Lodging
A roof over our heads where we can rest & refresh before embarking on the day’s adventures.
Hotels & Hostels
For the traditionalists, there are so many intriguing hotels and hostels out there for any taste or budget.
Butikk: Finds great boutique hotels and hostels for a great stay with a design flair to it.
Cheap Accommodation: Cheap Accommodation has thousands of properties, most of them skewing toward the budget end. It doesn’t search availability.
Famous Hostels: Carefully selected group of hostels that each have their own unique features.
Hostels Club: A chain of hostels spread out all over the world and if you sign up with a membership, you can get discounts.
Hotels.com: Hotels.com is a search engine that allows you to search and book at “more than 25,000 properties worldwide”
Mr. and Mrs. Smith: Mr. & Mrs. Smith caters specifically to those who want to book boutique and luxury hotels directly through them. They also sell guidebooks.
Roommate Hotels: Roommate Hotels are a group of design-centric hotels in well-placed locations in city centers. You can book directly through them.
Room Wizard: Room Wizard is a search engine that searches through all the leading hotel booking websites at once.
Travel Intelligence: Travel Intelligence let’s you search through about 3,000 hotels handpicked by 120 travel writers. You can search by different categories to pick out an ideal travel experience.
Unusual Hotels of the World: Unusual Hotels of the World collects all the interesting and unique hotels from around the world together in one place. If you want to book, they have links that take you directly to the hotel website to book from there.
Welcome Beyond: Welcome Beyond hand-picks beautiful exclusive vacation homes and boutique hotels that they feel are unique and original.
Rooms to Rent (Peer-to-Peer):
For those who want to rent directly from other local people. Always take precautions, but also enjoy being able to interact directly with locals and pick their brains for their favorite places.
Airbnb: Rooms to rent directly from the owners which range from quirky shelters to single rooms to whole apartments/homes
Camp In My Garden: Rent somebody’s garden out as a campsite; ranges from free to low-cost.
Outpost P2P: Combines many peer to peer travel sites into an easy search for rooms, transportation, and activities wherever you’re travelling
! RoomSurfer: Similar to Airbnb in that you rent rooms directly from the owners but with a social twist. Choose your destination (limited at this time), choose up to 4 interests, and the site will attempt to match you up with locals with similar interests.
Wimdu: Rooms to rent directly from the owners which range from quirky shelters to single rooms to whole apartments/homes
Couchsurfing
For those who want to just crash for free or a nominal amount on someone’s else’s couch while traveling and meet up with friendly local people. Couchsurfers (and those offering couches) should take safety precautions.
CouchSurfing.org: A worldwide network connecting people who need a couch to sleep on with those who have a free couch.
Global Freeloaders: Global Freeloaders is an online couchsurfing community.
Hospitality Club: Hospitality Club is a community of members around the world that help each other when they’re traveling, from couchsurfing, guided tour, or just a friendly face.
SERVAS: This free site started as a club in 1950 and its membership process is much more thorough than the other sites – it even includes an interview.
Tripping: Still in Beta, this is a free site started by couchsurfers who wanted to improve hospitality exchange and so far it’s looking good and working refreshingly well
Work-Stays
For those who don’t mind a little work, great opportunities to get free room and board in exchange for helping out.
HelpX: online listing of host organic farms, non-organic farms, farmstays, homestays, ranches, lodges, B&Bs, backpackers hostels and even sailing boats who invite volunteer helpers to stay with them short-term in exchange for food and accommodation.Free membership allows basic access to host information and paid membership (20€ or US$27) allows full access.
Workaway: site set up to promote fair work exchange between budget travelers, language learners or culture seekers and families, individuals or organizations who are looking for help with a range of varied and interesting activities.
WWOOF: World-Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms, is an international group of organic farm owners who offer room and board to volunteers who spend up to five hours per day helping out on the farms. The type of work varies from farm to farm and could include anything from composting to wine making.
Legend:
!: New
$: Costs Money
*: Affiliate
^: Personally Used & Liked
?: Possibly Inactive
%: US only