September 16, 2013

How we spent three weeks in Italy for free (or close to it)

Our one and only HelpX experience is done and dusted, and we’ve lived to tell the tale.

Adjusting to life on the farmstead was way more difficult than I could have imagined, and not in the way I would have thought. It was a whole lot of land, with a big veggie garden, tons of fruit trees, chickens, dogs, and horses, run by a musician. The stereotype of flaky creatives exists for a reason.

The hardest part? The lack of routine when it came to meals.

Lunch could be at 1pm or 2pm, or as late as 4pm. Dinner was always late, sometimes 9pm, and sometimes closer to midnight. The long gaps were only worsened by the fact that while we ate amazingly well – in terms of quality and flavour – we didn’t eat much. Our hosts ate like birds, and I have no idea how they functioned, especially on hard labour days. T and I both have fast metabolisms and healthy appetites – and we were burning through food practically within minutes. On top of all that, we largely ate vegetarian (with few starches/carbs). Again, that was great, but not in terms of keeping us fuelled.

The heart of the house

In week one, we were helping get the place ready for a small concert to be held on the grounds at the end of the week.

The hired handyman/groundskeeper came about every other day, and wound up beating us to a ton of the things on our to-do list, not to mention doing them a million times better. It was like we were just in his way most of the time. Getting used to doing physical labour took a few days. I was so exhausted, I started taking siestas in the middle of the day (though I later adjusted and no longer needed to nap).

In week two, things were a little more settled.

We went along on a supermarket trip and got some extra food items. T got increasingly frustrated by some of our host’s personality quirks/management style, and by a few of the long days we put in. I got frustrated by his attitude. Personally, I take cues from those around me, and I’m not comfortable relaxing while my host is busy doing stuff, even if I’ve already racked up my hours for the day. I believe in putting in what it takes to get stuff done rather than simply doing the bare minimum of hours – and of always going the extra mile, giving before you get, giving more than you get. (Obviously within reason; I see no reason to bust your butt for years for a corporate without ever seeing any rewards for it, for example.) I really do wonder if his outlook would have been different if we had been getting paid, and then paying for board, for example, rather than it being a straight exchange of work for board. Getting used to working again after such a long break was also probably a challenge.

In week three, T came across a viper in the house while going into the toilet.

We took a day trip to nearby Viterbo, where we stuffed ourselves silly with gelato, pasta, and burgers (him). It was a full house, with a couple renting the next door cottage, and a family of four crashing in the main house as well. (The young boys were undisciplined terrors, though they had their moments.)

Corn we picked and strung up

For our first and only HelpX experience, I don’t think we could have done better!

There were trips to the nearby beach and lake, a free concert, a night out with our host’s son (SO many underage Italian kids partying up at the local yacht club/bar), and dinner parties. A lot of them. We had no idea what was going on conversation-wise a lot of the time, but it was good fun, with interesting and lively characters. Everyone was so friendly, and those who did speak English engaged us in conversation, wanting to know how we liked Europe, what New Zealand is like, and offering travel tips. Almost everyone was a musician (I never thought I’d meet an opera singer, let alone this many), and we were treated to plenty of performances. Plus, we looked forward to dinner party nights, as there was usually ample food for a change.

Old Etruscan tombs/caves on the farm

In a nutshell: an unforgettable three weeks; a frugal three weeks (one day trip, a couple of extra supermarket stops, a couple of nights out and a small contribution to the house kitty); a unique way to farewell Italy.

September 12, 2013

Three Thing Thursday: Embarrassing travel moments

travel fails - embarrassing travel moments

By: Chris Griffith

I am a quarter of a century old. That puts me firmly in my mid-20s. Yet I still do some incredibly stupid things on a regular basis. Witness:

Wake up in the middle of the night. Realise I forgot to completely fill out the address section on the postcard I sent off to one of my best friends earlier in the day. The woman who sold me the stamps and (as far as I gathered through rudimentary sign language) promised to mail it for me probably wouldn’t notice – and if she did, how would she even track me down? HEADDESK,

Go down to reception to pay for our hostel room. Hand over a 1000 baht note and wait patiently for my change. There’s an awkward moment, then the staffer delicately informs me that I actually only gave him 100 baht – well short of the 400-something baht due. What can I say? Dealing with foreign currency is a bitch, especially when the bills look similar.

