HGTV Has A New Show About Wild Vacation Rentals, And Wild Is Probably An Understatement

Though a wide swath of HGTV's daily programming is geared towards the acts of buying, flipping, demolishing and renovating houses, some of my favorite shows have zilch to do with hard labor. The channel's latest luxury-geared offering that fits such a bill, Wild Vacation Rentals, is a gobsmacking good time that makes me wish I'd had bigger dreams about traveling when I was younger. If only hosts D’Arcy Carden and Sherry Cola didn’t make it all look so flipping FUN!

Wild Vacation Rentals isn’t any kind of a coded title, and the show delivers exactly what it promises, although it could use the subtitle (With Two Hilarious And Loveable Co-Hosts), assuming that wouldn’t be too long for marketing purposes. The debut episode kicked off on March 1 — and is currently streaming via HBO Max subscription — and if there was ever a palate cleanser for the first two months of any year, it’s this show.

As seen in the video above, Nobody Wants This co-stars D’Arcy Carden and Sherry Cola talked with CinemaBlend about their latest co-op project, and the first thing I had to tell them was just how inspired I was to go experience new things while watching.

• CINEMABLEND: I feel like this may be the most inspirational HGTV show I've ever seen, from a "Get out of the house and do something with myself" perspective. Is that part of what you both hope to impart on viewers?
  • D'ARCY CARDEN: Totally. Like, that's a great way of putting it. There's just so much to see, and I think that is what doing this [proves]. Being on the road with Sherry, and finding all these amazing new places that we've never been to before. You kind of go like, oh yeah, you could just stay in a hotel that you know. You could just stay in like a simple, everything's comfortable, what you know, it's going to be fine. Or you could stay in a potato and something that you've never seen before. Or a tree house. Or you could stay in a cave and really have an unforgettable experience. Yeah, it definitely was part of what we hope people get.
  • SHERRY COLA: Yeah, I try new things. I think thematically, that's really what we're trying to tell the people. Because, like you said, you could stay at any other hotel that we know will check the boxes, or you could stare a cow with freshly trimmed bangs in the eyes on a windy day. You know what I'm saying? Choose your own adventure.
  • D'ARCY CARDEN: Yeah, every place we stayed in was so unique, not just in general, but from each other. No two places were alike, and it was so like, new and fresh, and everything was so exciting. Yes, we definitely took away, like, there's so much to see.
  • SHERRY COLA: I mean, we could go on and on.

I gotta say, none of the out-of-this-world vacations I've ever fantasized about in life involved any cows with freshly trimmed bangs. Cows that have gone through hoof-to-ear makeovers, sure, but that's just a normal weekend. But man oh man, I have definitely fantasized about staying in a lavish treehouse, and would not necessarily turn down a rental property made out of a potato.

The premiere episode nails down the show's format, which sees Carden and Cola traveling to three different oddball sites within a region of the country, and they decide which of the three is the best bang for the buck. Not that there are any total stinkers here, since this isn't a National Lampoons vacation movie. Do not let the Griswalds anywhere near these locations.

The first place they visit is Little Talladega, a mansion in Pomona, Missouri that's themed entirely to racing, from bedrooms to indoor and outdoor racing tracks to a big arcade and pool. Next, they made their way to The Cave Lodge in Parthenon Arkansas, where they spent an evening within the most luxurious cave setting I've ever seen, with features built into the natural formations. Finally, the duo spent the night in a decommissioned nuclear missile complex called Titan Missile Silo, located in Violonia, Arkansas.

Part of the joy is seeing the locations, of course, but another big part of it is seeing how Carden and Cola react to everything. They're a couple of big kids at heart, and I wasn't surprised to hear that their on-camera shock and surprise was totally natural.

• CINEMABLEND: Did you both have any input on the places that were picked? Or did you show up blind?
  • D'ARCY CARDEN: Blind. Totally, yeah. We wanted to be surprised. And our amazing producers, they gave us the option of, 'We can send you all the information, pictures, details, or we can go in blind.' And we just thought it would be more fun to really experience it live, you know, for the first time.
  • SHERRY COLA: Yeah, absolutely. Because I think Darcy and I are just unscripted to the bone. We like the idea of riffing in the moment with something that we've never seen or experienced before. Yeah, I think that's really what makes the show magical, is the fact that Darcy and I are in real time, being ourselves and reacting.
• CINEMABLEND: You guys have the same faces that were on mine, just like, 'Oh my God!'
  • D'ARCY CARDEN: We are the audience. Yeah, audience sees themselves in us, because we are the audience as well.

I also talked to the hilarious duo about what their favorite locations were to visit during Season 1, but we'll just have to wait until the proper episodes air to share all that. Which is to say, keep watching!

Wild Vacation Rentals airs Monday nights on HGTV at 10:00 p.m. ET, following new episodes of Bachelor Mansion Takeover.