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How to Choose a Lake Home for a Big Family Trip

The lake is the reason you’re going. The house is the trip. So, in this article we’re going to dive deep into how to choose a lake home for a big family trip. The lake doesn’t change much between one rental and the next. What changes, and what determines whether the week feels like the…

Hot Summer French Broad Nights at an Asheville Riverfront Vacation Rental

By Jennifer Glatt, hospitality media strategist and curator of the Mint Pillow newsletter, writing for Lake.com. A quick note on this one: this is Jennifer’s own stay, in her own words. She’s a travel and hospitality writer we partnered with, and she experienced French Broad River Farms firsthand — the porch mornings, the trail, the…

Off-Peak Lake Travel Isn’t a Backup Plan — It’s a Better Trip

Crowd avoidance sounds like a consolation strategy. Like it means accepting something smaller than what you wanted because you couldn’t compete for the thing you actually wanted. It isn’t. Done with the right data, Off-Peak Lake Travel means arriving at the lake you already wanted, in a week when the rental market has eased, the…

How to Split the Cost of a Lake House Rental

The lake trip idea gets floated, the group says yes, and then somebody has to send a number. That’s when it gets complicated. So let’s talk about how to split the cost of a lake house rental fairly — by household, bedroom, person, or means — plus the fee trap to check before anyone pays.…

The Best Lakes to Visit in August Are the Ones Nobody Fought Over in July

July is the obvious month for a lake trip. Twenty-seven lakes in Lake.com’s review timing study peak in July. Search volume spikes, rental availability tightens and the families who planned farthest ahead got the best houses, while everyone else is still looking. Then August arrives, and something shifts. Water temperatures hit their seasonal high, daylight…

Waterfront vs. Lake View: Which One Actually Fits Your Family?

At some point during the search, the question comes up: waterfront vs lake view? Both sound good. Both show up in the same search results. Both usually cost more than a comparable house a mile inland. But, what they actually describe can be radically different. A waterfront listing can mean a private dock with a…

What a Lake of the Ozarks Cliffside Rental Sounds Like at 6 P.M.

Jeff Large makes a podcast about nothing happening. That is, technically, the whole premise of Outdoor Sounds — rain on a roof, snow falling through dead leaves, a commute heard through trees instead of traffic. So when he and his microphones checked into Cliffside Escape, a Lake of the Ozarks cliffside rental for three nights…

America’s Sunniest Lake Destinations

Big Bear Lake, California, catches roughly a third more direct sunlight than Los Angeles, according to 2023 solar radiation data — enough measured sunshine, on average, to run a small refrigerator. Making it among the sunniest lake destinations, which isn’t always the kind of detail that shows up in a single vacation photo. But, it’s…

The Best Lakes to Visit in July

Out of roughly 70 major U.S. lakes analyzed for when they actually earn their best reviews, 27 of them peak in a single month: July. No other month comes close — August trails with 12, September with 8, and February doesn’t win a single lake in the entire study. Our pillar guide to the best…