Tom & Veronica

It depends if you’re on a few week holiday or travelling for long term, in first case you probably want the best out of it and are willing to pay little bit more. As we are travelling for long term and in some locations also look for a place up to several months, then it is important to stay on the budget, but also to have some essentials like kitchen. Cooking your own food can save you a lot of your hard earned cash, even in relatively cheap SE Asia 🙂

Should I book my accommodation in advance or look on arrival?

For short term holiday, it is probably wise to book in advance, because looking for nice place on arrival could take up to few days, depending on the place and your luck. We actually did our first online booking just a week ago and have not booked anything in advance for over 3 months – And the booking we had to do because the place we found after arrival only accepts online bookings – No booking on site available 🙂 If you are looking for cheap accommodations the pictures and even the feedback (if there is any) could be misleading – Don’t get me wrong, we are not very demanding travellers, but would still appreciate basic things and clean sheets – Even if the place is dirt cheap! So having few days, looking around the place, talking to locals and going through different accommodations gives you a pretty good overview of the market situation – How are the places actually and how much should you pay (or not pay, if you don’t wan’t to get ripped off). Absolutelty everywhere you can find heap places to stay even for the first day – but if you are not such a risk taker, you could also book some place for few days – That gives you enough time to look around and most of the times find even better deal. If you are staying for longer time, you should take time to look for a place, that feels like home. For few days or a weekly stay I think you’re probably not going to stay inside the room/house too much anyway – You are busy wandering around and having fun.

Private house, private room, shared bathroom, dormitory, bungalow, hut: what do choose?

There is no golden rule here – Depens on your budget and comfort level. It would be nice to stay in a private house, enjoy the big kitchen, nice view from the terrace and possibly have a swimming pool, but it probably cost twice, triple or even ten times more in some cases. Also using Backpackers places, which usually have shared facilities and dorm rooms is actually not so bad idea now an then – You meet a lot of interesting people, with different stories and can acquire a lot of useful information for your future travels.

Also give a change to different type of structures and enjoy the fresh air from local type bungalows or huts – You may have a lot of noise or other unwanted squeaky visitors, but that only has happened once to us :). I say, be diverse and try different options in different locations – You will have some horrible places and possibly sleepless night but mostly you will find great places!

What is Couchsurfing and should I use it?

Let you be warned – we are also pretty new to couchsurfing (hereinafter CS – not to mix up with the oldschool computer game Counter Strike). We have only CS’ed three times so far, with three completely different hosts.

CS is an accommodation option, where local people are willing to open up their homes to you and accommodate you for few days up to months. Be aware, this isnt freeloading – You just cant hang around there for a week without doing anything. Some of the host offer accommodation (and even food) in exchange for doing few hours work daily at their place. Other people that just open up their home for you to stay for nothing in advance, you should’nt take advantage of that! Ofcourse you have a lot of stories to exchange and probably become good friends after long enough stay, but in my opinion it would be also nice to share little bit more than just stories – You can always cook some local food or get some small gift from your country – Just to show the appreciation for the hospitality.

For backpackers I think CS is really good option to save little bit money and meet a lot of great locals – It is always to easier to get to grip with the country and places through local people. If you havent tried CS before, you should give it a try – I can guarantee, good things will happen 🙂

Booking.com if you prefer Hotels?

Booking has pretty different approach from AirBnb – You can find some of the same accommodations from there also, but mostly it is from cheap hostels and bungalows to really fancy five star hotels and beach resorts. I don’t like staying in hotels too much, as it doesn’t feel like home – Still there are good deals to be found on Booking. I guess the most biggest plus point for Booking is, that there are a lot of accommodations, that don’t need your credit card (you pay as you arrive) and are really flexible on cancellation – For example if you find better deal just few days before your booking starts, you can cancel it for free – without any cost.

Ofcourese there are a lot more ways or sites to find suitable accommodation for your taste – But I guess not overthinking and taking it day by day is the most stress-free option. Enjoy the places you come by, even if they seem not so good after a perfect stay. As there is sunny day after rainy day, there will be awesome accommodations after some crappy ones 🙂