Thinking about trying to keep things wallet-friendly—because let’s face it, accommodation can eat up your budget fast. In the Basic sit etiquette AirBnBs was discussed, so why not a spin-off on accommodation?
So I figured: why not tap into the wisdom of this awesome community?
Here are a few tips I’ve picked up so far, and I’d LOVE to hear your best strategies too:
Think outside the booking box. Aside from the usual budget hotels and hostels, don’t forget university dorms (often available during breaks!), religious guesthouses, or even farm stays. I have myself used «summer hotels» at university dorms - but heard of for instance of a convent that would take same gender boarders.
Timing is everything. Booking last-minute sounds risky, but sometimes checking same-day hostel rates can lead to amazing steals.
Bartering on Airbnb. Good one! This one’s surprisingly effective: I know several people that reached out to the host - messaging Airbnb hosts directly, especially for longer stays, politely asking if they’d consider a lower rate in exchange for flexible dates or a longer booking.
Most people don’t realize hosts can offer special prices privately! It is a win for many hosts as they have less work and a steady income - and less wear on the room for all those moving in and outs. The people I know who did this got a considerable save. Some hosts also have a long term discount in the system - if you enter your dates when searching, a discount might kick in on a listing.
Volunteering or work exchanges. Platforms like Workaway or WWOOF let you trade a few hours of help for a free place to sleep. Do check though how many hours work the host expects, as that can vary widely. From hospitable to «free labor». Many are though in the mindset of building community by doing things together.
Stay with locals. Couchsurfing might not be for everyone, but it’s a way to meet people and save also. This is about meeting people, not just a free bed. And who knows, you might get insider tips no guidebook can match.
What else do you swear by when it comes to budget accommodation? Ever haggled your way into a deal or discovered a hidden gem the internet doesn’t know about? Have you tried something mentioned here - how did it work out?
I don’t do budget travel, but I like to get a good price with limited effort (meaning I don’t have the patience to shop around much).
Booking last minute has worked well for me over and over. Like I usually go on road trips without booking anything and I’ll just start looking about an hour before I reach a city that I want to stop at. (My husband drives while I’m doing that.) By then, if they’ve still got a bunch of rooms left, you can negotiate or at least try to. Nothing to lose. And they can’t make money on the room once that night passes. Sometimes, even if you can’t get a cheaper price, you can get an upgrade.
I’ve even scored prized reservations that others booked out a year ahead and then have to cancel, because a lot can happen in a year. That’s how I got rooms along the rim of the Grand Canyon, for instance, for a bunch of friends and me last minute.
Also, I often stay at multiple hotels in a city, so I can experience different neighborhoods, rather than doing just one stay. So I might book only two nights at one hotel, tour around and see where else I might want to be in, neighborhood wise. If you’re flexible and willing to risk last minute, rooms often get discounted. Without effort, because it’s just how I like to travel, I’ve scored good prices and/or upgrades.
I rarely use Airbnb, but the last time I did, when I told a host that I was considering another home as well, they volunteered a discount. Probably because it was last minute and they weren’t likely to get a few months’ rental otherwise.
Interesting information about asking Airbnb for discount on longer stays, never knew this so thanks. I have met people on my travels that use Host A Sister. It is international and women will let you stay in their quest room for free for a night or a few nights if you are traveling and need a place in between travel destinations. Also some have room to put your camper van if you just need a place to park it and live in it for a night or two. It was designed for women traveling alone.
I’ve never used Host a Sister, but followed the Facebook group years ago and have seen them be very helpful to stranded female travelers with last-minute hosting, as well as great travel advice. As I remember, there are several offshoot groups, including one with pet sitting gigs. They should be findable on Facebook via the search function.
I’ve done the convent stay—it was weird but memorable! In Europe, I also like overnight trains. I used to hope for an empty row, but now I book a spot in a sleeper car. It can seem pricey, but when you factor in both transport and accommodation, it’s often a good deal.
