Travel&Vacation

Taking the Kids

Tom Bonn felt like he’d stumbled into a fairytale with his grandchildren, and he wasn’t at a theme park.

Bonn, a retired college professor from Ithaca, New York, and his wife, Ellen, had gathered their children and grandchildren for two weeks at a Swiss chalet in a tiny mountain village that could have been straight out of a storybook, complete with a spectacular view of a glacier, window boxes full of flowers, and friendly locals. Even better, the chalet, which comfortably accommodated the nine of them, was significantly cheaper than a hotel and certainly easier than moving nine people, including three young children, from city to city. Instead, the family went hiking from the back door and took day trips on public transportation. “The kids especially like the cable cars,” Bonn said.

With the American dollar buying far less than it once did abroad, and with so many extended families opting to travel together, growing numbers are choosing to rent villas or city apartments, just as they do when they head to the beach or the slopes closer to home. As a result, rental agencies are responding with kid-friendly properties and special family deals. The Bonns, for example, worked with Philadelphia-based UnTours, which offers kids-stay-free Switzerland packages and discounts to other destinations this summer.

Here’s where to find similar deals:

• Home at First promises kids-stay-free deals in Britain.
• Canada-based Homes Away discounts some villas in France and Italy up to 30 percent.
• The travel club Hideaways.com, which offers discounts and special perks for its clients, advertises a $99 introductory family membership.
• The San Francisco-based agency Ciao Bambino has a free online guide to kid-friendly villas, flats, and apartments with hotel services in resort areas in Italy, France, and Spain. Give them your kids’ age ranges, and they’ll tell you which places will work best for your family.
• Check out HomeExchange.com for details on how to swap houses and stay free, as Kate Winslet and Cameron Diaz did in the romantic comedy
  The Holiday
  . For an annual fee of just $99, you can trade houses with a family across the country or across the ocean.

Whichever agency you choose, a great plus is that in many cases you can pay in U.S. dollars, which can represent a significant savings. In the end, families who have rented or traded houses for vacation say the deal they got was just one reason the trip was a winner. Settling into a villa or a city apartment is far more relaxing than moving every few days and is more interesting for the kids as you explore little towns and discover local markets and playgrounds. “The best part was being together in that fairytale setting,” said Tom Bonn. “It was absolutely our best trip ever.”

Mike Thiel, founder of Hideaways, notes that villa and flat rentals abroad and in the Caribbean are increasing about 15 percent a year. “It is a favored option for multi-family getaways,” he says. And more economical, especially if you can book for stays during low season, summer in the Caribbean, for example, or spring or Thanksgiving in Italy. But even in summer, you could probably find a place in Europe for $3,000 or so a week—and far less in Mexico or the Caribbean—not bad when divided among a couple of families.

Tom Cocchiaro did even better than that. Cocchiaro, a chamber of commerce exec from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, figures the villa his family—18 strong—rented in Italy cost just $275 per person for the entire week. Anyone who has ever been to Europe or Britain recently knows hotel rooms can cost a lot more than that per night, especially when you’ve got to book two rooms to sleep a family of four.