Home Away From Home: Benefits Of Condos Over Hotels And Rv’s

by: Clinton Douglas IV



Most parents of school-age children are forced to confine their family vacations to summer months, Christmas holiday and Spring break. Other families can choose to take their vacations at any time that is appropriate to their personal preferences.

When people consider their vacation or weekend getaways, few understand the true range of options they really do have available to them. Many people think their only options for lodging on vacation is limited to: hotels, motels, cabins, RV’s, travel trailers, and tents. But the truth is that there are a few more options that most people never even consider.

Condominiums, also referred to as Condos, are another great lodging option to consider. But, just speaking the word Condo brings to mind for many the concept of Time Share Condos. Of course, that is one option with a Condo, but we are going to look at the other options as well.

Condominium Residency Arrangements

A condominium, very literally, is very similar to an apartment. It is a fully self-contained living arrangement, with a living area, bedrooms, private balconies, and a full kitchen; and most condos contain all of the amenities, including big screen televisions, DVD players, high-speed Internet access, and other creature comforts we generally have in our homes, such as washers and dryers. Many condos also have hot tubs or Jacuzzis in the apartments.

Condos are basically full apartments, located in areas of prime real estate, such as Las Vegas on the Strip, or many other locations around the world on beachfront property. Condos generally provide additional benefits such as swimming pools, weight rooms, restaurants, and other high-value goodies.

We are going to look at four types of Condo purchase arrangements in this section.

1. Condominium Ownership – Condo ownership costs include the purchase price of the apartment and yearly fees to cover maintenance costs.

2. Condominium Timeshares – With a timeshare, the basic concept is that more people can afford them, because the cost of ownership is split among several owners on a per week basis. When someone buys a timeshare, they are buying a 1/52nd ownership of the Condo for a specific, pre-designated calendar week. With a timeshare, one is entitled to take over the property beginning on a specific calendar date, and they must vacate the property at the end of the week.

3. Condominium Rentals – Instead of timesharing a condo, many people opt to rent a condo, which frequently requires a purchase of a specific weekly period, although many condos provide flexibility so that you can decide which week you would like to rent. Some condo owners will allow individuals to rent by the day, but those have a much lower availability, than the condos that rent by the week. More on this later in this article.

4. The Dreaded Seminar Timeshare – Some companies are so desperate to find people to listen to their sales message that they are willing to put prospects up in a timeshare condo for the weekend or week, so long as the person(s) agrees to attend a specific number of sales presentations during their stay.

Benefits of Condos Over Hotels

The greatest benefit of condominiums over hotels is two-fold.

First, condos are fully self-contained, providing kitchens, spacious living and all of the luxuries of home to their guests. Many also provide high-speed Internet and data access to their business-class guests. For many folks, the full kitchen is the greatest advantage of a condo, in that, they will not have to eat nearly every meal in a restaurant, enabling the vacationer to spend his or her money on attractions rather than on restaurant foods.

The second greatest benefit for condominiums is three-fold: location, location, and location. Condos are generally located on some of the best prime real estate properties in the world. For example, City Center in Las Vegas is located on the Strip between the Bellagio Hotel and Casino and the New York, New York Hotel and Casino. Beachfront condos exist in nearly every major beach destination in the world. Condos are available in San Francisco, Chicago, NYC, Atlanta and Miami, just to name a few metropolitan locations. And locations are not restricted to U.S. destinations; in fact, condos are available in nearly every travel destination of the world.

Benefits of Condos Over RV’s and Travel Trailers

RV’s are nice, but considering the cost of fuel these days, they are seldom a great option for most travelers. A friend of mine recently priced a RV for a planned family vacation, and he found the cost for eight days would easily exceed one thousand dollars, plus mileage over 200 miles, plus fuel. At eight miles per gallon, his planned trip of 500 miles one-way would have easily translated into 125 gallons of gasoline and more than $400, just in fuel costs, at current fuel prices.

Sure, the RV is still more spacious than a car during a long road trip, but for the cost, renting a Cadillac for the trip might just make more sense. Given the claustrophobic nature of his wife, he felt that train or airplane might make more sense for his roundtrip transportation needs.

Transportation costs aside, the travel trailer and RV are both generally a bit confining in the space considerations. Certainly, the RV beats the travel trailer hands down in this department, most of the time, but when you consider the stress of stuffing a family of five with three young children into a RV, there is never enough space available for the sanity of the parents.

