The AirBNB’s I’m seeing in the major cities are incredibly expensive. I’ve looked at private rooms in hostels, but they’re basically the same price, and have no dedicated work space. Will we have to suck it up and pay the high prices, or is there another way?

  • gov12@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    Negotiate long-term stays on Abnb, even if they are already provide a monthly ‘discount’

    It will work in most places, adds time to your searching, but saves a lot.

  • Marjolein88@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    Housesitting, you can stay at houses around the world for free, also long term! I am traveling as a couple and we do housesits 90% of the time when traveling, and we are traveling for about 7 months on end each time. Keep in mind you do have the responsibility though to take care of a pet, plants, house… so it’s not for everybody. But we have found it to be the perfect combination for us to get to know a place, have a comfortable home and working area, cuddle with cats and do something good for someone else at the same time.

    I have a discount link if you’d like so feel free to send me a PM.

    • writingontheroad@alien.topBEnglish
      1·
      10 months ago

      I did this and it was terrible. Lost a ton of money. Without going into all the details, to make it on the dates I had committed, I spent a crazy stupid amount on flights. Basically, I already saw here that if I went at a more normal time or waited for a better deal (there was a price surge in July) I could fly there and rent myself a nice place with what I was spending on the ticket. (Yes, I feel dumb about not backing out at that point, but I tend to have a hard time of backing out of commitments.)

      Then once I got to the region (I went early and traveled a bit, so I wasn’t yet in the housesitting city), I met someone renting out a cute cheap place… that I couldn’t rent because of my commitment as a housesitter… so instead of settling down there
      I spent more to get to the housesitting city, pay for a hotel the night before and so on.

      Again, I saw that it would have been cheaper to do my own thing. Fly when it’s affordable, be able to be in the flow and rent a place when I find one instead of paying more to move along…

      Then when I get to the sit the place was filthy, so I left after two days. More costs associated with that. And because I didn’t want conflict and I didn’t want to be stuck in a gross place, I offered to pay for their housesitter to replace me. They accepted, but still left me a bad review which means that even if I wanted to get new sits I wouldn’t be able to.

      The whole system is highly exploitative of sitters who often find themselves in unacceptable places and end up putting up with it and becoming a housecleaner on top of petsitter because they’re terrified of a bad review and in many cases, are depending on housesitting to not be homeless.

  • nznordi@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    Many hosts offer quite substantial discounts for a month onwards, like 25% or more. So I would do 2x 30 days - still expensive but not mental.

    • boing-boing-blat@alien.topBEnglish
      1·
      10 months ago

      NO, I read about this in reddit, spent wasted 3 days because almost all posts seemed affordable were scams.

      Reverse image searches, going to google earth and trying to match photos with the property locations do not make sense. ALL SCAMS!

  • fraac@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    Loads of rural Europe is very cheap, and much of it has adequate infrastructure.

  • wanderingdev@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    don’t go to major cities. that will help a lot. but yeah, the answers are get creative and try alternative housing or suck up the prices. but there are deals to be had if you go to non major cities and travel off season.

  • stevieliveslife@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    Most major cities are just very expensive. Nothing you can do about it. An option is to stay an hour or 2 outside the city. I personally just choose to go to smaller cities and have been to some incredible places in Europe for not as expensive as London or Paris.