I’m chilling out in our room, messing around on the computer. I hear voices outside – it sounds like someone has actually come out all the way down to the end of the hall and gone out onto the smoker’s balcony just around in front of our window. Then I realise our (semi-transparent, netting) curtains aren’t drawn – and I’m sitting there on the bed at eye level in nothing more than my knickers. (Hey, Bangkok is hot, and all we had was a weak ceiling fan.)

When did you last embarrass yourself?

September 9, 2013

Italy, aka ‘New Zealand upside down’

“New Zealand! It’s Italy, upside down!” exclaimed the swarthy proprietor at B&B Mercurio in Bologna. Palpably delighted to have their first ever guests from New Zealand, he and his partner were all smiles as they asked us about the rest of our itinerary and assured us, with a meaningful look at T, that we were in safe hands (if size is any indication, then sure).

Indeed, New Zealand is the opposite of Italy in so many ways, and not just as a physical mirror image. We can’t hold a candle to them in food, fashion, or history. Everything we encountered was a revelation.

Some cannonballs with your old city walls?

Canals in Venice don't smell

The canals in Venice didn’t smell at all, even at the sticky height of summer.

What can I say about Rome that hasn’t already been said countless times before? Simply stupendous.

Skulls. Real ones, en masse. At the public Fontanelle catacomb cemetery. Possibly the best free sight in Naples.

Oh, and the statues at the archaeological museum. So many are replicas of Greek originals, but still enthralling.

Creepy concrete blocks along the Amalfi coast.

Also recommend: wharf jumping alongside squealing Italian kids at Minori, and taking a breezy ferry ride one way and a bus ride the other – the experiences are total polar opposites, and seeing the drivers handle the insanely tight clifftop turns is mind-blowing. (The traffic was a non-issue, despite all our hostel receptionist’s insistence that it would be dire.)

The castle – beautifully preserved, and just like the kind you learn to draw as a child – in medieval Bracciano.

Inside the walled town centre of Viterbo.

Where we saw this delightful scene, starring a frou-frou purple bike.

Our very first days in Italy were mundane, but not in a bad way. Lazy days, starting with panzerotti from the local bakery in Bologna. A botched attempt at doing laundry, successful only because one Italian matron was kind enough to flag down a young woman walking her dog outside the shop, who spoke English and could translate for us.

People going out of their way to help us in Italy, in fact, were one of the best things about the country – like the two old gentlemen in Naples, who helped us get on the right bus to Via Fontanelle, and then to navigate our way to the cemetery itself, respectively. The elderly man and woman who helped us find our hostel amongst the back alleys in Salerno. And of course, those bubbly owners at B&B Mercurio. I cannot rave about them enough (damn you Booking.com for not inviting me to leave a review this time!). A five-star boutique B&B, with a luxurious and gleaming bathroom, lollies on a stack of clean towels – even a sparking white flatscreen smart TV, for goodness sake – at two-star prices.

I’m just about ready to move on to the next adventure, but giving up fresh Italian mozzarella is going to be a bitch.

September 7, 2013

Why trains beat planes, according to me

By: Artur Bergman

It’s true that trains aren’t always the cheapest option for getting around Europe. With so many budget carriers, air travel can be dirt cheap – not to mention quicker – and then there’s always the option of taking a cheap bus. But they sure are convenient, and great if flexibility is important to you. (We lucked out in Italy, too, as Trenitalia ran a special 2 for 1 ticket deal on Saturdays all summer long.)

Here’s why I love travelling by train:

Train stations are central

They’re usually bang smack in the middle of town. If they’re on the fringe, then there are usually tons of shops and accommodation options that have sprung up around them, and connections to the metro.

Airports, on the other hand, are always a bit of a distance from the city. Sometimes getting into town is fairly straightforward, but most times, it requires fussing over multiple subway/train transfers, shuttles, special buses or taxis. It’s a hassle, and it’s usually expensive. Do you have ANY idea how much time I’ve pissed away trying to figure out the optimum route (economical and not too complicated) from an airport to the city? Or to figure out accommodation that’s close to said route? No, me neither, and I’d rather not try.

I can’t help but feel sorry for our previous Couchsurfers who’ve come to us straight from the airport – after having experienced real public transport networks in real cities around the world, I wouldn’t wish navigating between Auckland airport and the suburbs upon anyone.

Minimal waiting time

Not only are train stations quicker and more convenient to get to, you don’t have to be there three hours ahead of time. Half an hour earlier than departure seems to more than suffice. The shopping options are also pretty good at the bigger interchanges – on par with airports, minus any duty-free savings. Time saved waiting = more time to spend actually seeing/doing stuff. (Sure, some airports have wifi, but not all do – and the connection is often mediocre.)