Benefits Over the Great Outdoors

With smaller travel trailers, travelers are still stuck with cooking outdoors. Sure, the travel trailer might be easier than the tent to set up, but travel trailers usually have small kitchens, if they even have a kitchen at all. Cooking outdoors for a family is more of a challenge than many in today’s world want to consider.

The limited amount of refrigerated storage is another area that is usually greatly strained with the use of the average travel trailer or tent camping experience. Going into the woods with a ice chest is fine for an afternoon trip, but once that trip expands beyond the life of the ice in the chest, then food options drop off considerably. This is the greatest cause of stress for people planning such trips. They always need to manage how they can maximize their food store, within very limited-size refrigerated storage containers.

In today’s modern world, it is frequently impossible to escape the reliance we have come to have for modern technology. This leads to a need for power supplies that can accompany the traveler, to keep them plugged into their gadgets. Tents and small travel trailers do not accommodate this need in many instances.

The Purpose of Vacations Is Rest and Relaxation, Which Is Sometimes Lost

For many of us, the purpose of a vacation is rest and relaxation. But, as we have seen above, the challenges of taking long trips can sometimes produce more stress than relaxation.

Another friend told me that he was very much relieved when his parents decided not to take any more summer vacations “for the family.” He said that by the end of the first day, every member of his family was ready to strangle the other. By the end of day two of their six-day traveling vacations, everyone wanted to go home, but his dad was stubborn to a fault. His family had tried nearly all of the above options: tents, travel trailers, RV’s, hotels and motels.

Even today, twenty years later, he cannot fathom a family vacation like his parents took, without his blood pressure going up. A few years back, he had tried the condominium rental route, and he has never looked back.

He told me that for him and his young family, the only vacation choice they will ever take advantage of is the condo rentals. He said the money he saves by not going to restaurants, generally covers the extra costs of the condominium. He said the enjoyment that he and his family experience, is far greater than what it would be if they forced themselves to live in a hotel room for a week. He said the extra goodies that the condos generally provide help him to give his family a much more rounded and robust experience. He says the added space and convenience of the condo experience permits him and his wife to relax more during their out-of-state vacations.

Making a Great Vacation Even Better

I am in the business of providing wholesale travel packages to the consumer market. I got into this business myself, because I love to travel with my family. Because I am able to save so much money on my own travel, it enables me to take my family on more trips and vacations than I had previously thought I could do.

The one thing I love most about my job is that I can give others the power to do as I do. I set my friend up with a discount condo card package, and now he is able to get his condominium rentals for much less than he was previously able to do. Depending on his trip destinations, he was generally paying $650 to $2500 for one week in his choice destination.

When I was able to hook him up with the discount condo card package, he paid one small upfront fee to my company of $250 for the condo card. On one trip, he stayed in a five-star condo resort and was able to get the condo for a week at just about 25% of what it would have cost him to rent it at retail cost. On another trip, he was able to stay in a beachfront condo for one week, and it only cost him the taxes that were due on the condo for his one-week stay, a whopping $199.

All told, my friend has so far taken two one-week vacations, and between plane tickets and condo costs, he has only spent about half of what he spent on his previous trip, the one he took before I set him up to take advantage of the travel packages I sell.

The Greatest Reward

The greatest reward for me in what I do, is knowing how I am able to help people get more out of life for less money than what they would spend on their own, without my help.

In conclusion, let me ask you two very important questions. First, how much did you spend on your last family vacation or weekend getaway? And secondly, how much are you going to have to spend on your next family vacation or weekend getaway?

Great Barrier Reef Hotels

by: Peter R Stewart



Why not go to the Great Barrier Reef this year, find a great Barrier Reef Hotel, and have a Great Barrier Reef Vacation?

As one of the many thousands of visitors to Australia you are inevitably drawn to the Great Barrier Reef without necessarily really knowing what it is, where it is, and where is the best Barrier Reef Hotel to take the best advantage of it. So think on this:

The Great Barrier Reef off the east coast of Australia is the only living organic thing visible from Space. The Great Barrier Reef, off the east coast of Australia, is one of the wonders of the natural world - it is the world's largest coral reef ecosystem.

The reef is scattered with beautiful islands and idyllic coral cays and covers more than 300,000 square kilometres. The Great Barrier Reef system consists of more than 3000 reefs which range in size from 1 hectare to over 10,000 hectares in area. There are more than 600 islands of the Great Barrier Reef, some of which contain great hotels for you to stay at.

