A great place to stay: Booking affordable accommodations!

Accommodations can make up a large portion of your travel budget (next to flights), so finding affordable accommodations is huge when trying to keep expenses down.

Unfortunately, if you are traveling to a popular place during a popular time (I.E. London for Christmas or Italy for the summer) you are going to have to pay the price.

There is no magic platform that will save you 75% on your accommodations.

However, there are definitely ways to save money on accommodations including comparing prices across platforms, timing your booking right, joining a loyalty program, staying outside the city center and more!

How Much Should You Expect to Pay for Accommodations?

Again, before we figure out how to get find affordable accommodations, we need a realistic baseline of what you should expect to pay for accommodations.

Obviously accommodation prices are going to vary a lot depending on destination and time of year.

It also depends on personal preference (luxury, budget, etc.)

As a mid-budget traveler (somewhere between hostels and luxury hotels), I typically use $60-70 a person per night as a goal price.

In all honesty, this can be HARD in the United States. But this can EASILY be done in Europe and basically everywhere else.

In the South of France we spent $72 per person per night for 2 people. We even stayed in Monaco for a night and the South of France is typically a pricey destination.

And, of course, traveling in a group of 3 girls lowers costs when we split the room 3 ways instead of 2.

But, this is going to be very hard to do if you are traveling solo. To get something $60-70 a night, you are going to have to go the hostel route; otherwise you will just have to pay more.

When traveling, we are typically on the go seeing as many places and doing as many activities as possible. Therefore, splurging on a cuter and fancier hotel or AirBNB is not something we often do.

Here are the BEST things you can do to get the cheapest price on accommodations.

Compare Prices Across Platforms

One of the most important things you can do to score affordable accommodations is COMPARE across multiple sights.

I’ve been leaning more toward hotel rooms when I am traveling with 4 or less people; I find the luggage storage, breakfast availability, people at the front to answer questions, etc is more convenient.

Compare hotel prices: Booking.com, Expedia, Priceline, directly with the hotel. Many times you get deals booking directly with the hotel (they don’t like 3rd party people). Or, if you stay loyal with a 3rd party, you often get discounts and upgrades (I do through booking.com due to booking with them so often)

Compare VRBO and AirBNB. To each other and to hotels. They will have some overlapping options, but they will also have a few different housing options on each site. The fees will also vary, so look at both and book the best price!

The downfall is that there are several fees added to the total cost. If you travel with three to four or more people, then usually these fees are minimally a factor once split between everyone. 

But, as always, compare the hotel prices to AirBnB/VRBO prices to see which will be more affordable for you.

Be Loyal to One Program

If you have a good experience with a site, sign-up for an account so you can start racking up rewards.

Booking.com has discounts that increase the more you book with them. I almost exclusively book through Booking.com now because I get such good discounts and/or perks and upgrades with them.

On the most recent trip I booked, I saved $30 a night, got free breakfast included (that normally was a fee) and a room upgrade by booking through Booking.com.

Expedia also has their own kind of loyalty program that allows for discounts and deals intermittently.

Many chain hotels such as Hilton also have decent rewards for being loyal. The only downfall to being loyal to one certain hotel is that you are limited on destinations and locations in those destinations.

Book Earlier Rather Than Later

One of the most effective ways to save money on accommodations is to book them at the right time. And the right time is sooner rather than later; don’t be a procrastinator.

This is coming from a procrastinator. More times than not, we have paid more for accommodations because we waited too long, things started filling up and prices started sky rocketing.

Try to book at least two-three months prior to travel to ensure things don’t fill up and you don’t pay more.

This is especially true if you are going to a popular destination and/or at a popular time. The more the housing fills up, the more the prices are!

For our trip at the beginning of June, I booked our accommodations at the beginning of February and they were already starting to get full due to summer being a popular time to travel. The sooner the better.

Book Further from the City Center

The more centrally located the accommodation, the more expensive. I’ve had to book further outside the city center to keep the hotel price within my budget.

It often doesn’t even take many blocks away from the city center to see a pretty good drop in hotel prices.

However, to compensate for the distance from the city center (especially if you have to get pretty far out), I do recommend booking a hotel that is within a short walk to a metro or public transportation that can get you to the city center quicker.

Split Your Time Between City & Smaller Towns

If accommodations are wildly expensive in the city, consider splitting your time between the city and smaller surrounding towns.

I’ve used this technique a few times due to hotel prices within the city. And, usually it turns out that I like the smaller towns just as much as the larger cities!

When we visited Amsterdam, we spent a couple nights in Amsterdam and then spent one night in Utrecht and one night in Harlaam due to the outrageous price of Amsterdam hotels because of a music festival (that I wasn’t aware of when I booked flights.)

But we ended up loving the smaller towns and saved money at the same time.

A 5 day Amsterdam itinerary seeing the windmills, castles, canals and more!

Consider a Hostel

How affordable do you want your accommodations? lol

While I’m not on the hostel train anymore, hostels are a great way to save money when traveling overseas. The prices are USUALLY reasonable per person and more affordable than a hotel room.

And, for those who are not so keen on sharing a room with strangers, many hostels have private room options. However, bear in mind that the private rooms will reflect prices closer to a hotel room and be less of a deal than the shared rooms.

Our most recent hostel experience was in 2023 when we went to Copenhagen for Christmas markets. Copenhagen is expensive and even more expensive during Christmas time. So, we opted to book a private hostel room that was one of the only things in our budget.

We booked through Hostelworld.com (we also booked through here on our 2017 backpacking trip) and we’ve always had a great experience booking through them!

When it comes to hostels, be sure to read reviews! People are usually good about reviewing and you don’t want to end up at a hostel with bad reviews!