10 Reasons to Rent a Condo for Your Next Vacation

We were blessed just a couple of months ago to be able to take our first real family vacation. We spent a week in Florida, enjoying the Gulf Coast and some much needed warmer weather.

One of the things that worked for me about our vacation was to rent a condo, rather than stay in a hotel for a week.

With cleaning fees and such, we probably could have spent the same on a decent hotel for seven nights. However, there were some special money saving things about the condo that made it more than worthwhile.

1. It felt more like a home, and less like staying in a hotel.

2. We had two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a kitchen, a dining room, and a living room. Sure, it was not a big place, but there was always room to be somewhere and not be in someone else's face.

3. We had plenty of sleeping room for our family of five -- a family size where some hotels try to force you into renting a suite or two rooms.

4. We had a kitchen that was full size and stocked enough that we could prepare meals at "home," rather than feeling like we needed to eat every meal out while staying at a hotel.

5. Not a lot of hotels have as beautiful a view as we had! (I took this photograph from our balcony.)

6. Condos tend to have more amenities. This is not always the case, of course, so look into it. Our condo had a lot of things that weren't available during the off season, but even during the off season, they still had an indoor/outdoor pool, a special area to go out to the beach, an area of gas grills for renters to use, an exercise room, tennis courts, etc.

7. When the stomach flu hit Eric during our stay for about 24 hours, he was easily able to go to our room and shut himself up in there. If it would have been a hotel room, he would have been extra miserable trying to rest with us in there, or I would have had to have tried to take the children out for hours on end to let him rest.

8. We had a washer and dryer right in our unit! Sure -- they were really small, but it was great to only have to pack a portion of the clothes we would need for the week, and not feel like we had to leave our laundry in hotel machine unattended.

9. When we did go out to eat, we were able to take leftovers home because we knew we had room in a regular sized refrigerator, and we had a microwave and a stove/oven!

10. I, being the natural night owl, didn't have to go to bed when everyone else did, just because we were sharing a hotel room. At the condo, Eric went to bed in our room, the kids went to bed in the other room, and I got to hang out in the living room. Perfect!

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