The real question is what Great Barrier Reef Hotel would suit you the best?

The Top 10 Rated Hotels in a recent poll were as follows:

1. South Long Island Nature Lodge, Whitsunday Island, Whitsunday Islands, Great Barrier Reef

2. Voyages Wilson Island, Heron Island, Great Barrier Reef

3. Lizard Island Resort, Lizard Island, Great Barrier Reef

4. Beach Club Resort, Hamilton Island, Whitsunday Islands, Great Barrier Reef

5. Voyages Heron Island Resort, Heron Island, Great Barrier Reef

6. Voyages Bedarra Island Resort, Bedarra Island, Great Barrier Reef

7. Voyages Dunk Island, Dunk Island, Great Barrier Reef

8. Peppers Palm Bay, Long Island, Whitsunday Islands, Great Barrier Reef

9. Hayman Island Resort, Hayman Island, Whitsunday Islands, Great Barrier Reef

10. Kingfisher Bay Resort, Fraser Island, Great Barrier Reef

There are all types of accommodation at all prices, with activities to match the budgets for your Great Barrier Reef vacation. They range from very sophisticated resorts like Hayman Island and the beach club on Hamilton Island, a secluded adult hideaway at Peppers Palm Bay.

Then you can go to family orientated island getaways like Hamilton Island, South Molle Island, and Daydream Island.. Finally you have Long Island a budget party island.

You must make extensive enquiries about each hotel, because there are many more than can be mentioned here.

Both Whitsunday’s Great Barrier Reef islands and Queensland's Great Barrier Reef islands are ideally suited for honeymooners, families, divers, beachcombers or nature lovers - in fact anyone looking for an idyllic, exotic, sun kissed and pristine holiday destination that is a rare escape from a stressful world.

If diving or fishing are more your thing for your Great Barrier Reef vacation then Heron, Wilson, Lizard or Lady Elliot are the places to go.

Here we have nature at its best with turtle hatching, bird rookeries and whale watching, (all seasonal) Lady Elliot Island is an ecological wonderland.

If you are looking for total and complete luxury, then Hayman, Green Island, Orpheus, Bedarra, Peppers Palm Bay and Lizard are top of the list

If it’s a family type vacation then the prices and facilities of South Molle Island, Dunk, Hamilton, Hayman, Daydream or Fitzroy make perfect sense for that tropical family holiday.

If you are looking for something in between, then Hamilton Island, South Molle Island, Daydream Island Resort & Spa, or Long Island Resort, are worth investigating.

Other Island resorts closer to Queensland's vibrant capital, Brisbane, are also world famous and easily accessible by vehicle and ferry, with all resorts operating their own transfer services.

The superb Kingfisher Bay Resort on World Heritage Fraser Island, and the health and activity focussed first class Couran Cove Island Resort on South Stradbroke Island off the coast from the Gold Coast should both be checked out.

I hope this has given you something to think about in terms of a suitable Great Barrier Reef Hotel for your next Great Barrier Reef vacation

Check out Hotels in Australia at http://www.worldwidevacationspots.com/categories/Oceania%26%2339%3Bs-Hidden-Hotels/Australia/

Rabat Hotels: More Than Just A Tourist's Resting Place

by: Rcon Pascua



Your Moroccan adventure won't be complete without exploring the magnificent capital of this North African kingdom. Rabat is a must-see for every person in this busy world. The city simply offers a relaxing environment through tranquil beaches, comfortable Rabat hotels, and the majestic view of the vast Atlantic ocean. Aside from the comforting atmosphere, Rabat is also a great place to visit if you want to stay away from the hurly-burly of your modern-day lifestyle. You can surely take a break by staying in Rabat hotels.

However, despite the august reasons for you to indulge in your Rabat travel, many tourists still find one downside to visiting this city. Though tourists may come and go as they please, they usually find it difficult to get a place to stay. People in Rabat are somewhat shy, so please do not expect them to offer you their nice abode if you are new to this place. Instead, take delight in staying in one of the homey Rabat hotels to revel in this fascinating city even for a couple of days.

