Posted on Monday, May 5th, 2014 by Will Hagle
HouseTrip is a holiday rental online booking site, offering a wide selection of self catering apartments, cottages, villas and chalets.
House Trip allows you to book an entire home for your vacation. There are hundreds of thousands of houses and apartments in locations all over the world available for rent on House Trip. The available locations are mostly confined to Europe, although there are offerings in places like New York and Miami as well. When you get to the site, you simply type in the location where you’ll need a place to stay, the dates you’ll be there, and how many people will be with you. House Trip then returns several options, complete with filters and the ability to rank properties based on your preferences that gives the user flexibility while choosing a home. House Trip also displays a map with the properties listed throughout a particular city, making it easier to browse for a spot if location is of utmost importance to you.
The booking process works similar to sites like AirBnB. If you’re interested in a property, you can send an enquiry to the host. If the host approves you, you can pay for the room and treat it like your hotel when you arrive. You can also pre-enter your credit card information for faster booking upon approval. House Trip sets itself apart from competitors by offering comprehensive information about each location prior to booking. 
Because the properties tend to be larger than those found on sites like AirBnB (although there are tons of smaller apartments listed as well), House Trip typically gives a room-by-room guide with helpful pictures of the space. The rules of the location — check in and out times, whether or not pets and/or smoking is allowed, etc. — are also clearly laid out on each property’s page so that there is no confusion when people arrive. The site is a promising use of technology in order to further a new type of worldwide global economy — one that can forgo traditional hotels and allow people to stay in each other’s homes for a modest fee. House Trip claims that a whole home typically costs 28% less than a hotel room, so it’s worth checking along with your standard hotel sites next time you’re booking a trip.
