Angelika In March, we once again packed our bags and went on a trip to the Hawaiian island of Oahu. We've given up on hotels for quite some time already, and nowadays always rent vacation homes, not only because there's no hotels in our favorite spot, Kailua. Since we know exactly what we want and have become pretty familiar with the neighborhood, I always get a place to stay via "vrbo.com" ("Vacational Rental by Owner"). On the site, owners offer their vacation homes from around the world for rent.

If you're looking for a place on Oahu, click on the US map, then drill down to the state of Hawaii, then on the island of Oahu, and you'll see various offerings in different locations on the island. Filtering by the number of bedrooms required, whether ocean front is a must, or availability by a preset date narrows down the search. Inquiries to property owners are usually answered within one or two days.

Renting a property requires a prepayment of a couple of hundred dollars and sending a signed contract to the owner. The entire rent then needs to be paid four weeks before the rental date. Most owners want it via check or money order, only few accept credit cards, as those require them to pay a processing fee.

We're pretty amazed every time how flawlessly this process works. The landlords typically aren't on the island, but are living somewhere on the US mainland. Usually, they let a Hawaiian resident manage the property. In March, we rented a place in Lanikai, a small bordering neighborhood to Kailua. I only called the property manager once before we went there and we didn't see him even once during the entire time we were there. The house key was placed inside the house when we arrived, and we left it on the kitchen table when we left. For emergencies, we had the manager's and the cleaning lady's phone number. The place was great, as you can tell by the pictures.

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• More topics you might be interested in:

  	Nutrition labels hide total calorie counts
  	The Supreme Court's Gay Marriage Ruling
  	German Tagesschau Won't Broadcast Certain Segments
  	Our Subway, BART, is on strike
  	Top Product: The Peeramid pyramid for reading on your iPad
  	Climbing at Planet Granite
  	Lagavulin Whiskey
  	Summer vacation
  	Hawaii: Public Access to the Beaches