I have a confession to make: After all my years of traveling – I have never stayed in a vacation rental! This all changed with our last trip.

My love for El Salvador became contagious and my friends wanted to join me on our third trip to Playa Tunco and Sunzal. After tons of research for the best way to go with three families with six little boys for three nights, we decided to look for a house. That’s when I remembered about the site VRBO. Or better known as Vacation Rentals by owners.

That’s where we found our Paradise Villa in Sunzal. And now I’m hooked!

Benefits of staying in a Vacation Rental vs. a Hotel:

1. Our house was 4 bedrooms with 4.5 bathrooms. Each bedroom had it’s own private bathroom. Trust me, this is huge! The fact that you don’t have to go out in the hall to share a bathroom gives you a sense of total freedom and let’s your guard down of sharing with 2 other families.

2. The villa is located inside a private, gated community. When traveling with 6 kids it’s easy to lose one and then freak out that something bad can happen to them. At least we knew that they were in a safe community and luckily no one ran too far.

3. It’s literally your home away from home. Everyone had their own space:

Some people were hanging out outside by the pool.

Kids could watch TV or simply run around the living room.

We can be in the kitchen without having the kids too far way from us.

Not everyone had to eat at the same time, but if they wanted to the table was certainly large enough.

You can have down time and swing in a hammock.

Once my one year old was in bed, and I didn’t fear that he would fall to his death, we enjoyed the view from the rancho over looking the ocean on the second floor.

4. It’s so great after a full day of adventure to come to a home where you can make yourself a drink or a snack and not be crammed into one room.

5. Putting a one year old to bed can be a serious chore. Normally, in a hotel room, everyone but me has to go outside until he is asleep and wait in the hallway, and then return to room only to whisper. In a house, everyone has total freedom. My oldest was able to play as loud as he wanted, and once my baby was asleep I came out and could do whatever I wanted! To me this was a huge HUGE plus.

6. Every morning we had our very own coconut man come around and give us fresh coconut juice.

What We Loved Most About Our Villa:

Every house is differently built. What most appealed to us, was that even though we were in the same house, each bedroom had it’s own separate entrance, with a key. So we were independent of one another. And, like I mentioned earlier – private and separate bathrooms. The dining room was super spacious and could easily fit 12 people at the table without bumping elbows.

Encuentra otras buenas razones para viajar a El Salvador.

I don’t know if I’ll have the same luck when I find a vacation rental for my next trip, but I am soooo pleased and so happy to have this one as my first frame of reference!

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Article by Marina Kuperman Villatoro

Marina Kuperman Villatoro CEO of TravelExperta.com, a travel resource site to inspire families to travel with kids of all ages. I've been an expat 10+ years in Central America raising 2 boys in a multicultural, trilingual household. We travel all over the world. Needless to say, it’s never boring! Join Marina on Facebook and Twitter for more Central and Latin American fun!