Have you stayed in the big city and then compared that to a place in the country near a tourist attraction?

I am doing my research around popular tourist destination in CA (Yosemite, Lake Arrowhead, BigBear etc).

Some of the Airbnbs we have stayed at (and we have stayed at a bunch) provide a welcome packet of information - filled with such information as local tourist attractions, nearby restaurants, a map, list of places to go shopping, etc.

So you'd be looking at high potential rental income, cheap properties or, even better a combination of the two.That prime candidates would be:Mexico and the Dominican Republic: cheap properties, mass tourism, occupancy all year long, closeness to North America, direct flights from North America, the US and increasingly Asia, strong international and domestic tourism and tourists coming from diverse locations.Southern Europe (Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece): properties aren't necessarily that cheap (some are) but you have mass tourism there as well.Then you have secondary markets like Colombia or Brazil.

Check the tourism statistics: number of tourists, length of the season if seasonal, competition from hotels, hotel occupancy rate, is the place gaining or losing in popularity;2.

It's like a sleepy little beach town without a lot of tourists or hotels. 

Would be nice to retire someday haha.So, I guess I'm just wondering how to get started since we don't have a ton for a down payment (could probably come up with $25k in cash without touching a current 401k that's not all that large).Also, the Orlando area (and outlying area) looks to be pretty saturated, but there is also a TON of tourist's that visit here too so I'm not sure if one cancels out the other in this type of business.

The motel is on Afton Mountain, the convergence of multiple hiking trails and tourist attractions.

If you buy a STR in an area that already has rules in place to govern them there is a chance they will make more rules.It is much better to buy in tourist areas where STR'S are already welcome with open arms. 

I wanted to know if anyone in the BP community has any experience with renting out single family homes in this area, either to long term renters or vacation renters like tourists through Airbnb and the like.