Trains are (often) more comfortable

Budget airline seats are THE WORST. Bearable for an hour or two, maybe, and not much beyond that. By contrast, most of the trains we’ve been on have had decent legroom and reasonably comfortable seats. We’ve even been on a couple that were virtually empty!

Where it can go horribly wrong, though, is overcrowding and ventilation. We’ve had the misfortune of being on some trains with minimal air-conditioning – or in the worst case scenario, non-existent air conditioning. We’ve also squashed onto fully packed trains like cattle, wedged into stairwells and corridors.

So, no hard and fast rule here. In a nutshell: when they’re good, they’re good. But when they’re bad, they’re teeth-clenchingly terrible. Worse than Ryanair, even.

No luggage worries

There’s no need to worry about whether you’re over your luggage allowance. As far as I can tell, anything goes. If you’re a latecomer, your baggage might have to go in the corner of the carriage, otherwise the overhead shelves are a free for all.

You’ll never see someone charged 50 euros at a train station for having a single corner wheel of his suitcase protrude above the metal frame that serves to demonstrate the maximum allowable carry-on dimensions. (Shame on you, Easyjet.)

September 4, 2013

Wanted: American advice!

This time, three weeks from now, we’ll be in the USA. We land in New York on the 22nd. All I have to say about that is JEEPERS. I’m really excited, and I hope this road trip is going to be epic.

Questions! So many questions!

We won’t be visiting Philly. Where else can we try good cheese steak? NY? DC?

Should we buy a cheap GPS? Presumably this is cheaper and more reliable/convenient than phone + Google Maps?

Where would one shop for reasonably priced clothing for larger guys? (I’ve been told Marshall’s, Ross, TJ Maxx…) Doesn’t have to be fancy. Does it make a difference shopping in, say, major cities vs smaller towns, or the coasts vs midwest?

T wants to visit a place he heard about once, but can’t remember what it’s called or where. Apparently it’s a giant house – i.e. a normal house, but built on a large scale, with everything inside also on a large scale. Like the opposite of a dollhouse, I guess. And it’s near a Legoland, supposedly. That’s all I got to go on. Anybody?

Also, because it’s the internet, it somehow feels okay to unashamedly put out an open call for budget accommodation advice or offers (if you might have a couch we can crash on, we promise good conversation, compliments aplenty for your city, and cooking – his, not mine – if you so desire!) in a few areas:

Washington DC
Boston
Montreal
Toronto
Somewhere between Chicago and New Orleans (Missouri? Tennessee? Mississippi?)
Somewhere in Texas? (We’ll be driving through from New Orleans enroute to the Grand Canyon/Las Vegas)

Thanking you in advance for your comments, my lovelies.

September 3, 2013

How I manage money on the road

By: redspotted

If you’re in New Zealand, you know we don’t get a lot of choice when it comes to credit cards. Even the special travel cards that you can buy and load up with money come with a whole host of fees. Figuring out how we would handle money overseas took up a LOT of my time before we left. After reviewing our options, I was pretty thoroughly depressed. I looked into individual credit cards at many banks as well as several travel cards that you can load and reload, like the Travelex Cash Passport. They all charged astronomical fees, and often there’d be an outrageous charge simply to obtain and activate in the first place. And then I came across the Air NZ Onesmart debit card.

Another Kiwi blogger has covered the ins and outs of the Air NZ Onesmart card for travel pretty comprehensively. I’ll let her extensive overview speak for itself, but in a nutshell:

$2 fee to load funds.
It’s easy to avoid the monthly fee as long as you’re regularly using the card.
No fees for electronic transactions; first three cash withdrawals a month are free.
You can store money in different virtual currency wallets on the card, move it around, and lock in exchange rates that way. (That means no crappy currency conversion rates or extra fees at the point of withdrawal from an ATM, unless you are in a country with an unsupported currency.) Or you can leave it to chance and take whatever the exchange rate is on the day that you make a purchase/withdrawal.

I’m convinced the Air NZ Onesmart card is the best option currently out there for Kiwis travelling overseas for a long period of time, and it’s definitely a much better one than my normal credit card, which charges $8 per withdrawal plus conversion fees. Plus Air NZ often has promotions where you can join the Airpoints scheme (and get a Onecard) for free, which I took advantage of.

