It’s that time of year again - time to book your Hilton Head rental for your upcoming summer vacation! Even with the slowdown in the economy, reservation bookings and inquiries have still been brisk for beginning of booking season. If you don’t want to get shut out from renting your favorite property you need to act soon.

One of the best places to begin your search for a vacation rental is the Hilton Head 360 web site. Not only does it feature thousands of homes and villas from all of the major rental companies, but it also has THE most powerful property search function available. For example, you can search pet friendly rentals, smoking or non-smoking rentals, search by property ammenities, property view, location, or even search by community ammenities.

Hilton Head 360 also contains a huge directory of restaurants, beaches, shopping, golf courses, activities, and more. In fact, it has all of the information and resources to plan your perfect Hilton Head vacation.

And if you prefer a hotel room to a vacation home or villa, be sure to check out our sister site at Hilton Head Hotels.com. As part of the Travelocity Partner Network you can be sure you’ll find the best rates for hotels in Hilton Head and throughout the U.S.

When it comes to winter weather on Hilton Head, you just never know what you’re going to get. For the most part, the mild weather hangs on until mid-November. After that the temperatures range from downright cold (below freezing some days and nights) to shorts and t-shirt weather.

For example, here we are ten days out from Christmas and the weather forecast for this week is sunny with temps in the mid 70’s. At night the temperature forecast is for the mid to upper 50’s. So while much of the country will be shoveling snow and enjoying toboggan rides, many of us will be hitting the golf course and walking the beach.

Believe it or not, it has snowed a few times in recent memory. I remember one year (back in the 1980’s, I think) that we received a few inches of snow that completely covered the ground. Needless to say, with no snow plows around driving got very interesting. The bridge to the Island iced up, and almost no traffic made it across the bridge that morning. I remember seeing a half dozen or so cars that had spun out and were abondoned in the median of Highway 278. But by early afternoon the roads were passable again and everyone went about their business.

According to the long range forecast we should have mild weather again this Christmas. So all the kids and parents that get new golf clubs, tennis rackets, and bicycles from Santa should be able to head outside and play with their new toys.

It wasn’t all that long ago that Hilton Head 360 established itself as one of the premier real estate, vacation rental, and information sites on the internet. If you’re one of the many repeat visitors to the site you have no doubt seen many changes over the past six months. Not only has the design of the site changed, but we developed a brand new CORE360 module to power the site and added many new features including detailed real estate and vacation rental searches, streaming video, enhanced restaurant and business directories, and a new Home and Lifestyle section.

We’re also in the process of launching our new Community Expert pages. Each of these pages will provide detailed information, photos, and video on local residential communities in the Hilton Head and Bluffton area. Soon after that we also plan to launch Community Expert pages tailored towards the vacation rentals available throughout the Island.

The success of our new platform is now allowing us to expand into other markets. We recently launched both the Bluffton 360 web site and are working on two additional local area sites - Beaufort 360 and Savannah 360. But those sites are only the tip of the iceburg. We also recently redesigned our Hilton Head Hotels web site.

With over two hundred 360 brand names at our disposal we will be branching out and adding real estate and vacation rental sites in premier destinations throughout the world. That’s right - we’re going global! But we’re not stopping with local and regional sites. In the next few months we will be launching Great Real Estate 360 and Great Vacation Rentals 360. Each of these sites combines the listings of from all of our local and regional sites on one major site. For example, Great Vacation Rentals 360 will showcase rentals from Hilton Head, Myrtle Beach, the Bahamas, Whistler, Breckenridge, and all other locations where we establish our 360 network of sites. Great Real Estate 360 will showcase all of the real estate listings from our 360 network of sites.

We’re not only working on adding more sites, but we’re also working on adding more features to enhance your web surfing experience. Stay tuned for more detals.

As the calendar approaches November most of the country begins looking forward to the fall foliage and that first snowfall of the year. But in Hilton Head November can mean only one thing - the Concours d’Elegance. The event features over 150 of the world’s finest vintage automobiles. This year the Concours will celebrate automotive excellence with Brass Era (Pre 1916) Cars as the 2008 Honored Marque featuring at least one representative from each year between 1899 and 1915. Other celebratory classes special to this year’s competition include the 60th Anniversary of Porsche, the Centennial of both Morgan and General Motors and the 50th Anniversary of Edsel. Additionally, 2008 will feature the first class(es) of vintage motorcycles.

Hilton Head / Savannah Historic Tracks Day
October 30th and 31st
Hosted at the newly reopened Hutchinson Island track, this two-day vintage track offer everything for the avid performance car fan including exhibition laps at high speeds, autocross and Gymkhana courses and rides in the latest and greatest sports car models.

Hilton Head Sports and Classic Car Auction
November 1st
Presented by Worldwide Auctioneers, the auction will showcase many of the finest Pre-War American and European Classics, American and European Sports cars, Exotic cars and American muscle cars.

Car Club Jamboree
November 1st
A number of invited car clubs from throughout the US will select their best to compete for awards such as Best of Show, Chairman’s Choice and the Top Twenty. Over 150 Muscle cars, hot rods and European performance cars will span the field.

Concours d’Elegance
November 2nd
Official Concours d’Elegance competition day featuring more than 150 vintage cars competing for the coveted ‘Best-of-Show’ and ‘People’s Choice’ titles.

For ticket prices and additional information please visit the Hilton Head Concours d’Elegance website.