Traveling on a budget? Try a hotel alternative
As a newly minted college grad, I had one thing on my mind: buy a plane ticket to Europe and spend six week backpacking across the countries I had only ever dreamed of visiting. But after I started calculating the price tag of my European adventure - from train tickets to food to all of those other incidentals - I wondered how I would be able to travel the continent and still afford a bed to sleep in at night. What I eventually learned is that hostels, CouchSurfing, and rentals are great alternatives to hotels. Not only are they wallet friendly, but they can allow you to experience your destination in a completely new way. Hostels A perennial favorite of the budget-conscious traveler, hostels give you a place to rest your head at a price lower than most hotels. The amenities vary from place to place. You could be in a room with just one other person, or nineteen. You may have a private bathroom, or share one with the entire floor. The trade-off is that the communal nature of hostels allows you meet other travelers, so even if you don’t love your roommates, you can at least get tips on what there is do or which restaurants you should check out. Although hostels tend to be synonymous with penny-pinching backpacking trips, they are actually available across the globe. When my roommate wanted to bring some out-of-town friends to New York City for a long weekend, she opted to stay in a hostel. She ended up finding one that had a private room with a bathroom en suite and paid only a fraction of what she would have in a hotel. Check out websites like HostelWorld (hostelworld.com) and Hostels.com. These sites allow you to search hostels worldwide and compare rates, amenities, and customer ratings, so you can find a place that works best for you. Remember to book early so you can get the best rates; popular hostels fill up during peak travel seasons, so waiting to reserve a room means you’ll miss out on the hostel hot spots. CouchSurfing If you’re on a very tight budget or just want to live like a local, then CouchSurfing might be for you. CouchSurfing is an online network of people from across the globe who are looking to create cultural exchanges, and, as a result, are willing to open their homes to travelers. As a potential CouchSurfer, you can log onto the website, search through members who live near the area you’re interested in visiting, then send a request to stay with those members. And just because you’re a CouchSurfer doesn’t mean you’ll be sleeping on a couch. Most members have a spare bed or spare room for you to stay in. The website is free to use and accommodations are also free - but you’re expected to do something to give back to your host or help out the website, whether it means buying your host a meal or becoming a host when you return home from your travels. One final benefit of CouchSurfing is that you automatically have a personal tour guide. Your host can tell you about the best shops, the best bars, and all the other sites that a guidebook might not cover, which will undoubtedly help to you make the most out of your trip. Getting a Rental If you’re planning on spending at least a week in one place, whether it’s on the beach on in the city, renting an apartment or small house is often a cheaper than a hostel or hotel. Renting means that you don’t have the luxury of someone making your bed in the morning or staff at the front desk to answer your questions, but it will leave you with more money to spend on the things you while living like a local. When I visited Paris with a friend, we rented a small apartment for the price of what it would of cost us the two of us to stay in a hostel. The privacy, cooking in our own kitchen with the wonderful foods we found in the markets, and having our own set of keys made us feel like we were living in Paris instead of just vacationing there. It was an experience we would have never had if we had stayed in a hostel. Trip Advisor and FlipKey are excellent websites that allow you to find rentals, see photos, and read reviews from previous visitors. Once you find a rental, you can email the owner and start planning your vacation. Rebecca Cramer is a recent graduate of McGill Univeristy with a degree in English Literature. When she doesn’t have her nose stuck in a book, she is usually out with her camera or dreaming about her next vacation.
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