Worksheets: Click here to download "How to Identify the Right Villa Rental Agent" and "What You Need to Know Before You Arrive"

Audio Slideshow: Wendy Perrin finds a great villa deal in Jamaica

The List: Click here to view Wendy's Rolodex

If you think that renting a splendid villa with all the trimmings demands deep pockets, think again. Through her own quest to find an affordable Caribbean villa without sacrificing comfort or amenities, Consumer News Editor Wendy Perrin perfected strategies for yielding the most value out of your villa rental dollar. She shares her field-tested tips—and renders the process foolproof with a list of 48 rigorously vetted villa rental agents representing properties at addresses from Antigua to Zanzibar

Is a villa rental a good value? Sure…if you have a group large enough to fill every bedroom so that you're splitting the cost among many people, if you're willing to spend part of your vacation cooking and cleaning, and if you don't require a private pool, a top-of-the-line kitchen, air-conditioning, high-speed Internet access, and television with American channels. When your group is small and you're seeking a gorgeous residence with all the modern conveniences and service infrastructure of a hotel, it can get very expensive very fast.

Unless, that is, you've figured out how to have it all—at an affordable price. This year, in preparation for our second annual villa rental guide, I was on a mission to do just that. Last year, I rented a villa in Tuscany that was beautiful but was surprisingly expensive and ended up requiring a lot of work ("Wendy Perrin's Worldwide Villa Rental Guide," June 2006). This time, I set out to find a different type of villa—one that came with full-time staff yet would not break the bank. I wanted the staff not only in order to take the work out of the vacation but also because I've learned that they can be an invaluable gateway to the community, leading to interaction with locals. That, to my mind, is the greatest reward of a villa vacation.

The obvious ways to snag a villa deal are to travel during an off-peak time or to choose an offbeat destination. I purposefully did neither and opted for the Caribbean in winter. I wouldn't have learned much by choosing an off-peak time (say, early December, when villas are discounted in the Caribbean) or a hidden-gem island that is off Americans' radar (such as Grenada, where villas are affordable but flights from the United States are often inconvenient and expensive). Instead, I wanted to find out how to nab a good value during a peak season at a mainstream destination. To my surprise, I ended up in Jamaica.