Vacation Rental versus Hotel

For the first time, we rented apartments instead of staying at hotels. I'm really glad we did. Here are some comparisons:

Hotels offer concierge services. You are on your own in an apartment. I found having the tablet with us to be helpful in terms of maps and directions, etc. I also felt a part of the "neighborhood" - we met a neighbor at the Paris apartment who had moved to Paris 36 years ago.

Hotels often offer continental breakfast. However, our experience is that we usually miss it because we are late leaving the room. We ate all of our breakfasts in the apartment. That includes coffee, which I figure saved us a good 20 euro a day!

Lounging in a hotel is in a public space such as the lobby. While this is great for people watching, it was great to have our own private space to lounge. As European hotels are typically small, having comfortable space was nice. (Plus we had lots of people watching on the balcony in the Villefranche apartment!)

Having separate living and sleeping spaces works well for us. George is the night person; I am the early riser. With separate spaces, we didn't disturb each other.

Having a kitchen was nice. True, I didn't prepare meals as I thought I might. However, we had snacks, wine, coffee, tea ... and we did eat a couple lunches in.

In both places, I could spread out my travel journal and art supplies. This made it easy to spend time each day "documenting" our experiences. 

All your "paper goods" are supplied in a hotel room. Our Paris manager stocked  items I requested (paper towels, bath tissue, facial tissue). The Villefranche manager didn't, so we ended up spending about 10 euro for items. She did, however, give us a bottle of wine!

Our housing cost approximately $300/night. The Hotel Welcome, right next to us in Villefranche, costs 218 euro/night (approximately $300). I believe the "price was right."

I would definitely do this again. I felt less like a tourist living in an apartment.