For most people, accommodation is their primary expense while travelling, but it is also one of the areas where you can potentially save the most money. As a result, since I’ve been travelling, my largest expenses have actually been food and transport. Here are some resources and techniques for saving cash on accommodation:
Travel Hospitality Exchange
The main service that I use to organize accommodation is couch surfing. Couch surfing is based on the concept of ‘hospitality exchange’ which is simply offering space in your home to a traveler to sleep, wash, eat, etc without any money changing hands. In addition to receiving free accommodation, you also meet some truly amazing people.
I used to host travelers before I left home and now I try to (almost exclusively) stay with couch-surfing hosts when I travel. I estimate that around 30% of my total potential travel costs have been saved by using Couch-surfing. In addition to couch surfing, I have also used another hospitality exchange site called Be Welcome. It is a newer site with fewer users, but it is growing steadily in popularity. If you are seeing the world by bike, Warm Showers is an excellent hospitality exchange network that is specifically available to cycle tours.
Because couch-surfing is an integral part of any budget or free traveler’s accommodation arsenal, I’ve included some more detail below in the form of steps to getting started with couch surfing:
Set Up Your Profile
The first thing you need to do is set up a profile on the Couch-surfing website. It’s pretty straightforward and just like any other social network, but with Couch-surfing it really pays to have a comprehensive profile with as much information on it as possible. By doing this, you increase the likelihood of successfully finding a guest or host because they will already feel as if they know a lot about you before meeting you in person. It also enables prospective guests and hosts to see if they have anything in common with you, and to determine whether they deem you trustworthy.
Ensure that you add plenty of photos so that they know who they are looking for if you’re meeting them in a public place. Also, if you are planning on hosting, include a photo of where your guest will be staying. Fill out all sections of your profile and keep it light-hearted, but most importantly be yourself. You want to make sure that when you meet a guest or host, they don’t get a nasty surprise when you turn out to be nothing like your profile.
Get Some References
The main security feature that is built into Couch-surfing is the referencing system. Basically, when someone stays with you or vice versa, you leave each other a reference, which is a comment that illustrates your experience with that person. References can be positive, negative or neutral. Thankfully, the vast majority of references are positive. Personally, I’ve been fortunate enough never to have a bad experience with Couch-surfing. Having a few references makes it much easier to host and surf, because the more positive references you have, the more trustworthy and experienced you will appear to other users.
When you are first getting started it may be difficult to get references, but the good news is that you don’t necessarily need to stay with someone or have someone stay with you to get a reference. You can also leave references for personal friends from home, people you’ve traveled with or friends who are overseas. Simply find some good friends who have Couch-surfing profiles and leave references for each other.
Get Verified (Optional)
Verification is another security measure that Couch-surfing has implemented to ensure that their members are who they say they are, and live where they say they live. You pay a small donation to the Couch-surfing website online and they send you a postcard (and some cool stickers) in the mail with a special code on it. Once you have received the postcard you send the code back to Couch-surfing and they add a big ol’ green tick to your profile to show other users that you’re verified. If you’re a host and you move house, you have to get verified again. They also offer phone verification and personal identity verification.
I’d recommend getting verified in as many ways as possible because it supports the community, makes you more appealing to hosts and extra security is always a good idea.
Attend An Event
Most Couch-surfing locations around the world have a weekly or bi-weekly community event where hosts from that city or town and their guests, or just anyone interested in making new friends, get together over a few drinks. Usually these events are at small bars where it is quiet enough for people to sit and make great conversation. To find an event near your home or in places you’re travelling to, simply visit the ‘events’ page on Couch-surfing and enter the name of the city or town you’re interested in. Not all places where there are hosts will have scheduled events, but usually there is something on, particularly in big cities. Consider starting one in your hometown if there isn’t one already to get the community flourishing.
Not all events are regular scheduled meetup at a bar. Sometimes members will host an event to go hiking, on a road trip, a city walking tour or a house party. There are loads of possibilities for new members to get connected with the wider Couch-surfing community.
Start Surfing And Hosting!
Once you’ve set up your profile, got some references under your belt and met some fellow Couch-surfing members, you’re ready to get started with hosting or surfing.
Volunteer For Your Keep
There are a bunch of sites out there that offer an index of hosts where you can volunteer at their home, charity or business (usually farms, schools or hostels) in exchange for free food and accommodation. The one that I use most and have always had good experiences with is Help Exchange. HelpX hosts are located all over the world and their working arrangements vary greatly, so you could be working on a farm in the middle of rural Japan, at a yoga retreat in Spain, at someone’s family home in France, in a remote village in Nepal – the possibilities are seemingly endless.
I really love HelpX because in addition to saving money on food and accommodation, you get to know so many amazing people, and you really get to connect with a place, rather than just moving through it as most travelers do. You usually become part of the local community closest to where you are helping, and of course you bond greatly with your hosts and any other helpers who are present. Of course, you need to do a little bit of work to earn your keep, but it is a great opportunity to learn new skills, it can be a welcome change from full-time travel, it’s good exercise and simply good fun depending on the type of work. Typically working hours are between 20 and 30 per week so it isn’t much, really. HelpX tenures vary by host and by how long you want to stay, but my experiences to date have been a month long on average.
