Sleep on the Cheap
Housing is often the most costly part of travel, even more than transportation if you are staying for any significant
amount of time. Those who travel frequently often get a lot of bang for their buck with a Hotel specific Rewards
Booking.com 🔗 & Priceline.com 🔗 are great places to comparison shop for hotels (& Agoda.com 🔗 when traveling
to Asia) But there are a multitude of additional housing options that are less expensive than hotels if you don't travel
enough to earn hotel credit points. (CozyCozy.com 🔗 compares both hotels, hostels and home rentals.)
But believe it or not there are even ways to get housing that don't cost a dime!
90% of my time traveling I use free housing options; it's how I can afford to travel full time. My absolute favorite way is by pet sitting - you get both a comfortable home, at NO COST, and a fury friend (or sometimes scaly or feathered...)
Me & My
Late Pup Grizzly
Inexpensive Housing Options
Free / Barter for your Bed Options
Pet & House Sitting
My personal favorite way to stay, by far, is to house & pet sit in my destination, because I love animals and the additional responsibility of watching a pet is a joy for me.
Trustedhousesitters.com 🔗 links vetted pet-sitters up with home owners. In exchange for feeding, walking and cuddling someone else’s furry friend you get a free home to stay in.
This works particularly well if you don’t have specific dates + destinations in mind, you can search the site for interesting places you’d like to visit and see if anyone needs a sitter at a time you're available. There are a lot of sitters on this site, especially for popular destinations, so you need to invest in the messaging/ interview process. I found doing sits in my town first (where it's not as competitive) to get positive reviews on my profile really helped when applying to overseas sits.
Couch Surfing
When staying in a city for only a few days I use a platform called Couchsurfing.com 🔗. It's locals who enjoy meeting travelers and offer a room, bed or couch to people coming to town out of the kindness of their hearts. (Though it is customary, and just good manners, to offer your host something in return; sharing a skill you have, inviting them to an activity you are going to or at least treating them to a drink while you're in town.)
This site has to be used with caution, particularly if you are a young female traveler, (you need to be somewhat skeptical of the motives of men offering you a bed) There is a verification process for users and hosts, and references on people profiles, so be smart, but if you use it wisely, it is a great way to meet new people and see a town from a locals perspective! ​​
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A lot of people are obviously attracted to the free aspect of couch surfer, so just like the petsitting sites, you will need to invest some thought into your messages to hosts to get an offer to stay, especially in the more popular destinations. ​​
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Home Exchange
If you have a house you're leaving behind you can signup with an exchange platform, (like in the movie THE HOLIDAY.)
A lot of the apps work on a point system so you don’t have to do a direct exchange. If you want to go to Spain from America but the person who’s house you want to stay at wants to visit Japan, they don’t need to stay at your house, they get points for your stay that they can use towards whatever destination they want, and you earn points by letting other travelers stay at your place.
I use Homeexchange.com 🔗 , but NOAD 🔗, Seniors Home Exchange 🔗, IHEN 🔗 (International House Exchange Network) and Love Home Swap 🔗 are also great options.
Hostels aren't just for College Kids
Hostels are reasonably priced, depending on the country they can range anywhere from $10-$50 a night and in Europe are quite clean and safe. They are a great option in larger cities. I've seen entire families staying at hostels together.
Most offer both group and private rooms. Hostel World 🔗, Hostel Club 🔗, Hostel Pass 🔗 and Kayak 🔗 are great places to start. Hostelz.com 🔗 will comparison shop for hostels for you, but know that the prices they show are the publicly advertised rates - with a membership with some companies you can get discounts up to 20% off your stay. Just one stay through Hostel World with the membership discount was enough to make the entry fee worth it for me. If you book through an app like Hostelworld there is also an in app message board making it easy to meet up with fellow travelers.
(For tips on staying comfortably in any hostel check out my Hostel Kit to see what I pack to prepare )
Furnished Home & Apartment Rentals
If you prefer a homey atmosphere there are online room/ apartment/ house short-term rental options through Airb'n'b, Home Stay 🔗 and VRBO 🔗. There are even RV-share sites 🔗 if you want to rent a camper.
You can also search services like Furnished Finder 🔗 for short-term rental stays. (The site caters to traveling nurses and other mobile workers. It's not as easy to use as the more commercial sites, but the prices are usually significantly lower than booking long term the vacation rental sites.)
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Work for Room & Board Options
Hot Tip - Even if you don’t end up staying at a Couchsurfer’s home the online community is great! They post local events and you can see other travelers in your destination and arrange to meet up for a tour or drink. I've met a lot of international friends through Couchsurfer.
Hot Tip - If you book on one of the larger platforms be sure to ask you host if they'll discount long term stay.
Teach English
Lots of countries need English teachers and many programs will house you during your teaching term. This does require a TEFL certification (Teaching English as a Foreign Language.) The TEFL Academy 🔗, i-to-i 🔗, & myTEFL 🔗 are great resources to complete your certification, and of course you have to speak English yourself fluently!) ​
Volunteer
Overseas charitable organization, particularly in poorer countries are always looking for volunteers and will put you up while you are working with them. (Do your due diligence here though; some programs are not actually much help to the locals, and you will only be enriching the charity itself, and many can be rather unpleasant experience - even the best programs will not be vacations.)
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Do Seasonal Work
Some countries have an entire industry built around seasonal work that you can apply for. Austraila, New Zealand, Canada, Austria and Norway all have ample opportunities for short term gigs around their tourist seasons.
Craiglist 🔗, Gumtree 🔗, HelpX 🔗, Workaway 🔗, Worldpackers 🔗 and WWOOF 🔗 (World Wild Opportunities on Organic Farms) are great places to start when searching for local volunteer and job opportunities.
Hot Tip - Ask your hostel if they need assistance maintaining the facility, some will let you work for your stay.