Short term rentals in Thailand & SE Asia

October 17, 2010 2:16 AM

My girlfriend and I are trying to find information on short term rentals in South East Asia.

We are slightly flexible on dates but these are the periods we are interested in:

1) Start November - Mid December 2010 (5-6 weeks)
2) Mid January - End February 2011 (5-6 weeks)

Our requirements are:
- The two rentals need to be different locations.
- At least one of the locations needs to be close to a beach, we don't really want to be in a big city.
- The rental place needs to have internet access.
- The rent should not exceed USD$250 per week.

We were initially thinking about Thailand and Bali but after reading about internet connectivity in Bali (hard to find, slow, charge per MB) we might have to rethink.

Questions
- Does anyone have any advice re: finding short term rentals in SE Asia?
- Any more suggestions on countries/areas that meet the requirements
- Is our budget enough?

posted by metac to travel & transportation (7 answers total)

This is all possible.

I would recommend going to a large and faceless bookstore, with comfortable chairs, and thumbing through a recent copy of the Lonely Planet guide to SE Asia. You can look at listed prices and amenities, and sometimes you will be given a phone number or a website too. It's a good way to get a rough idea.
posted by seagull.apollo at 2:36 AM on October 17, 2010

I have the Lonely Planet books and have travelled round SE Asia previously but the guide books almost exclusively cover hostels & hotels rather than short term rentals.

Ideally we are after finding an apartment/flat/house/beachhut rather than staying in a hotel for 5 weeks. That being said, if anyone knows any really great hostels/hotels that would meet the requirements then we would be open for that.
posted by metac at 3:08 AM on October 17, 2010

I'd do a combo of VRBO and TripAdvisor.

TA seems to be full of staff talking up the place tho!
posted by k8t at 3:12 AM on October 17, 2010

This query might get some good response over on travelfish.org. A great many expats living in those regions frequent its boards.

20 years ago (when I got married in Thailand) that budget would have been more than substantial, and even now I'm sure you'll be able to find something in that country (my impression from recent traveller's tales of Bali is that it is much less affordable than Thailand), but you may have to aim further off the beaten path (and the beach) and you might do better with the November-December dates simply because of rainy season. So many of the places we have stayed over the years were open to bargaining on their long-stay rates...I think we met artists and writers "-in-residence" nearly everywhere we went.

(Also, even though Thailand has generally become very well wired...we were back there a couple of years ago and the *entire* country was without internet for 4 days because of some undersea fiber optic mishap. All the ATMs were down, too...quite the "mai pen rai!" situation. Sometimes that's just the way things go and you've got to roll with it.)
posted by squasha at 5:03 AM on October 17, 2010

just for example, this kind of place on the back side of Koh Chang is *way* off the beaten path, yet still has wi-fi, and long stay rates. Just e-mail them.
posted by squasha at 5:08 AM on October 17, 2010

Check your memail.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 7:28 AM on October 17, 2010

Check out Goa, India. Your budget should be more than sufficient.
posted by cynicalidealist at 7:32 AM on October 17, 2010