Why Stay At A Hostel?
It’s a slightly disastrous state of affairs; but when it comes to travel expenses, travel isn’t the most high-priced part of it. Finding somewhere to stay is. If you’re wandering in one of the peak holiday seasons, getting a hotel room that isn’t a hole in the wall can be rather challenging at anything under $80 a night. Now there are lots of people out there who wouldn’t mind doing without all the niceties that go with proper hotel rooms. If you were willing to give those up, would cheaper rooms or even free accommodations be possible? Well, good accommodations sincerely are likely for very little money. If you wouldn’t mind thinking outside the box a little bit.
For instance, have you ever tried low-priced rooms at the Youth Hostel, the YMCA or any of the other hosteling networks? You don’t have to be youthful or anything to stay in these places. All you have to do is to sign up for a membership in one of these places and go stay at less than $30 a day. Commonly, you need to share a dormitory with other people, and you to share a communal bathroom. But these low-priced rooms are dramatically clean, and you don’t even have to go eat outside. They have a well-equipped communal kitchen usually. The great part is, you get to meet other people from all over the world. Try hostels.com for tens of thousands of listings.
Let’s say that the place you’re going to doesn’t have a boarding house. Is there another choice in cheap rooms? You bet there are.
How about housesitting for someone or applying to stay at the monastery? Catholic districts anywhere in the world are very particular about being hospitable to travelers. You can ask at any monastery, and you get a room for about $40 a day. If that doesn’t seem quite your cup of tea, you could try logging on to HouseCarers to see if there are homeowners anywhere that you are going who want someone to how housesit for them or take care of their pets or something. Not only are such accommodations free, you actually make money staying there.
One of the cheapest ways to get a roof over your head is to just set up camp somewhere – in a camping ground wherever you’re going. Of course, this isn’t anything like a decent room in a hotel. But it’s something to think about. For half the cost of a hotel room, you could hire an RV for a couple of nights too and it wouldn’t be much like roughing it.
Speaking of renting a room, how about a renting a room at the home of some person local to the town you’re visiting? About the most fun way of doing this is to not rent a room, but to grab a couch for free at someone’s home. Couchsurfing will show you how to do this –with thousands of couches across the world for you to choose from.
The author is a retired expat living in Thailand and loves Isaan and hotel in thailand
Processing your request, Please wait....
