In today’s weekly video, I am outline the process I use for finding cheap places to stay while adventuring. The system is a little messy but it travel tested which makes me confident it will work for you!

My Process For Finding Cheap Places To Stay

Here we go!

  1. Use Facebook’s Graph Search to find forgotten friends who live in cool places
  2. Search Airbnb for great deals in cool cities. I LOVE this service and it is how I do most of my travels. Through it, I have met tons of really cool, people, saved a ton of money and had the opportunity to live as a local in dozens of cities around the world. The only downside is that after staying in one spot for a month, the economics break down and it is cheaper to stay in another source.
  3. Scorer VRBO.com for vacation rentals. This is best for when you are looking to stay in one spot more than one month.
  4. Use Hipmunk.com to search Hotels, Motels, B&Bs, Airbnb’s and little known lodging options. It also includes an ecstasy score to help you figure out the best places as gauged by walking distance to cool things! :-)
  5. Do research on TripAdvisor. I have found that this site is the single best resource fo researching lodging options online. Specifically, I am a fan of their filterable top 100 lists by city.
  6. Priceline. This is where I have found most of my killer deals on lodging. It is very hit or miss but everyone once in a while it has some crazy good deals on hotels.
  7. Lastly, if you find yourself in a random major city without a place to stay, you are doing something right. :-) If this happens to you check out the HotelTonight app. It has saved my butt a few times!

That is the process that I use when traveling but I am sure it is not yet perfect. What tips, tools or ideas do all of you use? Please share so that all of us can save a few bucks.

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Update! I had some great comments from a bunch of you. Other great resources include:

  • Couchsurfing. A oldie but a goodie! My experiences have been mediocre the last person I talked to, a solo female traveler, used it to travel all the way across Australia and loved it! Thanks Himanshu, Simon, John!
  • Hotels.com – A signature resource for when you need to find a hotel. I used to use them a lot but now focus more on Airbnb as an alternative (I liked the social aspect of the latter option)