A Home Away From Home

October 25, 2026

I’m not a seasoned traveller but I’m realizing that a huge part of my vacation is where we choose to stay. It’s so nice to come back at the end of the day and feel like it’s a home and not a beige Ikea showroom. Something with a bit of character will always win us over. We cook a lot of our meals when we’re away so having a fully functioning kitchen is also pretty important. These two things combined are kind of a tall order but we always seem to find the perfect places without breaking the bank.

BRUGES

Our rental was the main floor of the brick building with the black windows. We were a couple of short blocks from the main square. I wouldn’t trade my little house for anything but I would consider it for this place. I loved everything about it.

Every place that we stayed had the most amazing, large windows but these ones were exceptional. They still had all of the old hardware and were fully functional. The light that came in was gorgeous and so was the breeze when we cracked them open.

There was a private outdoor patio at the back but most of the time it was a little too cold to use it. The last night that we were there, it warmed up a bit and we made the most of it.

UTRECHT

Utrecht is very much a working city. We were a little further out of the downtown but still within walking distance to everything. Our rental was the entire top floor of the tallest building in the photo. The neighbourhood was just off of the main street where there were lots of shops including grocers, butchers, cheese mongers and florists… and no For Rent signs. It was so nice to be in a neighbourhood like that.

The sunsets were incredible. Thank goodness for those windows.

We even had a rooftop patio. I took this photo before getting the cushions out of storage. But once the cushions were on, we nestled right in. Since The Netherlands are so flat and the city didn’t really have many tall buildings, we could see for miles and miles from up there.

OTTERLO

Otterlo is a little bit like Dutch Cottage Country. There are lots of rentals like this and the Nationaal Park De Hoge Veluwe is just down the road. We picked this spot because the National Park is also home to the Kröller Müller Museum which houses the world’s second largest Van Gogh collection. When I showed this picture to my mom she said our place looked like a motel. That made me laugh because it really does look like a motel but once we got inside it felt like a real getaway. It’s in the middle of a forest and the way the back yards are layed out, you really feel like there’s nothing else around you but trees and squirrels.

We spent a lot of time by this window talking, reading, and dreaming. I’m really glad that we picked a place a little out of the way. It was the perfect spot to relax after being in two big cities.

AMSTERDAM

Our Amsterdam rental was in the Jordaan neighbourhood. This area began as a working class neighbourhood but is becoming a really desirable place to live. We didn’t know that when we booked it but what a great neighbourhood. We walked everywhere we needed to go. Our apartment was on the third floor of one of the red brick buildings in the middle but we were on the back side.

Those windows! And all those trees! They really made all the difference. It felt a little less like being in the middle of a big city. There was a second chair in the rental that we would move over to the yellow chair when we wanted sit and relax. It was like having a little living room in this tiny one room apartment.

And our place looked right out onto the canal. We spent a lot of time by that window.