How do I manage our finances while travelling? Well, my money system on the road looks something like:

Transfer funds from my bank account to my Onesmart card

Move cash around to the relevant currency ‘wallet’, ideally when the exchange rate is high (a few cents probably doesn’t make all that much difference, but it makes me feel competent , okay? My new thrill is opening up my daily email update from xe .com. Seriously)

Withdraw cash as needed every few days

As for tracking our spending, I swear by the Trail Wallet app. It costs a couple of dollars and is worth every cent. Trail Wallet keeps a running daily and monthly total, tells you how you’re faring budget-wise, and generates colourful monthly graphs breaking down your spending by category. The Trail Wallet app can handle multiple currencies – I enter expenses in the local currency and it converts them to the NZ equivalent. You need to be online if you want to change your currency, i.e if you’re moving between countries and need to switch from, say, pounds to euros – but otherwise you can input transactions at any time. You probably carry your phone everywhere anyway, so whipping it out to record purchases isn’t a big stretch.

How do you manage your money while travelling?

August 30, 2013

What I’ll miss about travelling – and what I can’t wait to leave behind…

We’re well past the halfway mark on our RTW trip, and as we work out our three weeks on an Italian farm, I’ve had time to ponder some of the best and worst parts about it so far.

Things I will miss

Solar, solar everywhere!
It warms my heart to see fields of solar panels all through Europe as we whiz by on the train – or, as above, glimmering off tracts of houses. Maybe there is hope for the future after all.

Quiet streets (Germany-specific, mainly)
Germany was eerily quiet. There was no music playing in the first supermarket we visited and people were basically whispering to each other. People are quiet on the streets, in parks … even the kids in playgrounds. And you know what? I could get used to that – considerate citizens who don’t feel the need to broadcast their personal conversations or music playlists to every bystander in the area.

Best of all? The vehicles are all virtually silent. I LOVE THAT. I effing hate loud cars and loud bikes, the kind that disturb the peace constantly back home. If there’s any way to make Kiwi car culture sound as pathetic as it truly is, it’s attempting to explain it to a German. But why do people do that to their cars? Oh, errr, having your car go doof doof every other second makes you, I dunno, cool. Or something.

Free cash withdrawals
At home, you can only withdraw cash for free at your own bank’s ATMs. That said, I never use cash at home anyway – adjusting to using cash while travelling was a toughie. New Zealand was the first country to introduce eftpos cards, so electronic transactions are very much the norm.

Decent public transport
Subway systems! Actual rail networks, with huge stations and shops inside! Oh, it’s wondrous. I must blog about how much I prefer trains to planes…

Things I definitely won’t miss

Photo: Random McRandomhead on Flickr

Washout toilets
Found mainly in Germany (though I believe we encountered our first one in Amsterdam). Bizarre, unhygienic, and kinda creepy. I can only concur with the following statement: The only conceivable explanation is that Germans love to inspect their stool, so the German toilet of necessity features a built-in stool inspection shelf..

Smoking
We thought Asia was bad. Oh, how wrong we were. Spotting an indoor smoking booth at Athens airport was, in a word, tragic. No, we will not miss the ubiquitous smokers one bit.

Armed police
I will never get used to this. I get twitchy whenever I see a cop out in public with a gun holster.

Sneaky charges
Taxes. Service charges. Cover charges. And so on. In New Zealand, the price tag is always final – you know what you’ll have to pay, and that’s that.

Paying for water
Again, we’re spoiled at home with our tap water for the most part. But Rome, for example, has perfectly serviceable water in my view – so being forced to pay for bottled water at restaurants rubbed me the wrong way. (Rome’s random outdoor spigots, though, are unbelieveably great. The ancient taps might look a tad rank, but the cold, clear water – which apparently comes from underground springs – is fantastic, and FREE. They run constantly and are a godsend when you’ve drained your bottle or just need to splash some water on your perspiring face.)

Paying for toilets
‘Nuff said. At least this generally corresponds with clean facilities, though. I think I’ve actually managed to avoid paying for any toilets since Asia; I usually manage to time it with a visit to a food outlet. Even so, I recall one McDonald’s that charged separately for the toilet. You could use that as a rebate towards your food purchase, but you’d need to visit the toilet before ordering in order to realise this – and I can’t imagine many people would make their way upstairs to use the restroom before ordering.

