Television series
The World's Most Amazing Vacation Rentals
- Light-hearted
- Dip in and out
Three expert travelers tour unusual vacation rentals worldwide—from treehouses to houseboats—offering practical tips and insider knowledge. It's aspirational but grounded, more about smart travel choices than fantasy escapes. Perfect for wanderers planning their next trip or armchair travelers hungry for fresh ideas.
Should you watch it?
Watch it if you find the appeal in peeking inside other people's homes, and you like a light stack of practical budget tips for planning your next trip.
Skip it if you want a story with stakes or a real sense of a destination's culture, since this stays on the properties and the tips, and each episode is quick and breezy.
What it asks of you: Episodes run about half an hour, so it asks for a quick sit-down rather than sustained attention, and it stays light throughout.
Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.
If you liked this
Get Organized with The Home Edit2020
Clea and Joanna transform chaotic spaces into organized sanctuaries with warmth and humor. Like the rental show, it's about making spaces livable and beautiful, but here the focus is deeper—watching someone's life actually improve is genuinely moving.
But It's fundamentally aspirational design content. If you're skeptical of lifestyle TV or uninterested in aesthetics, the formula might feel thin.
Nomadland2021
Frances McDormand lives in a van and travels America, meeting real modern nomads. It's meditative and respectful where tourist content is excitable—same wanderlust, vastly different register. Quietly profound about why people choose rootlessness.
But There's no conventional plot. It's slow, observational, sometimes melancholy. If you want excitement or narrative momentum, this will feel glacial.
Somebody Feed Phil2018
Phil Rosenthal eats his way through cities with infectious joy, meeting locals and asking real questions about how people live. Like the rental show it celebrates everyday discovery, but food becomes a genuine gateway to culture and connection.
But Phil's cheerfulness is relentless. If constant positivity exhausts you, or if you prefer cynical travel commentary, this will feel saccharine.
Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from The World's Most Amazing Vacation Rentals
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
The Dawn Wall2017
Both find profound beauty and possibility in spaces most people never enter. Both celebrate human ingenuity—one in designing livable spaces, one in finding routes through rock.
Two climbers attempt the first free-ascent of Yosemite's most dangerous rock face. Like the rental show, it's about discovering what's possible in extraordinary spaces—but here the space is vertical, the stakes are life-or-death, and the beauty is earned through terror. Absolutely gripping.
But If you're afraid of heights, watching this is genuine physical discomfort. And the long stretches of climbing preparation might test patience if you want plot momentum rather than process.
More like this (8)
High Score2020
A documentary miniseries about video game history told through beautiful archival footage and interviews. It shares the rental show's gift for making you see familiar things freshly, and its pacing is breezier than you'd expect for a history lesson.
But If you have no affection for gaming, the references won't land. It assumes baseline knowledge and enthusiasm; it's not trying to convert skeptics.
Ugly Delicious2018
David Chang explores food across cultures with genuine curiosity and no gatekeeping. Each episode is a small adventure into how people actually eat, rather than how food media says they should. Smart, warm, and genuinely funny.
But It's food-adjacent content that doesn't always deliver restaurant recommendations or recipes. Sometimes the cultural conversations matter more than the meals, which some viewers find frustrating.
Love It or List It2008
A designer renovates a home while a realtor shows alternatives. It's briskly paced, genuinely helpful, and structured like a competition—two things the rental show isn't. If you like watching homes transform, this delivers spectacle.
But The emotional stakes feel manufactured. Couples argue on cue. If you prefer authenticity to production, the artifice becomes tiresome quickly.
Abstract: The Art of Design2017
Each episode follows a different designer—industrial, graphic, architectural—revealing how thoughtful people approach spaces and objects. It's the aesthetic sensibility of the rental show, but applied to design thinking rather than destinations.
But Some episodes are more successful than others. A few feel self-important. And if you're watching for practical takeaways rather than artistic inspiration, you might find it frustratingly abstract.
Midnight Traveler2019
An Afghan filmmaker documents his family's desperate journey fleeing Taliban persecution, filmed entirely on smartphones. It's travel content stripped of romance, raw and urgent. Devastating but necessary—shows what travel means when you have no choice.
But It's harrowing. Watching real suffering and uncertainty unfold is not comfort viewing. The handheld footage can be disorienting. This requires emotional bandwidth.
Destination Truth2007
Josh Gates travels to remote places chasing cryptids and folklore with charm and genuine interest in local culture. It's playful where the rental show is earnest, more adventure than architecture, but shares that explorer's appetite for discovery.
But The cryptid hunting is mostly pretext; some viewers find it gimmicky. Pacing can feel dated. And if you prefer substance over charm, the show's lightness might feel hollow.
Kin-dza-dza!1986
Both are genuinely curious about how people organize their environments and societies. Where rentals celebrate human ingenuity in familiar contexts, this celebrates human absurdity in utterly unfamiliar ones. Both love the detail work.
A Soviet sci-fi film in which two men are accidentally transported to an alien planet whose culture is absurd and bureaucratic. It's visually strange and conceptually wild, shot like nothing else. A complete genre departure, but it shares that same sense of wonder at unfamiliar worlds.
But It's a 1986 Soviet film with subtitles. The dialogue is bizarre, the pacing is unconventional, and the aesthetic is deliberately alienating. If you want comfortable viewing, this will unsettle you.
Midnight in Paris2011
The rental show celebrates spaces as gateways to experience; this film suggests travel itself is a gateway to becoming someone different. Both understand that where you sleep matters because where you sleep changes who you are.
A screenwriter visiting Paris accidentally slips back in time each night, spending hours with Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Dalí. It's romance and nostalgia, yes, but also deeply about why we travel—to feel the presence of people and eras we admire. A meditation disguised as a fairy tale.
But The whimsy can read as precious. The Paris-worship is relentless. And if you find the premise contrived or the sentimentality cloying, no amount of Parisian beauty will win you over.
