Before having children, one of our favourite things to do was travel and we’d often spend time watching the sunset on a secluded beach discussing ideal long haul destinations to take our family to once it arrived. What a naive little bubble we lived in! Although travelling with Ettie alone would have been pretty easy, we didn’t have thr money to fly long haul when I was on maternity leave and once Ollie arrived, it became apparent that a trip to the local park was a monumental mission, and so travelling to the other side of the world with them both quickly lost its appeal. Villa-Finder Seminyak
That is until recently. A few weeks ago I was made aware of a site called Villa Finder and it’s opened my eyes again to the possibility of travelling to an exotic destination with little ones. With a Villa holiday there’s more scope to get your children into a routine and make them feel like they are in a home from home. There is more space to move around than in a hotel room and on a longer holiday I think everyone would benefit from that extra breathing room.
To make life even simpler, when staying in a Villa Finder villa you’re assigned your very own Concierge team who will help with arranging everything from groceries, day trips, airport transfers, birthday cakes and even putting you in touch with a local yoga teacher (There isn’t a fee for using this service as you pay directly to the third party).
Looking through the website, I could feel my travel hat sneaking itself back out of the bag and began imagine the four of us sitting together on a beach watching the sunset. An image we have talked about so many times before but put completely to the back our minds since actually having children. With me now being back at work and Ollie no longer eating absolutely everything he finds on the floor, the potential to travel is becoming an option again and making a long haul trip could be in budget while we still have the luxury of holidaying in term time before Ettie starts school.
We spent our honeymoon travelling around Bali and the Gili Islands and often said what a beautiful destination it would be to take children. I want Ettie and Ollie to experience a completely different culture, to try new foods and to understand that the world is amazing and incredibly diverse. Bali is full of culture, the landscape is breathtaking and the people are extremely friendly so it seemed like a good fit. Plus it would be lovely to take Ettie and Ollie to the place we spent our honeymoon.
The Villa-Finder Booking Process
The main thing that appealed to me about Villa Finder was the way it made everything seem so simple. From the time of booking Villa-Finder seem to take the stress from your holiday by suggesting Villas that might be suitable to you. With two children, a job and a house to run this seemed great as I don’t have the time to search through reams of potential hotels to check whether they’re Ollie friendly. With Villa Finders all I had to do was send one quick email to the team and they emailed back within 24 hours to find out exactly what it was we needed from our trip. They do this for every booking recognising that all families needs are different. Once they had the information they needed, they used it to recommend villas that met out requirements and budget.
To give an idea of what you might expect these are a couple of the the villa’s they recommended in Seminyak, Bali:
1. Villa Alice Satu and Villa Alice Dua
Two sister villas located next to one another in the high-end Oberoi district of Seminyak. Both sleep four people with two bedrooms, two ensuite bathrooms, one pool and have four staff. They worked out at around £1,700 for a week in October. Airport pickup and breakfast included.
2. Villa Makasih
A two bedroom villa in the heart of Seminyak. It has two ensuite bathrooms, one pool and two staff and it worked out at around £1,384 for a week in October. Airport pickup and breakfast included.
Needless to say I was sold! Once I’d received the list of recommendations there was a travel consultant available to chat to via live chat on the website the whole time and I could ask particular questions – like checking whether the Villa had a pool alarm. We didn’t book on this occasion but who knows that exotic holiday might be a lot more feasible than we thought.
Villa Finder have locations all around the world but we chose Seminkak as it is somewhere we’re familiar with. If you’d like to know more you can find them at www.villa-finder.com.
If you enjoyed this and would like to hear more about our travels I have a whole travel section here : The Halcyon Years – Travel
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