Other excellent organisations that provide a similar platform are Work Away and WWOOF. All three of these work exchange networks are highly recommended if you’re looking to save money, contribute to something and have an authentic travel experience.
Travel Camping
Camping is one of my favorite modes of accommodation, mainly because I love the outdoors, but it also offers a deeper, more personal interaction with a place. Feeling the earth beneath your feet and waking up to the sounds of nature, which of course vary greatly wherever you go in the world, are great ways to mentally and physically ‘tune in’ to a location. Also, campsites are usually much cheaper than hostels, and often have cleaner and larger toilet and shower facilities.
I also enjoy wild camping if I find a nice enough place and can afford to go without some basic amenities for a night or two. Be careful though, in many countries wild camping is illegal so do your research. Of course, camping is not the best option if you are visiting a large city unless there is a campsite nearby with excellent public transport links, but this is rare.
If you’re in an urban area, sometimes you can find a host on Camp in my Garden, a steadily growing network of hosts who will allow you to pitch your tent in their backyard for a small fee.
When searching for campsites, both wild and purpose-built, I use a few online resources. Wikicamps is an awesome app that indexes campsites in Australia, New Zealand and the USA. The best site for Europe is ACSI Eurocampings.
Travel Hostels And Guesthouses
Hostels are amazing fun but cost money and are usually not as comfortable, in my opinion, as staying with a couch-surfing host, not to mention they are full of other travelers who know just as little about a place as I do. That said, they are an awesome place to be social with other travelers, and often they even provide free breakfast and/or dinner. I always try to stay in smaller hostels of 50 beds or less, as they generally have fewer large groups travelling through, so the social interaction is more plentiful and personal. Also, the communal areas can be less raucous, again contributing to an enhanced social environment. Of course, in many large cities the only option, if I don’t get a couch-surfing host, is to stay in a large hostel. Don’t forget your earplugs.
Some hostels do provide excellent local guidance and experiences. Again, I find that the smaller hostels are better for this. Free walking tours, historical and cultural information, and language tips can all be found for free if the staff at the Hostel are knowledgeable and willing to help.
I usually use Hostelworld to find a hostel I like, based on ratings and reviews, or contact a hostel directly via email to make a booking. This is actually more beneficial for the hostel as they don’t lose any money through fees to Hostelworld.
In developing countries, I would include guesthouses under this banner. Hostels are available, but often I have stayed in guesthouses in a private room at a fraction of the cost. They are often family-owned and super friendly, too. Hostelworld has many guesthouses listed, in addition I often use Booking.com and Agoda, especially in Asia. That said, I usually don’t book in advance as guesthouses are so plentiful in developing countries that you can often just walk in and bargain for a cheap room. This is especially viable if you are travelling somewhere off-season, and it is always a fun and intrepid experience to jump off the bus in a new town and search for a super cheap and friendly place to stay.
Travel House Sitting
House-sitting is another great way to save cash on accommodation, while still having a genuine travel experience. By minding someone’s home for a time you are placing yourself in the shoes of a local. You have the opportunity to live someone else’s life for a conveniently temporary period of time, and you get free accommodation! Of course, house-sitting comes with some responsibility, the extent of which depends on each individual scenario. For example, you may be asked to look after pets, maintain gardens and may even be given a vehicle to use. As a result, it pays to have references available for your hosts to check out, especially if you’re just starting out in the world of house-sitting. If you’ve ever done any house/pet/babysitting, no matter how informal, get your hosts to write you references that highlight how responsible you are. Even getting references from senior work colleagues or family friends can improve your chances of getting a house-sit; the more references the better.
There is a plethora of house-sitting sites that serve as an agent between you, the sitter, and potential hosts around the world. Mind My House is exceptionally popular, as are Nomador and Housem8. There are many country-specific sites too, and a quick Google search will help you to find these. Note that most sites charge a membership fee, which is negligible when you consider the potential savings that you’ll accrue from all your free accommodation. Home Exchange is another network that is similar to house-sitting, but you actually swap homes with someone else for a period of time.
Travel Short-Stay Accommodation
Short-stay accommodation usually refers to staying in a private residence, similar to couch-surfing but you pay the property owner a nightly fee. The largest and most commonly used platform for short-stay accommodation is Airbnb and I’ve had nothing but great experiences using Airbnb. Wimdu is also solid.
Short stay is an excellent option if you’re travelling in a large group where you can stay in your very own large house or apartment. When dividing the cost among the group, the per person/bed price is usually much lower than if you all paid individually in a hotel or Hostel. On top of that, your host (who sometimes lives in the house at the same time as you are staying) will give you some great local tips, and breakfast is often included too.
