Lifestyle, Travel blog

Why staying in a vacation rental was the best option for our first beach holiday with baby

Vacation rental with baby

While this is not our first trip with baby, this was our very first beach holiday. While we stayed for a few days in a hotel for a past trip, I wanted a holiday home for our beach holiday. In this post I am telling you staying in a vacation rental was the best option for our first beach holiday with baby.

Back when I searched our vacation home on the belvilla website, I search for an area that was quiet, away from the nightlife or just too many activities and a house that had at least a baby bed. Buy why a vacation home and not a hotel?

Vacation rental Sardinia Geremeas

Flexibility

The main reason why I wanted to stay in a vacation home during our road trip in Sardinia was because of flexibility!

While I love staying in hotels, I was a bit worried we couldn’t adjust to the hotel’s timetable for an entire week. I really wanted to relax and have slow mornings. We woke up when Maya woke up, and she woke up pretty late during this holiday, probably because the fresh air of the sea, and the many impressions made her so tired during the day. Some days we wouldn’t probably have managed to go on time for breakfast in a hotel.

Also, we started baby food just before going to Sardinia. I didn’t want to cut into the routine so it was nice to have a kitchen in which I could warm up or cook her puree.

Discovering the area

Our intention during this trip was to explore south Sardinia. Even though we were traveling with a baby we didn’t want to be stuck in a resort. I indeed feel like when you book a resort with many facilities, you end up spending a lot of time inside the hotel as you are paying for the facilities. Instead, we rented a car and we did a little Sardinia road trip, with a new location every day from Cagliari until Costa Rei. Just following our own rythm or best said, Maya’s rythm.

Family beach holiday Sardinia

Tranquility

Another reason why I wanted to have a vacation rental was that we were looking for something peaceful. We didn’t want to have too many people around and have to socialize at dinner table. We had some many people wanting to meet the past months as they wanted to meet Maya that we were happy to find time just for ourself during our beach holiday. Especially, we were about to move appartment right after the trip so we needed to recover our energy!

Meeting locals!

Last but not least, locals! It is by renting a vacation home that you get in touch with the locals. The small pizzeria down the road, or the lady who sells everything and nothing in the nearby supermarket. They love to tell stories, and that is the beauty of traveling. Meeting new people. Of course in an hotel you meet people as well, but it will mostly be tourist like you and you could end up goind back home and have talken to 0 locals.

Those are the main reasons on why for our first holiday with baby, it was best to stay in a holiday home. There are plenty of other reasons, especially when your children gets a bit older or if you are traveling with friends, it would also be a great option depending on what you are looking for.

We booked our villa via Belvilla. This is the home we booked and I can totally recommend it! Rita, the owner was lovely and even though she didn’t speak too much englisch she answered all our questions and needs. You might also want to know that the house is in a gated area, so security is top level!

Belvilla is your go to platform if you are looking for a vacation home. They indeed have 40,000 holiday homes in 20 European countries and their customer service is there to help with the booking. It is indeed sometimes nce to have a third person involved in case of problems, and language barrier.