Short-Term & Vacation Rentals
Find and offer short-term and vacation rentals in Guatemala.
A chalet in Puerto San José with a pool and a thatched shelter strung with hammocks, a stone house in Jaibalito you can only reach by boat, a furnished apartment a few blocks from Antigua’s Parque Central: each is let by the night, the weekend or the month rather than on a year’s contract. Some are houses a family uses itself and rents out between visits. Groups book the coast by headcount, couples book the lake for the view, and the person who answers your message is usually the owner or the caretaker.
Pacific chalets, Atitlán lake houses and Antigua apartments:
each one suits a different trip. On the coast at Iztapa, Monterrico or Las Lisas, a chalet is a group house, with several air-conditioned bedrooms, a pool, a kitchen and an open thatched shelter where the hammocks and the long table go. They are let from Friday to Sunday and advertised by capacity, so a whole family or an office outing fits in one house. On Lake Atitlán it is the other way round. Houses and cabins on the steep north shore, in Santa Cruz La Laguna and Jaibalito, are smaller and often reached only by boat from Panajachel. In Antigua the draw is being able to walk everywhere: a colonial-style house around a garden courtyard, or a small furnished apartment let by the night for a wedding weekend or by the month to someone staying a few weeks. For a year’s lease, start with property for rent, and if a weekend on the coast has turned into wanting a house of your own, look at property for sale.
Capacity, beds and the walk to the sea in a beach chalet:
the number in the listing is a headcount, not a bed count. “Capacity 18” can mean eighteen beds, or ten beds plus mattresses on the floor and hammocks, so ask for the beds room by room and which rooms have air conditioning. A beachfront house should have a garden that opens straight onto the sand; one described as near the beach can mean crossing the road and walking down a path. Ask what comes with the house: made-up beds and towels, gas for the stove, drinking water, and whether a caretaker lives on the property and keeps the pool clean while you are there. A lake house reached only by boat needs its own questions: which dock you land at, who helps carry the bags up the steps, and what happens if bad weather stops the boats on the day you are due to leave.
Weekend chalet rates on the Pacific coast:
an ordinary Friday-to-Sunday stay in a chalet for twelve to twenty people runs about Q2,500 to Q4,000 for the whole house. Holy Week is a different market. Owners let the house in fixed blocks of days, the price climbs well above a normal weekend and the better houses are spoken for months ahead. The quiet months are where the bargaining happens, and some owners offer Monday to Thursday at a lower rate.
A chalet that only exists in photos:
fake beach houses multiply in the weeks before Holy Week. The signs repeat: pictures lifted from someone else’s listing, a price well below the rest of the beach, replies only by text or voice note, and a deposit to be paid today into a personal account. A real owner can tell you the kilometre on the road or the name of the residential complex, so find the spot on a map, and ask for the caretaker’s number and call it. Pay a deposit only once the dates, headcount, arrival time and what you are paying for are in writing, to the person named on that reservation, and keep the transfer receipt.
Letting your chalet, lake cabin or Antigua apartment:
put the location and the way in at the top: the beach and the road kilometre, the residential complex, or the dock and how long the boat takes from Panajachel. Then the real number of beds in each room, the minimum stay, the weekend and midweek rates, the holiday blocks you offer and the deposit you hold against damage. Give the house rules on music, visitors and pets, and whether the caretaker stays on site. Photograph every bedroom with its beds in view, the kitchen, the pool and the thatched shelter, and the road or the jetty as it really looks. The organiser in the capital looking for a chalet for twenty wants the bed list and the drive down; the couple heading for Jaibalito wants to know about the steps up from the dock and whether the internet holds. Answer both in the listing and the conversation comes down to dates.