Build a Better Family Vacation

Feel as if you need a vacation after your vacation? Easy ways to make the words "Have a nice trip" a reality.

Share a Rental With Another Family

Sharing a house or a condominium can keep costs down. It gives you more room to spread out than a hotel room does, plus a kitchen to cut down on restaurant meals. And the extra vacation-mates provide kids with built-in entertainment (other kids! Uncle Jimmy!) and supervision. Two good sources of vacation properties are resortquest.com, which manages a network of more than 17,000 rentals in the United States and Canada (specialty: beach and ski areas), and vacationrentals.com, which lists private homes in most states and on most continents at prices to suit various budgets.

Tip: Many newspapers have online classifieds for house swaps―a four-bedroom colonial in the Chicago suburbs, say, for your New York apartment. Or visit homeexchange.com or intervac.com, two swap agencies that do the work for you for a small fee ($50 to $70 a year).