Which Is Cheaper: Renting A Vacation Home Or Booking A Hotel Room?

Hitting the road for adventures near and far is as American as feeling totally ripped off by the experience. While domestic travel can enrich the soul, it can just as easily empty the wallet. Especially when it comes to deciding where to lay your weary head, and how much to spend doing so.

Traveling with families or groups further complicates things, not to mention drives up the overall price of a trip. Meeting the needs of multiple travelers with multiple requirements and preferences can threaten to bust the most carefully planned (and income appropriate) vacation budget.

Even if you've narrowed possible getaways down to the best budget U.S. travel destinations, an overwhelming amount of lodging options and their prospective costs might just make you want to stay home. But do a little more research before you close the guidebook on possible adventure — depending on where you're going and when, there could be a notable price difference between short-term vacation rentals (STVRs) and hotels.

Vacation home rental platforms like Vrbo and Airbnb have popularized the concept of the short-term vacation rental. However, travelers have been officially renting dedicated vacation properties instead of hotels since at least the 1950s. Travelers looking for space and to simply enjoy their immediate surroundings may get the most benefit from booking a vacation home. Vacation home rentals often offer rooms with a view, or at least a quick walk to one. Coastal properties, mountainside cabins, quaint woodland cottages: you get the picturesque picture.

Vacation homes can provide travelers more (or simply divided) space than the average hotel room and quick access to activities on whatever attractive waterfront or natural beauty is nearby. Additionally, most vacation rentals are equipped with facilities to cook and dine at the property, which can save on food costs (and provide entertainment.) Travelers may also find pet-friendly vacation home rentals that can save on boarding pets.

Travelers can score strong savings booking vacation home rentals, especially if sharing costs with a group or looking for family-sized space. They can save more by booking STVRs during less-congested, better-priced "shoulder season" to save money. Even if booking a two-week stay during busy season, renting a vacation cabin with a kitchen and lake in walking distance might prove much cheaper than a comparable suite of hotel rooms, fast food costs, and the fees for Lyft or Uber rides to the same lake.

Holing up in a beach house or cabin in the woods has its time and place, but what about if you want your getaway to also include a getaway from chores? Anyone who has engaged in the great Airbnb or hotel debate knows that a major drawback to dodging high hotel rates is the amount of housekeeping and room service one has to perform for oneself when staying at most hotel alternatives.

Vacation home rentals and hotel rooms might have comparable nightly fee ranges. Both are now forbidden by the FTC to charge hidden service fees. Both may provide discounts for longer stays or off-peak travel. But only one option doesn't require you to wash your own bed linens: hotels.

Being able to physically check in and mentally check out from all sheet-washing and dish-washing responsibilities might count as luxury enough for some to justify the rising cost of staying in hotels. Hotels might be the cheaper option when traveling to a minor or mid-sized American city, with nightly rates rising with the more popular and populated the destination, per a report put together by CheapHotels.org in 2024. Couples, solo travelers, and even families with pre-toddler children may find a hotel's amenities, central location, proximity to attractions, dining, entertainment, and public transit, as well as other provided services to be worth every penny paid for their stay.