Today I'll be focusing on the accomodations aspect of traveling in Europe.
Before I moved to Italy I had mostly stayed in chain hotels in the States. I'd never really done the bed and breakfast option or renting someone's apartment or vacation home.
Since I've been in Europe that's all changed. There are times that we still stay in hotels when we travel, but for the most part I prefer to stay in rooms for rent, hostels or bed and breakfasts.
There are a few sites that I use in my search for the perfect room. (US dwellers, you can use these sites too to find accomodations in the states or even in other locations like Asia, South America, etc)
www.homeaway.com
www.vrbo.com
www.bedandbreakfast.com
www.hostelworld.com
I'm a huge Rick Steves fan, but I don't often stay in his recommendations for accomodations. I do however pay attention to the areas that most of his recommendations are in and try to find something in or around that area. Besides the above sites, I usually cross-reference with Tripadvisor.com just to get an unbiased opinion and pictures of the place I'm thinking about staying.
Now, if you use homeaway.com or vrbo.com be aware that sometimes people want you to pay a deposit upfront for your stay or cleaning of the place after you leave. I usually avoid those listings and find something that doesn't charge for cleaning or require a deposit, especially a non-refundable one. I don't see the need for paying 50 euro for a cleaning fee, when there are plenty of other quality listings that don't require that.
I do usually check out hostel listings from time to time, but honestly with the exception of a few, it's about the same price for a private room in a hostel as it is for a hotel room or apartment rental.
As an example, most of the places I've booked for Sean and I to stay in for our upcoming trip cost 60 euro or less per night for the both of us. Honestly, 50 euro is about the cheapest you'll find for a couple in Europe. I've yet to find much cheaper than that for a double bed. London is probably the most expensive city I've stayed in. Slovenia had some of the cheapest accomodations and best that we've stayed in so far.
Hopefully this will be helpful to some of you out there. If you have any other questions, don't hesitate to e-mail me!
When we went to Spain, my whole family stayed in an apartment. While we were a little squished it was great! Not only did we not have to leave every day at a certain time for cleaning, there was a lot more space and we could cook our own meals. Going to the markets in Barcelona was one of my favorite things about the whole trip!
ReplyDeleteLOVE bedandbreakfast.com. That's where I found our B&B for our upcoming trip to Barcelona. I've been looking on there for a B&B for Rome as well. I also love tripadvisor.com!
ReplyDeleteI hope that someday I can take advantage of this good info!
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing those sites...I've gone and bookmarked them :) I have to agree that some of my favorite accommodations during our travels have been bed & breakfasts.
ReplyDeleteThank you sooooo much!!!! I hate that we never really got to travel when we were in Europe, but we are planning a trip to Ireland after OCS!
ReplyDeleteWow, great advice! I wish I had read this info a few months ago when we were in the first planning stages of our European Christmas. We ended up going with chain hotels via our travel agents but the bed and breakfast idea sounds like it might have saved us some money. Oh well, there's always next time, right?
ReplyDeleteWe've stayed all over europe for around 30-35 euro a night for my husband and I. The places have not been the nicest but the locations were great!
ReplyDeleteSomeone turned me onto vrbo about a year ago and I try to use it for everything!
ReplyDeleteHow do you like Italy?!??! My boyfriend just got sent over there and ou can imagine, I'll be going sometime in the near future! And i'll probably be living there in a year and a half.
ReplyDelete