How to Make Your Vacation Home Actually Feel Like a Vacation

Buying a vacation home feels like the ultimate dream. Like, life is happening, adult goals achieved, time to relax. Besides, it's your vacation home, so you get to make this house into a home too. Like, what’s there not to love there? It’s peak luxury, right? But then there’s that moment where you walk inside, and it feels exactly like your regular house, just in a place that finally has sunshine. 

And sure, it’s nice, but where’s the actual holiday feeling? You know that holiday feeling you get when you go to a hotel or a holiday house you rent? Yeah, that feeling, where is that? Like,a vacation home should feel fun and different and a little bit indulgent, not like “yep, still folding laundry here.” Well, it doesn’t take huge renovations or someone’s entire savings to make that magical shift happen, and yes, thankfully, that vacation feeling, even in this house you now own, it’s definitely possible. 

Comfort Should Be the Biggest Priority

Which, sure, is probably the most obvious of them all on this list. Now, just go ahead and think about one bad night of sleep. It ruins an entire day. As you know, vacation people want to sleep in, recharge, and maybe have a dramatic moment where they sigh happily into a pillow. But a cheap mattress shuts all of that down. So investing in a comfy bed makes a ridiculous difference. Same for pillows that don’t feel like bricks and blankets that don’t scratch like they were woven from disappointment. You could look into the lighting too, like buying some lamps (table lamps too), and those warm light bulbs, or those smart light bulbs you can change the color to, that helps too. 

Make the Outdoors Actually Part of the Stay

Which is actually key here because you’ll see this for vacation home rentals, BnBs, cruise ships, hotels, you name it. Usually, it’s about bringing the outdoors in. Plus, fresh air is a core memory of any holiday. That moment you wake up, open a door, and feel the breeze, it’s great, right? That's why hotels and cruise ships have balconies, that’s why there are terraces and patios at vacation homes. 

Even the smallest home can feel like a retreat if the indoors and outdoors don’t feel totally separate. You’re usually going to find that sliding screen doors are perfect for that, because they let people enjoy the air without bugs joining the party (and that indoors-to-outdoors transition is really great too). 

Add Small Touches People Don’t Get at Home

There needs to be something to separate it all, right? As you know already, vacation is basically an excuse to feel spoiled in small ways. Like, nice towels that don’t smell like detergent from the bargain bin. Maybe a candle that smells expensive. And of course you can’t forget about the storage space, so nobody’s digging through a suitcase every morning just trying to locate a T-shirt (which is one of the awful things about hotels and vacation rentals).

So, you need to have some treats there that you just don’t have at home. That’s a major thing when it comes to making this feel like a vacation home, be it a pool, nice towels, a projector, a pizza oven, you get the idea, but you need things there that you just won’t get at home.