
Family holidays are expensive. There’s no way around it.
First of all, you have to pay to get wherever it is you’re going. You’ve also got to find somewhere to stay, feed the family, and then comes the most expensive part: keep everyone entertained.
Some Aussies have found renting out their home is an effective way to cover some of the costs — but how easy is it really?
Vanessa Wilton-Whittaker and her husband David Whittaker live in Manly with their four kids and are frequent users of Airbnb.

Vanessa and David on holiday. Source: Supplied
For those who don't know (probably not many of you), Airbnb is a popular home-sharing service that operates in more than 190 countries.
The couple has used it to find affordable accommodation in San Francisco, Portland, Prague and even Tasmania, but only decided to become hosts themselves for the first time last summer.
"We were planning to go on a holiday anyway and our house would have been empty," Vanessa told Mamamia.
"It seemed like a good idea to have some income to spend on our holiday from renting out our house in a prime tourist area."
