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Holistay is a vacation rental platform where every listing has a mandatory video tour. You can watch a property before booking. You can book instantly at the listed price, or negotiate your own price directly with the host.

You make an offer with an optional message. The host can accept, decline, or make a counter-offer. Negotiate until you agree.

Every Holistay listing requires a YouTube or Vimeo video tour so guests can see the actual property before booking. Videos show the real space, neighborhood, and views — not just curated photos.

Four differences, and they are all about what a listing has to tell you rather than what it may choose to.

A video tour on every listing. Not optional. You watch the actual space, in one continuous walkthrough, before you book — instead of choosing between sets of flattering photographs.

A noise assessment. Every listing carries a 1-5 rating with the things that cause it written down: wall type, window glazing, insulation, which floor it is on, and whether it faces a street or a courtyard. Noise is the single most common thing people complain about after they arrive and the single least likely thing to appear in a listing that is not required to mention it.

A measured internet speed. Hosts enter a number from a real speed test, with the date they ran it and a link to the result — and the label comes from the number rather than from the host. A property with 30 Mbps cannot describe itself as fast. "Fibre" is the cheapest word in a listing and it is almost never checked.

Price negotiation. Make an offer for your dates with a message; the host accepts, counters or declines. Worth a lot midweek and in shoulder season, worth little on a peak August weekend — and the host chooses whether to switch it on.

528 guides written to answer the questions a booking site never does, because none of it sells a room:

• Climate month by month — average high and low and rainfall for every month, from 30 years of data, so you can see that Krabi takes 338mm in October before you book October.
• Internet speed at the destination — the median fixed and mobile speed from Ookla's index, refreshed monthly, with the city's own figure where one is published.
• Which ATMs to avoid — the operators that surcharge and push conversion, named, and the banks to use instead. This is the one thing on the page that reliably saves money.
• Entry rules for your passport — pick your nationality and see the answer, with the official government link and the date we last checked it.
• Health — what is genuinely required versus merely recommended, the emergency number, and what treatment costs a visitor.
• Safety, rated and explained — not a score on its own but what the actual risk is: pickpockets on a particular tram, taxis at a particular airport, the tide on a particular bay.
• Etiquette, religion and a phrase card — what to do with your shoes, your hands and your camera, and ten phrases with a pronunciation you can attempt out loud.
• Getting around — the actual fares, the airport link, and what a taxi should cost.

There is also a four-question wizard that suggests three places that suit the month you are travelling, an Remote destinations collection of the guides that take real effort to reach, and a bucket list you can keep without an account.

528 destination guides across Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Russia, Africa, North and Central America, South America and Oceania — from Barcelona and Tokyo to the Okavango Delta, Kamchatka and Easter Island. Stays are being added by hosts now; the guides are finished and free to read whether or not you book anything.

In two places. Every listing shows the speed its host measured, the date of the test and a link to the result, with a label derived from the number rather than chosen by the host. And every destination guide shows the median fixed and mobile speed for that place, from Ookla's Speedtest Global Index, so you know what to expect before you get there.

Yes. Each listing includes a noise assessment on a 1-5 scale, plus details about wall type, window glazing, insulation quality, floor level, and whether the property faces a street or quiet courtyard.