Vendors
One thing you don’t get in New Zealand is people who are always trying to sell you stuff. Outside tourist attractions. On the street. At the beach, even. I have a real problem saying no, and thus I hate being anywhere near these guys (they’re almost always guys) selling hats, drinks, sunglasses, massages, or whatever. I know they’re just trying to earn a honest buck, but it makes me really uncomfortable. (I gotta harden up.)

Digging for gold (TMI warning)
Aka picking your nose (euphemism courtesy of an old teacher of mine from primary school). I cannot remember the last time I had to deal with solid nasal buildup at home. I have hayfever and a runny nose year around. Overseas, I have the opposite problem – hard bastards that build up in my nostrils like moss on a rock (sometimes restricting my airways) and require careful extraction at inconvenient times.

The planning
I used to LOVE travel planning. It was half the fun for me! But when you’re constantly plotting out your next move, it gets incredibly exhausting. The beauty of flexibility is you can change your plans on a whim, like staying an extra day in Switzerland so T could go canyoning (oh Eurail pass, how easy you make things), but it also creates a lot more work while you’re on the road. Personally, I find balancing flexibility with planning is difficult. I booked our Italy-Greece flights before leaving home, which I now think was probably too early and may have cost me money overall. On the other hand, I left booking our Greek ferry tickets to Santorini too late, because I didn’t want to spend the cash so far in advance … and ended up paying dearly when the cheap ferry sold out.

August 29, 2013

Adjusting to long term travel

One of the things I thought would be the most difficult about long-term travel was laundry. While it’s proved to be a bugbear for T (who is convinced that me handwashing his stuff in a basin does not get it clean, and given the amount he sweats, he may have a point), but by and large, it really hasn’t been an issue at all – we just visit laundromats a little more often than the budget would like to.

Changing beds all the time? Nah. I’ve moved house a LOT. I can feel at home almost anywhere. Even three nights in the same place feels fairly settled these days. Taking time for a long shower/bath, to shave your legs and pits, and all that jazz, is luxury, especially after a long sweaty day.

We’ve definitely learned that we like to take things slow – as in, a couple of rest days a week, look for a range of travel resources and don’t rush things. Days where we aren’t on the go, when we don’t do much, if anything at all; veg out indoors or relax in a park, or catch up on blogging, work, or planning our next moves.

I’ve surprised myself with how well I’ve taken to long term travel. That said, the prospect of going home at the end of the year is now more comforting than depressing. I still fully intend to make the most of the time we have left – but the tide has turned.

In an alternate life, I could see myself doing the location independent thing. But I have a partner, and you know what? I want the house and garden and domestic bliss.

Dealing with travel burnout

Travel is hard. Real hard.

Spending almost all your time with one person, dealing with shitty transport and hole-in-the-wall digs … after awhile, it can get overwhelming. It’s beyond amazing to experience new places all the time, but on the flipside, the novelty eventually wears off (as I suspected), and you’ve got to actively work on remembering to be awed, humbled, and grateful. Living out of a backpack is incredibly freeing, but at times, frustrating. Not worrying about cleaning bathrooms/taking out the rubbish/paying the internet bill/filling up the car is freaking blissful, but replaced by poring over train timetables/Couchsurfing profiles/city maps.

Crowded trains and Mediterranean heat has proved the tipping point, for T at least – who is definitely more of a holidayer than a traveller.

What do you do when you or your partner are burned out on travel?

Slow down.

Luckily, our three-week HelpX stint (volunteering on an organic farm) came at the right time. Putting down light roots for a short time, eating home cooked food, and getting into a routine. There are challenges, of course – it hasn’t been as smooth sailing as I imagined – but that’s a subject for a future post.

Now I just have to deal with my other stressor – mini panic attacks about everything from running out of cash before November, finding a place to live when we get back, figuring out what to do with our crappy car, sorting out all the other little things that will need sorting, and just generally feeling overwhelmed about the future.

August 28, 2013

Things I wish I’d known about Greek ferries

Thinking about visiting one of Greece’s gorgeous islands? (Santorini is a stunner.) You’ll probably be taking the ferry, since finding good deals on Greece flights is tough, in which case there are a few things you should know…

Greek ferries are frequently late

Do not be surprised if your ferry doesn’t show up until an hour after it’s supposed to depart. And obviously this only compounds as the day wears on – a late ferry in the morning has a domino effect.

I would recommend leaving plenty of leeway if you have, say, a flight to catch soon after. There’s nothing like the eruption of a boatload of people sprinting from the port to the train station in a desperate bid to make the last subway back to Athens for the night.

