Staying in a vacation rental home has become our absolute favorite way to travel since we began traveling with kids in tow. Before kids, we had used AirBnb and VRBO a couple times – for beach vacations or travel with large groups. Our first time that we took J abroad as a baby, we used AirBnb exclusively and have been hooked ever since. The extra space in a vacation home coupled with kitchen and sometimes laundry access has been crucial on many of our trips.
Don’t get me wrong, a plush hotel with concierge and daily housekeeping is a wonderful thing, but the ability to spread out over an entire house also has its advantages. Being able to put the kids to bed in a separate room and then unwind from the day (perhaps with refreshments from the fridge) cannot be beat. Access to laundry also means you can pack more efficiently, which is crucial when the kids are very young, require lots of essential gear, AND require you to carry them as well. Mornings feel less stressful when you can easily warm a bottle or make breakfast in a kitchen, brew a cup of coffee, and spend the first part of the day collecting yourselves before heading out.
We have jumped fully on the AirBnB train, and most of our recent travel has been in vacation rentals homes. Consequently, we have picked up a few tips to make the stay go more smoothly. Some of these were hard lessons learned, so hopefully you find these tips useful and use them to make your own vacations even better.
1. Pack for your property
After you have booked your rental property but before you leave for your trip, consider small items that you might need or want to make the stay more enjoyable. This tip provides the biggest benefits but will also take the most forward planning. Here are some areas to focus on when thinking about your packing list.
Child Gear
For travel with kids, we always pack noise machines and baby monitors for the kids’ room(s). Our kids are growing out of the age of needing monitors at home, but in unfamiliar locations, we like being able to keep an eye on them after bedtime. We still bring multiple sippy cups (so we don’t have to wash the same ones constantly) and some kid friendly plates and utensils. When the kids were in the baby phase, our list would include bottles, formula dispensers, and a travel bottle brush kit. I also highly recommend a portable fabric high chair for very young ones.; only a couple rentals have had high chairs. We have used ours countless times, even in many restaurants. (Don’t be surprised when most restaurants in Europe do not have high chairs).
- We used travel fabric high chairs like this one.
- Here is the bottle brush kit that we used.
Entertainment Items
The absolute number one item that we always bring is our Amazon Fire stick. Something similar like a Roku would be great too. Most of the places we have stayed over the past few years have had newer TVs compatible with our Fire stick, so we have been able to turn on cartoons for the kids and watch our own shows after the kids go to bed, all with little hassle. As a backup to this, we always travel with our Fire tablets for the kids, but these are essential tools for our air travel, so I don’t necessarily count the tablets as items specific for an AirBnB stay.
Besides screen time, we normally pack a select amount of toys and books in our luggage – something different than what the kids had during the travel day. This way they have other things to play with when we are at the house. I try to choose any current favorite toys and then a few other toys that give you the best bang for your buck, size and weight wise. I avoid heavy board books and anything that would take up too much space in the luggage. And leave behind any toys that cannot be powered off (don’t want TSA searching for a musical instrument that was bumped into blaring songs!).
For the adults, we make sure to toss in a deck of playing cards and will occasionally bring a portable bluetooth speaker to listen to music. Depending on the trip, we might spend a lot of time at the house and will want our own entertainment beyond watching Frozen 2 for the eighth time in one week. We might be staying in a residential property, but there are less chores and other tasks that eat into our free time when we are at home, so it’s also nice to interact and connect together when we have the chance instead of just scrolling through our phones.
Miscellaneous Items
With the large amount of electronics that we travel with, we also pack a couple outlet plug splitters. These come in handy when charging multiple phones and tablets or in the bedrooms with the noise machines and monitor cameras. Some houses can have odd outlet placement, so you can’t guarantee multiple available outlets in every room. The biggest benefit to the plug splitters is when you are traveling abroad and need outlet converters. With plug splitters, you can charge more devices on each outlet, stretching the use of your power converters. I feel like we never can have enough outlet converters when we travel, so bringing splitters at least gives us more options.
Make sure to pack a bar of soap or body wash. This sounds like a ridiculous reminder, but I have grown so accustomed to using the hotel-provided bar soap when traveling that I still forget constantly to pack some of my own. Not all AirBnBs will provide any toiletries at all. We have definitely had to make some last minute store runs to grab things like soap.
Another thing that we try to do when packing is think ahead about any small items we might want in the kitchen. It has been helpful in the past to have a few extra trash bags on hand (sometimes a house will provide very few extras). If I know the house has a coffee maker, I might bring some of my favorite sweetener packets to avoid extra purchases at the local grocery store. After staying at a few houses without wine bottle openers, we have started tossing one in our luggage when packing. So frustrating to bring back a nice local wine only to have zero way of opening it!
