Owner direct vacation rentals in Tuscany

For many, probably most, visitors, we recommend owner direct vacation rentals in Tuscany. The reasons for renting from the owners directly are as follows:

• When you talk to a vacation rental owner by phone or exchange emails, you can easily gain an accurate impression of both the owner and the property. This is especially the case if you reach the owner via a website where the webmaster knows all the properties personally. Furthermore, you can ask specific questions and ask for more photos – these latter are often available on the owner’s Facebook page.
• The big listing services cannot, as a matter of practical fact, visit every property that they list. Whatever they say, the accommodation listed is not in any realistic sense guaranteed to match the description.
• Some of the big listing services either add a commission to the price or force the owners to up the price to cover the commission. With owner direct vacation rentals, you pay the genuine, at-the-door price.

Our list of recommended owner direct vacation rentals.

Vacation Rental Agencies

For those who nevertheless prefer to rent via an agency, we strongly recommend using a local agency that has a physical office nearby where you will be staying. In that way, if a problem arises, you can sort it out on the spot person to person. Some visitors gravitate to agencies in their own country without really thinking it through. Do these agencies speak Italian? Have they recently seen the vacation rental or are they simply working via a website and adding on an often high commission? What will they do or you when you’re in Tuscany and a problem arises?

The local agency that I recommend for Chianti is “Chianti and More”.