Sometimes the schedules are horrendous

I did a double take when I saw that an 8am arrival on Santorini necessitated a 1am departure from Athens. Super early or super late departures are inconvenient, to say the least. Book early to make sure the best ferry seats aren’t sold out.

Delicate stomachs, watch out

Perhaps like me, you get motion sick on cars, buses, and ferries (though for some reason trains never pose a problem for me). A friend recommended we take the slower Blue Star ferries as I get seasick. Bonus: they’re also the cheapest Greek ferry line.

But due to my own procrastination, we ended up buying tickets for one fast and expensive ferry to Santorini, and one slow, cheap ferry back to Athens. To be honest, although the turbulence was definitely less noticeable than on the faster Hellenic Seaways ferry, I didn’t feel all that much less sick (how’s that for terrible English?) and the trip took twice as long.

But at least the ferries are comfortable

Indoor arcade? Multiple restaurant options? Escalator onboard? It’s all part of the package at Blue Star. Choose from the wicker-type chairs outdoors on the deck (there are also some padded bench seats) though you’ll have to contend with the smokers, or an indoor cabin, with couches and padded chairs, little tables, power points and communal TVs.

With that done and dusted, and last year’s seasickness still fresh in my memory, I can officially say long distance sea travel is not for me, even though Greek ferries far exceeded my expectations for comfort.

What’s the longest ferry ride you’ve ever taken?

August 22, 2013

Airbnb is not cheaper than hotels (YMMV)

Airbnb: Is it really cheaper than hotels?

Modified from CC image, original by Flickr user bittermelon

Hotels are dead. Airbnb is the future. Everyone knows that, right?

Whoa there, Nelly. Hang on a minute.

It’s a nice picture, but I have to rain a little on the parade. For one, there’s the whole snafu about the legalities of renting out your apartment in some cities. And, more importantly, there’s the economics of it. Do apartment rentals stand up to the real test – the money saving one?

Maybe it’s the destinations that we’ve been visiting, maybe it’s the time of year that we’ve been visiting, I don’t know. But every time I’ve searched for an apartment rental in Europe – Amsterdam, Berlin, Rome – I’ve come up with nothing. In every case, it’s been just as cheap, if not cheaper, to book a budget hotel. So far, the big selling point of sites like Airbnb, Wimdu, 9flats, Housetrip, etc (that they’re cheaper than booking a hotel) have not panned out.

Here’s what I’ve noticed about apartment rentals:

They’re often less central. After all, not everyone lives bang smack in the city centre. I can handle the inconvenience, BUT…

The base rate is usually on par with the cheapest hotels, or higher. Granted, this may be because we only ever book places a few days or a week ahead.

You have to account for any extra fees they tack on, such as cleaning fees or fees for additional guests, and of course, the booking fees. These can add up quickly and tarnish what originally seemed like a bargain.

It’s a hassle. Going back and forth to confirm a booking. Getting directions. Organising a checkin time. All this is time-consuming. With hostels and hotels, all that info is right there on the site when you (instantly) book, and they have a manned reception desk around the clock.

I’ve tried. I really have. There have been a couple of instances in which I found fairly good deals, and jumped right in with an enquiry. The one time I booked through an apartment rental company, the host backed out on me a week later. (Anyone in NYC want to host a humble Kiwi couple in the last week of September? Expressions of interest are open!) Since then, I’ve sent a couple of other requests out for rentals in Italy, and never heard back. There are, of course, lots of listings that allow you to book instantly, but these were by request only.

Look, I LOVE the concept; I think the sharing economy is ace, and given that I’m a Couchsurfer, it’s not really surprising that I also support the concept of private rentals. Staying in a real local home, for less than a hotel! How much more authentic can you get?

But in my experience, if you’re looking for the absolute cheapest deal and are booking fairly close to your arrival date, hotels still seem to be the best bet. A recent Priceonomics study crunched the numbers and came out largely in Airbnb’s favour – surprise! Who’da thunk it? But upon closer inspection, it calculated this using hotel rack rates rather than the discounted rates (and who pays full price for a hotel these days?) that you can find on any third party booking site.

Of course, if you’re looking for somewhere more homey, perhaps with a kitchen, or for somewhere a bit longer-term (maybe a week or more), then maybe those extra dollars won’t really matter.

(Also, ICYMI: I played devil’s advocate in my last post, pitting hostels against hotels.)