I’ve also found great hotel deals on sites like Hotwire, where you choose a price range without knowing the exact hotel until after booking (nonrefundable).
Instead of focusing on a nightly rate, I set a monthly budget. That way I can splurge a bit in cheaper towns and save in pricier cities. As long as I don’t exceed the monthly budget, it doesn’t matter where the money goes specifically. Like next month I’ll be staying briefly in a $450 a night hotel because it is a unique place I’ve always wanted to experience. But the rest of the month I’m in Holiday Inns or cat sitting. (I would pay extra at the Holiday Inn if it came with a cat. I cat sit primarily because they make my life happier; the savings on accommodation is just a bonus)
In the US, I sometimes use the GSA’s Federal Per Diem Rates (just Google it) to research hotel price ranges. It shows the government reimbursable hotel rates for each city, which helps me spot better-value areas nearby or less expensive times. For example, DC’s June rate is $276, but Loudoun County’s is $115. The July rate for DC goes down to $183, which is a hint that that might be a less expensive time to go.
I fell in love with cats, thanks to THS sits. I actually considered doing a local cat sit just to get my fix, since I can’t get my own cats, because of my territorial dog.
We belong to Home Exchange. Reciprocal exchanges are my favorite way to travel—we stay in your house while you stay in my house! Win, win.
Home Exchange also has a points system. While we are pet sitting, I can let a couple stay in my home and earn points. Then we can use the points to find a place to stay elsewhere in the future.
There is a newer category called “hospitality stays” or “private rooms” in which hosts charge points for a guest room in their house, while they are home. We have not been hosts or guests in this category yet, but I love the idea of staying with a family in a foreign country.
University beds are often available throughout the year but they are no longer cheap - comparable with Travelodges or Premier Inns in the UK.
As for reaching out to Airbnb hosts it can be difficult for the hosts as the company will suspect that they might book someone outside of the platform and ‘punish’ the host accordingly.
In the UK, mostly in London, I have used Easyhotels a lot (Easyhotel.com). You will always get an en-suite (very small bathroom however) which is the basic room - usually not much room beside the bed. If you want a window you pay extra, if a remote to use the tv extra. The longer ahead you book, the cheaper.
Obviously there are hostels, I use them frequently between sits.
Also night buses and overnight trains, if the distance allows for it, will kill two birds with one stone, it combines travel and accommodation in one price.
If I am flying to my next sit I always check to see whether it is feasible to sleep in the airport the night before. There is a website to get information on this https://www.sleepinginairports.net/
If you are using booking.com make sure you build up to get level three genius discounts.
Unless there is a huge difference in price I always book with free cancellation, then check near the time if I can get a better price. The Vio app is very useful for searching for last minute accommodation.
It is also possible that your host may accommodate you for an additional night, there is certainly no harm in asking
A host on AirBnB can send you a private offer on the platform, and for the instances I know of, I think the host used that possibility (I know for a fact of one, as I negotiated it). I then got a private offer and it was a quite short time limit to answer, I think 24 hours. In our case, I had negotiated the price for students coming for a job shadowing period, so the students then reached out to the host again to have him resend it, because it took too long when I forwarded them the offer. This was this spring, so not long ago. Everything went nicely and all involved were happy.
When sending such a private offer on platform, both parties keep the pro’s of the platform regarding payment, insurance and such - I think many would prefer that.
Great thread topic. It’s useful for sitters, but I think it’s also useful for HOs. Partially because they travel too, but also because I see so often HOs who wildly overestimate the amount of money sitters save by sitting (particularly on Facebook with HOs saying they could Airbnb their home for $350 a night so they think that means the sitter is saving that much when in reality most sitters would not choose a 5-bedroom house in the suburbs if they were looking for an Airbnb).
