Traveling in Hungary

Hungary has all you could wish from a Vacation destination. A big, culturally vibrant city that isn’t too expensive (yet). Budapest. Folky lush countryside. Ridiculously delicious food. Easy and inexpensive transportation. And from what I have seen, gorgeous Vacation Rentals. If you are looking for hotel alternatives that is.

Getting to Hungary

I flew to Hungary into Budapest. The airport wasn’t huge and I cover how to get from there to the center in my Budapest page. Flights are cheap through Paris or Amsterdam. I met some people who biked from Austria. Some people who came by boat on the Danube. Some friends went by train and said it wasn’t fast but it was pretty.

Communication with the Magyar (Hungarians)

In the cities you will have no problem finding people who will speak to you in English. Once you get out of Budapest and tourist attractions though, it gets a bit more interesting. There is no reference in the Hungarian language. No latin, no greek, no germanic connections. Learn a few basic words like Thank you: Köszönöm and get ready to point a lot. The alphabet is different too. People who have been to Budapest don’t call it Budapest but Budapescht. The Cs are SH. You will get the hang of all the differences while you are in the City. If you don’t, you might want to print this page with the Hungarian alphabet from Wikipedia.

Eating in Hungary

My favorite thing to do when I travel is drink coffee and people watch. My second favorite thing is walk until I am starving and then eat everything. I was a happy camper in Hungary. The coffee culture is strong. In Budapest and Pecs I found tasty expresso. Especially on Ters (squares, usually pedestrian) you can find lots of places to sit and soak in the atmosphere. Hungary has a long history of Austrian occupation and it shows in the pastries (viennoiseries). They have their own twist too. Try the poppy seed rolls (Beigli) and chestnut puree. If you like sausage, you know Debrecen. If you like stews, goulash is no stranger. Every Hungarian region has a twist on soups (Leves) especially goulash (Gulyásleves). You will find lots of paprika and influences from Turkey, France, Austria, Russia and Jewish influences. Micro-breweries weren’t huge when I was in Hungary in 2010. The Slovenian beers available weren’t much better. The Czech beers were the most interesting. You will find some fantastic wines though. Hungary is know for its sweet white, Tokaji. It was christened by Louis XIV as Wine of Kings, King of Wines. Kékfrankos was popular with another french historical figure. Napoleon loved the red wine. Bottles that will cost you $60 in north america are available for $10 and the $5 bottles are often good too. If you are into the strong stuff, Vilmos is delicious. Especially frozen.

Apartments for rent in Hungary

Do you like character? Architecture? Parquet floors and woodwork? The apartments I saw and stayed in in Budapest, Székesfehérvár and in Pecs were beautiful and cheap. A lot was damaged during WWII and the communist days. Not as much as a lot of other places in eastern Europe however and restauration in Hungary was well done. For the cost of a tiny one bedroom rental apartment in New York, you will get a 2 bedroom palace. High ceilings and tall windows are the norm. Heavy hardwood doors and intricate ironwork are too. Expect to pay $60-$100 for a family rental in Budapest and other large cities and half in small towns. You will save on restaurants and have more room to rest you feet after long days of exploration.

Houses for rent in Hungary

Holiday rentals on Lake Balaton and in the countryside are plenty. Hungarians know how to enjoy their vacation time. Mixed with them are a lot of Germans and Austrians who have understood that their Euros go further in inexpensive Hungary. There are some resort and modern properties. My favorite are the small farm villages. In Tihany you will find the best of both worlds with lake Balaton and beaches. There are vineyards and farms all around. Anywhere you might want to explore, picking a vacation rental means you will get to cook the local produce. I like vegetables, eggs and bacon at home. I have to give it to the Magyar though, I never had such tasty produce. Their eggs are creamy, their pigs tender and their cherries sweet. Staying in your own house will make you feel like a Hungarian for the duration of your vacation.

We are on Wikipedia

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First Wikipedia mention of voya.ge and I am stocked that it is about domain hacks. It has been a pretty hot topic on Hacker News lately. We got the domain because it is elegant and bilingual. Top Level Domains (TLDs) are becoming less and less relevant to Google.

What is your take on TLDs and domain hacks?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_hack

Vacation Rental (Free) Business Cards

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A few months ago we made business cards with a different Vacation Rental on each for ourselves. You might have seem them here. The property owners who shared the pictures used to make them were offered a free pack of cards. With their own name, URL, email and phone number. Check them out!

Vacation Rental #3341 in Tihany/Hungary

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I was lucky enough to go to Lake Balaton in Hungary and it is beautiful. The northern side of the lake has mountains, vineyards, beaches and the Tihany peninsula. That is where Peter’s rental is and it is gorgeous. The whole peninsula is a historical district. If you think the picture on his card were hard to take, think again. In the time I spent there it looked like that everyday. You might gain a few pound though. The food is delicious and inexpensive.

Vacation Rental #3451 in Quebec City/Canada

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Disclaimer: I might be related the the owner of this Vacation Rental.

I love The Quebec City region. I might be in Houston these days but if it wasn’t for Veronica I would be at Mont-Sainte-Anne. The mountain is next to the St-Lawrence River, 30 minutes from Quebec City. Forests, rivers and City. You get it all. Suzanne’s rental has a huge private piece of land and great views. For families it is a bargain.

