How Duner works
Duner helps you plan a beach week in one place, from Virginia Beach, VA, to Ocracoke, NC. Compare things to do and local beach-gear companies now, with vacation-rental search coming next. Duner isn't a booking site: when you find what you want, you book with the provider.
Start with where and when you want to go
For Houses (coming soon) and Experiences, choose the weeks you're considering. Duner searches several weeks at once, so you don't have to run the same search over and over. For Beach Gear, choose the town or towns where you'll be staying.
Many vacation homes along this coast rent by the week, especially in the Outer Banks, with check-in on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday depending on the home. Don't know your week yet? That's the point. Once a season's rates are published, each week card shows how many homes match and the lowest displayed weekly price, so flexible dates can do some of the shopping for you.
Compare your options
Houses brings homes and their weekly rates into one search: filter by company, town, location, size, amenities, pet policy and budget, or open the coast view and browse north to south. Prices are labeled so you know what each one includes.
Experiences compares activity prices across the marketplaces we cover. Beach Gear compares companies rather than prices: who delivers, who sets up on the sand, and which towns each one says it serves.
Use the filters that matter to you. Houses and Experiences let you star the options worth coming back to, and in Houses you can also compare the finalists side by side.
Book with the provider
Duner doesn't take the booking or your payment. Home results link straight to the listing on the realty company's own website, Beach Gear connects you with the company or marketplace shown, and Experiences are booked through the marketplace or provider shown on the result. Duner never handles your booking, your payment, or your guest information.
Some links may earn Duner a commission or referral fee. Experiences booking links are affiliate links. Compensation never buys inclusion or a higher position in Duner's results.
That's the whole idea. Everything below is the detail behind it — what the labels mean, how results are ordered, and where the data comes from.
What the prices and labels mean
What the price includes
Realty companies advertise prices differently. Duner shows each price the way the company presents it and labels what it includes:
The displayed price is base rent. The realty company adds taxes and fees on its site, so the final total will be higher.
The displayed price includes the taxes and standard fees the realty company builds in. Optional charges or add-ons may still apply.
One more label turns up while browsing without dates. "typically $X/wk" is the median of the weekly rates Duner has collected for that home, across the weeks still open to book. It's a planning number, not a quote. Select your weeks and the cards show the collected price or availability for each one instead.
Always confirm the final price, availability and terms with the realty company before booking.
Availability labels
Duner searches full-week stays, reflecting the traditional rental pattern for many homes along this coast — an unlabeled result is a full week at a published rate, the default. The availability filter chooses which of the week states below count as a match. Six more labels tell you when there's more to the story:
The full week is available, and the company also advertises shorter stays during that period. If you only need 3–4 nights, this is your flag.
The full week isn't available, but some nights are. Duner can't price a partial split, so check the company's calendar for what's left.
The company takes bookings for that week by phone rather than online — their office can quote the rate directly.
The company will hold the week for a reservation fee before the final rate is set. Confirm the fee and the price with the company before committing.
This year's renter has first refusal on the same week next year. If they pass, the company works down a queue — you can join it on the company's site.
The company hasn't released pricing or availability for that week. Check back later, or contact the company directly.
Planning with a group
Beach weeks have a way of becoming group projects: one person searches, four families weigh in, and somehow the plan ends up spread across 47 open tabs. Duner is built for that.
Send the group one link with your weeks, filters and starred homes already in place. No explaining "go to the site and set the dates to…"
Save the homes worth a vote. Your stars stay on your own device, and anyone opening your shared link gets the same shortlist. Tap the ★ counter to filter the view down to just those homes.
Put starred homes side by side: beds, baths, amenities, and the collected price or availability for each week you picked. One more tap exports the comparison as a CSV.
Weeks, filters and stars all travel with the link. No account or sign-in required.
See when your money goes further
If your dates are flexible, Duner's when-to-go chart shows how weekly rates change through the season. It's an easy way to spot the expensive peak weeks and the lower-priced stretches on either side. Rates appear as realty companies publish each season, and if we don't yet have enough rate data for a year, the chart says so.
Not sure which town?
Virginia Beach and Ocracoke share the same Atlantic, but a week in one can look nothing like a week in the other. Beach access, walkability, crowds and how built-up a town feels can change a lot from one town to the next. Our town guides explain those differences so you can choose the right place before you choose the house. They're independent editorial guides, with no sponsored picks and no affiliate links.
How results are ordered
No one can pay for position on Duner. Providers and marketplaces cannot buy a promoted result, a higher ranking or inclusion in the search. If Duner earns money from a booking, that compensation does not affect the order of the results. Our Terms put the same commitment in writing.
So what does determine the order? The short answer: homes default to price, low to high; experiences default to Top rated, which weighs the rating and the number of reviews behind it; and Beach Gear puts the companies that best match your selected towns, equipment and services first.