Unlike in other places where hotel accommodations can be horrible, staying in Rabat hotels is fortunately not a burden to endure. The Rabat hotel experience is indeed, a great pleasure to most tourists. After a long day of sight-seeing, Rabat hotels offer travelers like you with other forms of delight and convenience. In this list, you'll find more reasons to stay longer:

1. Relaxation after a long day of Rabat travel

Walking around Rabat, taking photographs, and shopping from one store to another can exhaust all your energy. At the end of the day, you'll definitely yearn for a soothing spa treatment or appreciate a massage to relax your tired body. But don't worry, Rabat hotels have top-of-the-line facilities and services to provide you with stuff that you need. With steam rooms and Middle Eastern medicine-inspired treatments, you'll surely find ways to calm your weary mind and soul.

2. Learning that never stops

Though you're in Rabat to take a break from your usual business, there's simply no reason why your mind shouldn't be fed with important information. Tourists like you love to travel so they can learn more, and this learning should never stop once you enter your hotel room. Fortunately, Rabat hotels can help satisfy this hunger for knowledge by providing you with complimentary newspapers and magazines. In addition to this, you can also do a little research about the city by using the hotel's Internet facilities.

3. Non-stop exciting activities

Going back to your hotel in this splendid city need not be dull and unsettling. While in other places, returning to your hotel simply means ending your fun-filled adventure to get some sleep-- this is certainly not the case in Rabat. After visiting a stream of Rabat tourist spots, more thrilling activities still await you in your hotel. Golf courses and swimming pools are only some of the greatest recreational facilities that Rabat hotels have to offer. But should you choose not to engage in heavy physical activities, you still can hang out with your friends or loved ones at coffee shops and bars within the vicinity.

Rabat hotels are more than just a resting place. They give tourists great reasons to keep on coming back to Morocco. The enjoyment they get from their activities inside Rabat hotels will always be one of their most meaningful Moroccan memories.

Preserve Great Travel Memories in Tangier Hotels

by: Gwen Llana



A city known for its livelier setting and bountiful wonders-- this is what Tangier is all about. Where alleged stories about mafia are told, Tangier can also make a negative impression, especially on first-time tourists. But though considered to be less safe than other cities in Morocco, this indispensable part of a great African country still boasts of equally impressive Tangier hotels and attractions as seen in other famous towns. It also has its own share of magnificent beaches, bustling city life, alluring suprises, and Tangier hotels for tourists who want to relive the glory of the classic American film, "Casablanca." Yes, you heard it right! The film also used Tangier as an actual model for one of the most romantic movies of all time that featured Hollywood legends, Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart.

With all these, the rumored hostility in Tangier shouldn't stop you from experiencing the more beautiful part of the city. The petty offenses in Tangier's society will all be taken care of by the police authority. Hence, your only business here is to take delight in your travel and enjoy the safety Tangier hotels may provide. A tour in Tangier has great things to offer than just a single bad news, so just focus on the good memories you'll get from this Moroccan city. Here's how you may remember the fascinating things about Tangier:

1. Create a collage out of your photos in Tangier.

Taking pictures is a common activity among travelers in Tangier. Your fascination will surely grow as you stop at every fantastic sight you'll see to pose for a great shot. Every statue, museum, garden, market, and airport are worthy of a photograph. But without the help of your good old camera, nothing will remind you of the things you've uncovered about Tangier. So at night, when you have nothing else to do at one of the Tangier hotels in town, why not try to create a collage of these pictures? Aside from preserving your photos, this can also be a creative souvenir item that you can give to the people you left at home.

2. Collect hotel memorabilia.

Tangier hotels have a lot of stuff to offer. From tissue paper to shower caps, these hotels provide the utmost convenience for your personal needs. Since these things are part of the services you paid for, they are considered your own. Get some of these mementos, keep them in a little box, and write a few things about each item. Just make sure that you don't keep the things you didn't pay for such as the bedsheets and curtains to stay clear from petty crimes of theft.

3. Keep a travel diary.

Great travelers know that writing down their thoughts about every journey is important. So instead of feeling bored at one of the Tangier hotels, write down your experiences and reflection during your Tangier vacation. This travel diary will let you remember that once in your life you have been in a fabulous city otherwise known as Tangier.

4. Take home a recipe.

Since it's impossible for you to take a pastilla or couscous from Tangier to your country of origin, you have no other choice but to take home the recipe. Observe the food served in Tangier hotels and try to learn how you can prepare them back at home. If you know how to cook this special cuisine, you can have a Moroccan meal anytime you wish even in your own country.

The next time you feel bad about having a vacation in Tangier, just think of the great things you can do to dwell on the fascinating memories you can have in this Moroccan city. With Tangier hotels to offer you a home sweet home, you don't have to worry much about anything but your exotic travel adventures.