Reduce Your Travel Budget with Low or No-Cost Lodging
Tips to Finding Inexpensive Out-of-Town Accommodations
Family and Friends
Growing up outside of Chicago, our home was often a landing spot for out-of-town friends and relatives. Bunking with family and friends is still a great option for keeping vacation costs low.
Tips to making your visit successful:
Honesty is the best policy. Make sure you accurately communicate how long you will be staying and how many people are traveling with you. Don't arrive with surprises.
Come bearing gifts. A nice gift is just an appropriate way to show your thanks for accommodations that can save you hundreds of dollars.
Don't disrupt the family's routine. Make it clear to your hosts that, while you want to visit with them, you don't expect them to entertain you.
Leave it as you found it. Make the bed, hang up the towels, wash your dishes. You should not make more work for your hosts. Remember, they are doing you a favor.
Home Exchange
While the odds of you finding love with Jude Law or Kate Winslet as in the movie "The Holiday" are practically non-existent, home swapping can still be a great way to obtain travel lodging on the cheap.
While swapping homes with someone you know is one option, websites like Homeexchange.com and Thevacationexchange.com have now made it possible for you to swap with strangers. In some cases, the arrangement is based on a reciprocal swap, but not always. Some homeowners allow you to use their home even if they are not interested in using yours at the exact same time. Some listings even include the use of the homeowner's automobile. Check each listing to ensure that you understand all the rights and responsibilities included with the swap as homeowners customize their own swap contracts, including limiting the number of occupants, whether or not they allow pets, and other details.
Couch Surfing
Better suited to solo travelers, couch surfing is one of the newer forms of finding inexpensive accommodations. A loose definition of couch surfing is crashing at someone's home for a few days, sleeping in whatever space is available - including the couch. The practice has become much more organized thanks in part to the site Couchsurfing.org. Couchsurfing. org is a non-profit organization that screens both surfers and hosts, maintaining profiles on both. Surfers can browse host homes in the areas that interest them. Hosts can review surfer profiles and decide for themselves whether or not they wish to host a person.
Hostels
While often called youth hostels as they have historically catered to a student clientele, today's hostels cater to a varied group of travelers. Websites like Hostels.com and Hostelling International maintain databases of thousands of hostels worldwide, including family hostels that offer accommodations for those travelling with children. Both sites allow travelers to rate their experiences for the benefit of future travelers.
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Published by Martha Fry - Featured Contributor in Business & Finance
Martha Fry works as a freelance writer and editor. An accountant who worked at Peat, Marwick & Mitchell and Price Waterhouse, she also does financial consulting and often writes on business and personal fina... View profile
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6 Comments
Post a CommentGreat ways to save while traveling:)
Very cool, thanks!
happy draft day, anybody else dealing with glitches?
We camp, it's about as low-cost as you can get! cheers ;)
Teriffic writing:) thanks for the research
Very interesting alternatives but I would defintely proceed with caution on some of them.