find a HomeAway vacation rental nearby.

How to book with HomeAway for your best family vacation ever|Ripped Jeans and BIfocals

The front yard of our Marfa house (AKA the Fancy Pony Land House.) One of these days I’m going to have to find the story behind the name.

If you have a large family or are planning multi-family or group travel, a HomeAway vacation rental is your perfect option to renting several hotel rooms. Alternative accommodations: castles, house boats, treehouses, barns and more. YES you can stay in a treehouse. This has really changed the landscape of how we’ll look at travel as a family in the future.

Why rent a vacation rental? For starters, you get twice as much space as a hotel room at half the cost. If you’d like more reasons, check out this post I wrote about the reasons you should consider HomeAway. You know…if our awesome vacation pictures haven’t yet convinced you.

To view properties, go HERE.

If you’ve enjoyed reading this, check out more before you go:

Six Reasons Why Families Should Stay at a HomeAway Vacation Rental


1 Comment

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Comments

  1. Erika Ann says

    July 31, 2018 at 1:29 am

    Just checked out homeaway and i’m loving it already. I had bad experience with other booking websites so I hope homeaway would change the way I think about online booking.

    Reply

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All About Jill

I'm a digital content creator and essayist who copes with parenting and most other situations with humor and snark. Just so you know, if this weren't the internet, I'd be smiling awkwardly and answering simple questions like "How are you today" with gems like "I like pockets."

I really do love pockets, though.

I spent 26 years in the USAF, which went by really, really fast. I'm very proud of my service but I'm loving my second act even more. Writing gives me the opportunity to flex my creative muscles and that's what makes me happy. Welcome.

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rippedjeansandbifocals

Freelance Writer & Travel Expert
Producer, Listen to Your Mother SA
💜 Mom via birth & #adoption
🐈 Human to @remusthebengalcat
🇺🇸 USAF veteran
📍#texas

Jill Robbins
This little guy wasn’t a keeper - a fish has to This little guy wasn’t a keeper - a fish has to be at least 20 inches long to keep and this one was a couple of inches short. That said, the excitement of catching my first fish was BIG. 🎣 
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I was invited down to South Padre Island this weekend for #NationalCookYourCatchDay and I’m not gonna lie: I was a little nervous. Things could go wrong. I could fall out of the boat, break something or get eaten by a shark. (I have a vivid imagination.)
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None of those things happened.
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Our boat caught enough keepers to feed us dinner and I wanna go fishing again.  I liked it a lot more than I expected to.
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I’m still going through pictures and videos and I’ll tell you all you want to know about planning your own fishing trip on the Texas Gulf Coast + where to eat and some other things to do. Every day can 
be #nationalcookyourcatchday 
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Thanks @visitsouthpadreisland for hosting me & Captain Eddie (AKA @fishingpadre ) for being such a patient teacher. 
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#sopadre #southpadreisland #southpadre #texascoast #texastodo #anglerlife #fishinggram #fishinglife #gonefishing
Happy Wednesday. 📷 taken at Wasserman Wranch n Happy Wednesday.

📷 taken at Wasserman Wranch near Alpine. Check my bio link for more information. 

#texastravel #westtexas #texastodo #welovetexas #texaskids #donkeysofinstagram #westtx #texastravel #onlyintexas #alpinetexas #alpinetx #igtexas #igtexasphoto #alamocreatives #heymama_love #texasblogger #satxbloggers #texasthingstodo #miniaturedonkey #miniaturedonkeysofinstagram
"Intelligence + Character. That is the goal of tru "Intelligence + Character. That is the goal of true education." Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

I saw a lot of posts about Martin Luther King yesterday when I was doing my scrolls through social media...on a day where I wasn't supposed to be ON social media, ahem. We hear and see a lot of Dr. King's words and quotes one day a year. So, instead of apologizing for posting this "a day late" I'll share that I'm challenging myself to remember some of these important words more than one day a year.

Our kids are watching us right now. I mean...they're always watching us but I think what they see in these times is more important than ever. Nuturing our kids' intelligence and character is more important than ever. My kids are 10 now - this picture is about four years old - and they are absorbing EVERYTHING we say, how we say it and even what we don't say. 

This mural is near the suspension bridge in downtown Waco. Waco is famous for all the Magnolia things but there's a lot there for families, too, and the park around the bridge is a great place to explore along the Brazos River. 

#martinlitherkingday #martinlutherkingquotes #wacotexas #wacoheartoftexas #wacohot #texastravel #texastodo #onlyintexas #texaskids #texasfamilies #alamocreatives #igtexasphoto 
#raisinggoodhumans #raisingboys
Here’s something you’ve probably never seen be Here’s something you’ve probably never seen before: my bottom teeth.
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I always hide my crooked bottom teeth in pictures and I’m super self-conscious when I talk. So I did something about it.
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I wore braces as a kid and my top teeth are straight but my bottom teeth are shifting and one tooth is traveling into the back of my mouth and I have some crowding. My orthodontist said it’s very unusual to put braces on just half your mouth but my bite is still aligned so they didn’t have to put them on my top teeth - my wallet is thankful.
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Questions I’ve already been asked:
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1️⃣ At your age? Yes, at my age. I still care about my smile. 
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3️⃣ How long do you have to wear them?
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6-9 months.
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3️⃣ Do they hurt? 
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My teeth are sore and my mouth is tender but not to the Tylenol level so I guess the answer is “Not too much.”
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Other questions? Advice?
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#braceface #adultbraces
Little things can really be big - do you agree? M Little things can really be big - do you agree?

My husband gets up with our kids twice a week and does their breakfast and morning routine and takes them to school so I can sleep in. I don't laze away the morning in bed - it usually amounts to about an extra hour of sleep for me and a little more peace and quiet as I start my day. 

This probably seems like a little thing but this is huge for me. The mental benefits of not having to set my alarm on a schoolday is truly my love language. I would rather have sleep than flowers or presents. 

On those morning where my husband takes my kids to school, I will inevitably find the kitchen not "just so." There will be spills on the table or something that didn't get put away. I resist the urge to be sarcastic or to ask "Um, is there a reason we have four boxes of cereal just sitting on the counter?" or point out that it would take less than 30 seconds to wipe a tabletop or put a box back on the shelf. I resist saying stuff like "I guess if I want it done a certain way, I have to do it myself." I don't even say that to myself. 

My husband isn't "doing me a favor" by taking care of our kids. When I talked about being stressed and tired during an argument last year, he offered to take some things off my plate and giving me two mornings where I don't have to set an alarm was one of his ideas. It's part of the give and take of marriage and even though it makes me clench a little when I see spilled milk or stuff that hasn't put away, I appreciate having a partner who shares the load with me. 

My marriage definitely is not perfect and I'm in no position to give relationship advice. But for us, this one little thing is a really big deal. 

And, as I've recently discovered, a cereal box can sit on the counter for several days and the world doesn't explode. Who knew.

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