When packing for your travel day, try to include extra snacks. It never fails that we end up checking into a house and the kids promptly meltdown because they are starving. Rather than running immediately to the grocery store or cooking a meal right away, having some extra snacks on hand has been a lifesaver.
2. Make a sleeping plan before you leave
You should determine ahead of time how your child(ren) will sleep in the house. For example, if you know the host does not provide a pack-n-play, but you need a crib, you will need to plan accordingly.
If you need a pack-n-play, check with the host before your trip. If the listing says they have one, just check with them to confirm, and if the listing does not have one, double check on that with the host. We have often found pack-n-plays stored in a hall or bedroom closet even when we were not expecting one, so always check before assuming they don’t have one. It also doesn’t hurt to confirm when they say that they DO have one because it would be a huge pain to arrive right before bedtime and then have to scramble to find a place for the baby to sleep if the pack-n-play is missing.
If you need a pack-n-play but the host does not provide one, you have options. If you happen to be traveling to an area with local friends or family, reach out and ask around. You would be surprised as to how many people keep portable cribs on hand. Every time we travel to Scott’s hometown, we borrow cribs, a high chair, and toys from a family friend that runs an in-home daycare. (Now we are down to borrowing just one crib and some toys, yay for milestones!). If that isn’t an option, there are companies that specialize in short term baby gear rental specifically for situations like this. We used a company in London once (TheBabyLoft) and another company in Paris (Baby’tems). This can get expensive, but it is nice because they normally do drop-off and pick-up service since they are targeting busy traveling families. Another option is to buy your own pack-n-play and have it shipped to your rental property (we did this once because it was cheaper than renting a crib), and last but not least, you can just suck it up and bring your own. This would always be my last resort though because we usually already have our hands full with other gear and suitcases.
For children past the crib stage, look at pictures of the bedrooms in the rental, and determine where you want the kids to sleep and if the beds will work for them. Both of our kids are still in toddler beds at home. Even with the rail, it is not unusual for one of them to roll right out of the bed. Since we aren’t ready for them to sleep in a big bed yet, we just rearrange bedroom furniture and move mattresses to the floor for a sleeping pallet. Kind of unorthodox but it works for us. The only time we had trouble with this was in a couple houses in Iceland when the bedrooms were so small that we had to creatively rearrange furniture to fit the mattress on the floor.
Planning this out ahead of time reduces stress when you arrive and makes sure everyone will have a comfortable place to sleep after a day of travel.
3. Arrival at the property
Before you arrive at the AirBnB, read over the entrance instructions provided by the host. With most vacation rentals websites, you will receive this information shortly before your stay. Looking over it ahead of time ensures that you did receive the info and gives you a chance to clear up any confusing instructions before you are on the front porch or standing in the building lobby. You definitely will want to avoid a frantic last minute call or email while your family is impatiently waiting entrance to the property.
As soon as you are inside, try to get settled in. With young kids, move any breakables out of reach, create barricades to keep crawling tots away from stair cases, move electronics like routers or remote controls out of the path of destruction, things like this. Don’t be shy to make the house more livable for your family. The host would always rather come back to a house that is imperfectly put back together than have smashed vases or, heaven forbid, an accident with your child slipping down some stairs.
We like to set up the kids’ bedrooms right away just so that we are ready to go for bedtime later that day. We have found that bedtime can sneak up on us when we travel, and when it’s time – it’s time! It is so much easier to be able to get the kids ready for bed without the adding steps of setting up cribs/beds and the monitors and noise machines on top of brushing teething and changing into PJs.
If you are planning to go to the grocery store, do a quick inventory of any items already provided in the house. Usually there are already some spices and all the kitchenware you will need. We try to double check on things like paper towels, coffee, coffee filters, toilet paper, toiletries, etc. Then we usually go to the grocery store on our first day. It is nice to get it out of the way, and then we know that we will have breakfast food on hand first thing in the morning.
4. Remember this is a personal residence
I’m sure this goes without saying, but always keep in mind that you are staying in a private property. The host has opened up their house to guests, and it is a privilege to be able to stay in a local residence. Treat the property like you would your own, be mindful of noise for the neighbors, and make sure to clean up as best as you can before you leave. If they have a guest book, leave a message and flip through to see what other people have experienced in the same home. I always love when AirBnBs have that personal touch.
After your stay, make sure to leave a fair review. Definitely identify any true problems or misleading information from the listing, but remember that negative reviews on these sites have a huge impact to the host. Distinguish real issues from personal preferences or things that the host cannot control, like poor weather during your visit. And try to have grace on the smaller things like running out of dish detergent or other things that don’t truly impact the trip.
We have had so many great AirBnB experiences. I hope that these tips help you when planning and make your upcoming trips just as great!