I spent two years traveling Europe before I started housesitting. I stayed almost exclusively in Airbnbs. I like to travel slow, so I typically booked for at least a month. Many Airbnbs offer long-stay discounts - some as much as 50%. Typically, those show up without having to reach out to the owner. Some have it automatically in the system that stays of at least 28 days get the discount. Many also have smaller discounts for week long stays. Sometimes it’s cheaper to stay for 7 days than for 5. You can contact the owners if they don’t include a discount to inquire about a longer stay discount. I stayed in a beautiful flat in Edinburgh for about 5 months. I had stayed for a couple weeks previously and loved Edinburgh and the flat was perfect for me and my daughter. I reached out to the owner and he gave me a great deal for the long stay (a bigger discount that I expected) and sent it to me privately for me to book.
I’ve stayed in some great places for much less money that people think it would cost. Especially in lower cost parts of Europe.
As others have mentioned there are many low cost options. I’ve stayed in a lot of Premier Inns in the UK. Although, it seems they are more expensive than they used to be. YHA hostels in the UK are great and you can get a private room. There are a number of other low-cost hotel chains throughout Europe. Also, overnight trains and ferries are great since they cover your transportation and accommodations. As mentioned already in the thread, University dorms are often available and inexpensive.
When traveling long-term there are a lot of options. Although, I also enjoy an occasionally splurge on an expensive hotel.
I have had more than one host reach out to me offering a last-minute sit because they canceled their scheduled sitter when the sitter asked for an additional night. I am not a fan of either the host or the sitter asking for dates beyond what was posted.
I do not like staying in a home when a host is there, but if I did want to, I would say, “I’m arriving in your city the day before the sit and plan to stay in ‘x’ hotel”. That gives them the opportunity to respond and say, “Oh, you can stay with us if you would prefer” - or, to simply say, “Oh yes, that is a comfortable hotel”.
Asking for the extra night is out of bounds in my opinion, puts the homeowner on the spot, and can start off the sit on the wrong foot.
I have stayed with many families in foreign countries through Workaway and to date that is my favorite way to travel. That statement includes the first class travel I had before that at 5 star hotels, etc. I have aged myself out of Workaway though. Staying with a local family you experience the area the way the locals do, eat either homemade meals with them or eat at restaurants in the area and not tourist restaurants that are designed to be Americanized. You see clothing stores, shoe stores that the locals shop at. You learn suggestions where to explore that you don’t find on TripAdvisor that is just trying for you to sign up for a tourist tour. Most importantly you learn the real culture of that country which a lot of tourist never do. I love going to a supermarket in another country. So different from the ones I see in the US. In Italy you can’t touch the fruits with your hand to see the ripeness. That is considered unsanitary. The supermarkets provide gloves to put on to pick up the fruit. Then you dispose of the glove.
I would say that I stay the night before for maybe 80% of sits, it seems to be expected for most of the sits I have done.
One of the first things I check is when exactly they want me to arrive and if this is the day before, or on the day of travel. It’s very important if I’m organising flights.
Yes, there are ways of asking that aren’t so direct, I don’t think I have ever asked, “can I stay, an extra night?” It comes up much more naturally when discussing logistics.
On rare occasions, I’ve messaged hosts when I’ll arrive in town, sometimes a day or two early and they said something like, but of course you should come stay with us early.
Separately, sometimes I’ve noted in applications that I typically fly in a day ahead, to avoid ripples from travel delays affecting the sit — usually hosts then naturally invite me to stay a day ahead and offer to treat me to dinner or cook.
Hospitality has existed long before THS and many folks already have the experience and instincts to host, even before joining THS. I look for those kind of hosts and avoid ones who need to learn how to be hospitable. To me, if someone needs guidelines to tell them how to be hospitable, no thanks. They can learn and practice on someone else.
I just searched on Facebook and the one I was thinking of is Host A Sister - Pet Sitting, which doesn’t have age restrictions, AFAIK. That one has 70k members.
Anyhow, there are a bunch of Host a Sister groups, so there might be others that offer sits. There also are many other house sitting and home exchange groups on Facebook, some for specific countries or world regions.