The full ordering rules
Homes default to price, low to high — with no weeks selected, that's each home's typical (median) weekly rate across the weeks still open to book; with weeks selected, its best rate for those weeks. Because some companies publish base rent while others publish totals that include standard taxes and fees, Duner keeps those prices in clearly labeled groups rather than mixing them: all-in totals are listed first, then base rent. Homes without a bookable price sort after priced homes — after every priced home in the price sorts, and after the priced homes of the same size or location in the other sorts. You can also sort by bedrooms or capacity (most or fewest first), by price high to low, or by closeness to the ocean; a capacity or location the company doesn't state is an estimate and sorts after the stated ones. Homes that tie on the sort you picked are then ordered the way the price sorts order them — group first, then price — and finally by the home's name.
Experiences default to Top rated, which weighs both the rating and the number of reviews behind it, so a handful of glowing reviews doesn't outrank a strong average from thousands; ties go to the listing with more reviews, then to the activity's name. A listing with no reviews yet has no rating to weigh, so it sorts after the rated ones it is listed with, ordered by name. When you pick a town, activities in that town come first, then the rest of its region, then everything else the search returned — listings that cover the whole area, and nearby ones that aren't in a town we list; outside the two price sorts, that grouping is decided before the sort you chose. In the two price sorts, a listing without a per-person price — priced per group, boat, vehicle or package, or unpriced — sits below every per-person-priced listing under its own label, town first within that group too, unless a group size you set gives it one. You can also sort by price, review count or duration. When prices are quoted on different bases, such as per person versus per group, Duner keeps them separate — unless you set a group size for a listing whose price covers the whole party, which makes a fair comparison possible.
Beach Gear puts the companies that best match your selected towns, equipment and services first. Within comparable groups, companies are listed alphabetically; partial matches are ordered by how many of your selections they cover, then alphabetically. Duner shows no gear prices, so price is never part of this order, and nothing here is ranked by popularity or an editorial judgment of quality.
When the same activity is on both marketplaces, Duner shows one card instead of two. When the prices are directly comparable, it shows the lower-priced listing that matches your search. When the two prices can't be compared, Duner shows the Viator listing: on an exact price tie, when one listing is priced per person and the other per group, and when either listing has no price. Compensation does not affect that choice.
Experience prices, ratings and availability come from the marketplace or provider and can change. Confirm the final details on the booking page. Duner does not claim to list every provider or every available option.
Where experience data comes from
Viator cards use data from Viator’s production Partner API, fetched for the destinations the experiences search covers; GetYourGuide cards are hand-collected from their public listings (prices as published) — a hand-checked selection, not GetYourGuide’s full catalog — and use placeholder art rather than hotlinked product photos. The search page shows when each marketplace’s prices were collected, and every result links to its live listing on the marketplace.
The filters read the same marketplace data. Age suitability reflects each marketplace's ticket types, not a judgment of Duner's, and accessibility details — stroller- and wheelchair-friendliness — are the marketplace's own listings, so confirm specific needs with the operator before booking. Both marketplaces are searched by default; the Marketplaces filter hides one's results.
Where home data comes from
Duner follows one rule: the realty company itself is the source of truth. Rental information comes from each company's own public listing pages and booking calendars — not from a feed or file a company sends Duner. No realty company has signed on as a Duner partner today. Every home links back to its original listing, and Duner shows when its availability information was last updated. Always confirm the current price, availability and terms with the realty company before booking.
Common questions
Is Duner free to use?
Does Duner add fees or mark up prices?
What area does Duner cover?
Guides and Beach Gear cover the same towns end to end: the Virginia Beach oceanfront, Sandbridge, Carova, Corolla, Duck, Southern Shores, Kitty Hawk, Kill Devil Hills, Nags Head, Manteo on Roanoke Island, Hatteras Island's seven villages (Rodanthe, Waves, Salvo, Avon, Buxton, Frisco and Hatteras), and Ocracoke.
The Experiences search covers the same corridor, grouped the way local companies group it: Virginia Beach, the Northern Beaches, the Central Beaches, Roanoke Island (including Wanchese), Hatteras Island and Ocracoke. Some results sit just outside the listed towns — most of them Norfolk-area listings that appear in Virginia Beach searches; none of them is in a listed town, and each one is identified on its card.
The Houses search is the exception: unlike Guides, Experiences and Beach Gear, its coverage will depend on the inventory available from participating local realty companies, and it will expand as more companies come aboard.
How far ahead can I book?
Can I stay less than a week?
Why do some weeks show a holiday marker and others don't?
Why book a vacation home direct instead of through a big booking platform?
What about things to do — tours and activities?
What about beach gear — chairs, umbrellas, cribs, bikes?
Get notified when Houses launches
We'll email you when Duner's vacation-rental search opens.