Get your own Cards

If you have HD images and you would like free business cards let me know. Your Vacation Rentals must be advertised on Voya.ge. You must have images of professional quality that are at least 1500 pixels wide. I will send you a pack and add your rental to my pack of cards as well. The people I meet will see you rental and be able to pick it for their next vacation.

The Collaborative Economy Fallacy

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I was watching a TED talks last night in which Rachel Botsman covered reputation and the Collaborative Economy.

I was pretty grossed out so I watched Don Tapscott on openness. The end is a bit too cute for me but it still made me feel better.

You probably don’t want to spend half an hour of your life on these 2 videos. Here is my recap. If you see them differently, let me know.

Rachel Botsman: The currency of the new economy is trust:

People under use things so they can sell the extra to other people. To do that they need for people to trust them. Look at all these great platforms that are doing that through controlling communications between the 2 parties. More examples. I wrote a book. More examples. I will write another book. In the future, all the reputation you have gained from these platforms will be aggregated. This will allow you to get what you want.

Don Tapscott: Four principles for the open world

I am a likeable guy. I think that people who give information are where it is at. Look at all these people who made it big by opening up. In the future people succeed by:

Helping the other fellow (Shout out to Abnaki)
Telling the truth, all of it!
Sharing (really a combination of the 2 above but whatever)
Empowering people (really a consequence of the 2 first principles but hey)

Then I sound like a bit of a sect follower. There is the Pachelbel Canon at the back and birdies on the screen. Please don’t be creeped out and pretend to be moved.

Why do I bring these 2 talks together?

Openness has been big for awhile and I love it.
Collaborative Consumption is the new hot thing and I love that too.

However these 2 things are not playing together much and that makes me sad. Or at least they are not playing together much for popular startups and but they are getting the attention. The result is 9-12% commission and closed communication. That a big issue for a model on which you think a new Economy is based. That is a big issue when you pretend to work on trust and you work on control.

Collaborative Economy from The Economist

From theeconomist.com

Timmy’s Collaborative Economy issue:

Timmy owns a house that he under uses. He rents it out and is happy to get the extra income. His clients are happy too.

Timmy posts his rental on a free listing site like Craigslist. They make money from the traffic.
Timmy posts his rental on a paid listing site like Voyage. He gets advertising, I get 10$.
Timmy gives his rental to an advertising agency. They make a commission

Timmy has no issues with any of these business models. Each has disadvantages but all allow him to have clients and to be himself. If he does a bad job, his renters will leave ugly reviews and he will lose business. If he does a good job he will get more clients.

Timmy starts advertising on AirBnb and he loves it. It doesn’t cost him anything unless someone rents and it is pretty. He even gets to review customers and only rents to the ones that seem nice. Soon Timmy gets the majority of his business through AirBnb and he gets scared.

What if AirBnb decides to charge 12% renter side instead of 3% renter side and 6-9% client side?
Am I missing out on clients who don’t want to pay the extra 6-9%?
What if HomeAway wins the battle and AirBnb goes under?
Who am I without AirBnb?

How to fight back

Decide on a name for your business that doesn’t use keywords.
Buy your domain name.
Build a website that is yours. Not something hosted on a third party service.
Link to your website if you can. If you can’t link, use your name. (You picked one that is unique and without keywords. With a Google search anyone can find you)
If someone wont let you link, use watermarked pictures.

Information wins. The US government is slowly getting it. The corporate world too. Both have tried to convince people that opacity keeps them safe. Nothing could be further from the truth. Opacity exists to preserve control. Users have found ways to pick safe websites on which to purchase goods on the internet. They will find out who to safely purchase from within a sharing economy too.

Rachel Botsman is right, trust is a major factor of how successfully we can operate on the internet. Trust isn’t a service or a platform though. Trust is something you build by getting to know someone. To do that you need to be open. Otherwise you are selling insurance, not trust or communication.

Maps don’t lie

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Maps are the future for Vacation Rental search results. Now Google Maps show Ski Trails so no one can lie to you when you are shopping for your perfect rental. If you don’t let them that is. In my first post about how to display search results for Vacation Rentals I looked at Analytics for map search vs list search. There are advantages for both sides. Lots of advantages for renters to see results in a map. Lots of advantages for directories to display results in a list.

Maps don’t lie and neither do Shakira’s hips

VRBO which is the oldest and best known Vacation Rental directory only displays results in lists. HomeAway and AirBnb have map options. However the list is what they really want you to use. They benefit more from serving search results in a list. More inquiries are sent. They can charge more for listings at the top of the list. Lists are easier to crawl for search engines too. For now.

Sifting for the truth

For the traveler however lists are bad. One of the main criteria when picking a hotel or a Vacation Rental is location. By displaying results in a list, you distance clients from that criteria. The result is that clients need to spend time sorting that information themselves. Or they send many identical inquiries to different managers. The Vacation Rental owners are left with the burden of answering all the useless inquiries.

