carrot

HI ! My husband is retiring in May and I am going to retire in October. We would like to go south for a few months in the winter. How do you find places to stay? We want to do a different area each year - so no specific state right now. If anyone could help me with contact people or suggestions of where to go and stay we would greatly appreciate it !!!! Thank you !!!

carrot

ptquilts

Hi Carrot!! we are snowbirds and we spend winters in Gulf Shores AL - Not as warm as FLorida but much more reasonably priced. You can rent a 2 BR condo here for about $900 a month.
I would suggest looking at a site called VRBO (www.vrbo.com) where owners of properties rent directly to renters. There are properties all over the world.

jhoward

Mesa, Fountain City and Apache Jct, AZ are popular places to stay for many Snowbirds....My hubby and I are going to AZ in Feb...we've both take vacation, my sis lives there full time...we are "practicing" for retirement. : )

Sheila_H

I agree with ptquilts whenever we are traveling I always search there for, you can rent an entire house for the price of a hotel room, weekly or monthly rentals you generally don't get hit with the markup fee's that some places have for weekend rentals. The deposits vary by the individual that owns the property some want $200 down some want half up front but we've never had any issues with any of the places that we've rented.
We've rented in TN, CA, VT, NH and TX so far I'd probably stay away from FL because they're prices are always high they've got a lot of Canadian's that travel there to get away for the winter. I'd suggest GA, MS or TX as a place to go.

raynhamquilter

I used VBRO a few years ago to rent in Oahu, Hawaii. It was a great place right on Kahlua Beach. Great!

athomenow

We lived in FL for a few years in a place called The Villages, central FL about an hour from Orlando. You can rent there pretty reasonably now since prices are down. Fully furnished villas usually go for 1100 a mo and less if you stay longer. Wonderful place and everything is golf cart accesible which is usually furnished with the house. Lots of championship golf courses if you do that and wonderful places to eat.

Joset

wow that sounds like something i would like.
but never knew where to go and want to be
in a safe place.

ptquilts

More like about $3000 a month at the Villages, unless you go in the middle of summer!!

carrot

Thanks everyone. I have done VRBO for vacations. Just think they are a little hight when you are talking 2 full months.
If anyone can up with something reasonable I sure would like contact info !
carrot

ptquilts

You can always make an offer - just because they are asking $X.XX a month does not mean it is set in stone. We wound up paying $2500 for 4 months about 5 years ago - when I looked at the owners listing on VRBO he was asking $1000 a month. And HE made the offer - we didn't even have to bargain.
The key is to be in an area where winter is OFF season. This would not work in most of Florida. Here in southern Alabama, winter is off season.