A Family-Friendly Vacation Rental Experience with VaycayHero

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This post is sponsored by VaycayHero.  All opinions are my own.

Like many families, I have found that vacation rentals are often a better bet for my family than hotel rooms.  Condos and homes provide more space as well as the convenience of amenities like a kitchen, laundry, and separate sleeping and living spaces.  Vacation rentals can often be much more budget-friendly too.  My family sometimes brings grandparents with us on our trips, and vacation rentals offer the ideal accommodations for larger multigenerational groups.

One of my family’s recent vacation rental experiences was at these condos in Hawaii’s Big Island.

In the past few years, several vacation rental websites have taken the travel market by storm, including VRBO, HomeAway, Airbnb, and others.  While we used some of these sites before we had kids, recently we’ve avoided them for a few reasons.  First, some of them simply don’t have the right mix of accommodations for travelers with kids.

Second, the back-and-forth communications with owners can be a hassle.  Given that I am generally handling many other trip-planning logistics, and already have to squeeze them in between actual, non-negotiable family and job obligations, the payoff is often not worth the work for me.

Finally, there is always a very real risk of being scammed.  While my family is lucky not to have had a true vacation rental horror story, I know several travelers who have.  When you travel with kids, you just can’t take those sorts of risks.

Consequently, I was intrigued to learn about a new site that is positioning itself as the hassle-free vacation rental alternative for families: VaycayHero.  VaycayHero (formerly Zaranga) offers only professionally managed vacation rental properties, eliminating many of the challenges of renting directly from an owner who can flake out on you or be unavailable at they very moment you get locked out of your rental late at night.

To me, a major value of the site is its real-time calendar availability and instant booking.  I can book my rental as quickly as I would a hotel room elsewhere.  VaycayHero also offers a full-service concierge team by chat or phone to help along the way if you want it.  The site is clean and remarkably user-friendly and offers a 100% accuracy guarantee for all of its listings.

Another feature I like about the site is its results map, which is well-laid out and enables you to see exactly where your rental choices are in relation to one another.  After all, finding just the right location is often essential for families with young kids who want to minimize walking and maximize safety.

Screenshot of VaycayHero search results with the mapping feature.

VaycayHero focuses on leisure destinations.  It already covers destinations that California-based families like mine typically visit: Lake Tahoe, Hawaii, Colorado ski destinations.  Currently it is expanding into the East Coast and South.  I spotted lots of availability in one of my favorite Gulf Coast destinations (Destin, Florida) and in coastal South Carolina where many families vacation often.

In short, I am excited to know about this new offering and definitely plan to try it.  The next time our family is looking for a vacation rental, VaycayHero is going to be my first stop.

This post is sponsored by VaycayHero.  All opinions are my own.

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