The second possibility is that clients misunderstand where the Vacation Rental is located. Some property owners like to pick questionable titles for their listings. For example: “Ski Cottage for 12 at the Base of Mount Kilimanjaro”. Might require you to drive 30 minutes to reach the mountain. (Ski at mount Kilimanjaro would take you a bit of hiking and a lot of luck too.) This isn’t really because a Vacation Rental owner WANTS to lie to you. In their opinion they are telling the truth. Sort of… The problem arises because list search is a medium that encourages misrepresentation. Plus the titles for those listings are way too long.

The solution: Map search and Vacation Rentals with names

When you create a listing on voya.ge, you can drag and drop your rental’s location marker anywhere. It is the same with most other directories. The difference is that we serve the Map FIRST. The list comes after. Here are some examples:

Beach

Make a search for a beach you want to go to. If you misspell it no worries. Google maps will get it anyway. Your map will be centered on the beach. The markers will show you who is truly Oceanside. Check out the result for Cape Cod. Click on the image if you want to test it directly on Voyage.

Ski

Now with ski trail maps objective search is even easier. If you want ski in ski out you’ll quickly see who is on the trails and who is a block removed. Here’s a post about the topic on my family’s Vacation Rental website. Google went all out and put the trail and chairlift names on the map. The trails are drawn in their difficulty level’s color. It is even better than having a paper trail map. When shopping for vacation rentals it makes it clear which properties are truly ski-in ski out. Plus which of these might be closest to lifts you want to take.

Trail map with Vacation Rentals at Mont-Sainte-Anne

Cities and attractions

For cities or attractions search map/proximity search is even more important. The amount of rentals I have seen advertised as Walt Disney World vacation homes when they were a 30 mile+ drive away is staggering. Give it a shot on voyage though. Put in precisely where you want to go. A zip code, an address, the attraction’s name, it all works. The map will be centered exactly on that point. If you view as list like below, that list will be sorted by proximity. Easy!

It only gets better

We’ll be making voya.ge search even faster soon. I am sure Google will be adding more great features to their maps too. You can see your Vacation Rental search result with Parks, bike trails, public transit, ski maps and attractions. What else would you like to be able to see on a map when you shop for lodging?

Vacation Rental’s guide to Local Search

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Local search is gaining in importance. As a Vacation Rental owner, you are highly susceptible to local searches and that will only increase with time. SEOMOZ, one of my favorite online companies, has acquired Getlisted a local search service for a good chunk of change. All because searches as becoming more and more mobile and location based. Take a look at a search for Vacation Rentals in Budapest.

You might have a hard time ranking in the first page for normal organic search but the map/local search takes up half the page and is easier to get into because unlike big portals like Voyage you HAVE an address. This allows you to compete with the big guys on your own turf and get clients to visit your website. Let’s make it happen:

Go to www.google.com/placesforbusiness/
Sign in to your Google Account
Enter your country and business phone number
If you don’t have a listing with that number yet you will be taken to a listing creation page.
Make sure to use keywords a few times in your description.
In Category, add Vacation Rental Agency and other Vacation rental related categories
In the custom fields put your specifications. For example: Capacity: 12
Save
Confirm the postal address you would like the verification code to be sent to. This is to ensure you really own that address.

Once you have verified ownership of the address you will start appearing in Google maps. At that point it is a good idea getting on FourSquare, on Yelp, on YP.com and on TripAdvisor.

Make sure your information is the same across networks because even if it seems like you control your Google Maps/Places listing, you really don’t. Google will update your listing with whatever it thinks is most relevant and that can get pretty messy. To be safe, search for the following in brakets on Google:

Your phone number in brakets “321-123-4567″ if you have a toll-free number make sure your other number is at all the places where your toll-free number is.
Your address 123 Vacation Rental road, Walt Disney Town. Some people still try to keep the exact location of their property hidden. Either because of fear of theft or because they are not supposed to rent in their neighbourhood. Their loss, your gain. These people will always be captive of the likes of HomeAway and AirBnb.
Your business name in brakets. “Annabelle’s Cottages” If you don’t have a consistent business name yet, you missed out on this post.

If all the places where you are mentioned have accurate information, it will improve your Google Maps ranking. Mentions on quality websites with your address, phone number and business name are to Google Maps what incoming links are to Google Search.

As I mentioned in my post about incoming links, you can beat the competition on Local search by spying on them. That includes Googling their address and phone number in brackets to see where they are listed like this:

“123 Yellow Brick Road” OZ Castle -inurl:ozcastleexample.com

You will get all the local relevant listings from your competition that aren’t on their own website. This includes travel associations, local directories and events. Google classifies address searches by relevance and authority as well so you don’t next to go hunting for a presence in pages 3+. Get in touch or add listings to the websites that have authority just as you would if you were building links and look at your analytics as Google Maps referrals grow.

What do you do to come out on top in local search?

Business cards take 2.5

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We ran a small batch of cards with a different property on each for ourselves a few months back.

The results were so positive that we offered more owners the chance to have their property on our cards. Plus we sent them copies as well as t-shirts.

If you want free business cards or postcards of your property with your contact information at the back send me an email. We’ll add you to our personal cards too and make renters from everywhere want to visit you.