Get a Free Beach House for a Week!

[Contest is now closed – winner info at the bottom.]

Want to get away to a warm place by the sea and stay in a house there for free?

This is post number 1,000 on the Cheapest Destinations Blog, almost all of the tirades, advice gems, and articles written by yours truly. So that’s something worth celebrating. 1,000 posts!

Some long-time readers know that I have a little beach house in the Yucatan that I rent out for a not-so-princely sum when I’m not using it. I’m giving away a free week to a lucky reader of this blog who can get themselves down there sometime in the next year to enjoy it. Since I’m in a festive mood, I’m even throwing in a bottle of 100% agave tequila to make sure you and yours have a good time. And hey, there’s a juicer in the house and oranges and limes are so cheap at the fruteria they’re almost free.

So here’s what you’ve got to do to enter: pick one of these two options—or the third alternate—and go at it.

1) Become a new RSS subscriber of this blog and prove you’ve done it. Save a screen shot of your RSS reader with this stream added and send it to beach@perceptivetravel.com.

2) If you’re already a subscriber here (thank you), go subscribe to Practical Travel Gear . Send said screenshot to the address above.

3) If and only if you don’t use a blog reader, then join the Facebook page of Practical Travel Gear or the Perceptive Travel Facebook page and leave a comment below with your profile name on there so I can verify it. (If you don’t do that second part, you’re not entered!)

The contest is open through the end of February and I’ll announce the winner chosen at random on March 2, 2011.

Since the “if it bleeds it leads” school of TV journalism in the U.S. has made Mexico out to be one big gunfight at the OK Corral, this beach house is sitting empty more often than not these days. (Even though the Yucatan has a lower crime rate than most states in Canada or the U.S.) So assume you won’t have too much trouble locking in the dates you want after winning, as long as it’s after the Easter/Semana Santa break when I’ll be there myself, kicking back with my family.

This house sleeps 4 comfortably, 5 if you put someone on a sofa or in a hammock. You can fly into Merida via several airlines, or catch a cheap flight to Cancun and take a bus or rental car from there. It’s one house back from the beach, so sun and sand galore. See more photos and all the details here: Chuburna Yucatan beach house.

Good luck!

UPDATE – Congratulations to Lindsey C. of Connecticut who came out of the randomizer as the winner. She has been notified she’ll have a place to stay in the Yucatan and I’ll post more info later.