Vblog – How get free accommodation on a RTW trip!

Play the video to find tips on how to get free accommodation on a round the world (RTW) trip!

What makes a good hostel common room?

Last year (2011) I visited 17 countries. Other than a few nights staying with friends, and one month renting a flat in Seville, I stayed in backpacker hostels the entire time. In fact, since I took my first backpacking adventure in 2006 I’ve by enlarge stayed in hostels throughout the entirety of my travels.

In that time I’ve experienced all manor of weird and wonderful hostels - some good, some bad. Despite a saving in cost compared to more traditional forms of accommodation, the atmosphere and ease of meeting other backpackers is a huge part of why I rarely stay in hotels on the road.

The key to a good atmosphere in a hostel is a good, social, common room! Why? A common room is the area backpackers from all around the world go to meet each other, and it is what makes a hostel distinct from hotels, other than for the dormitory style rooms it houses.

Open area seating

If you want to get people chatting then you need to have seats that are in an open format. By that what I mean is facing seats and sofas, preferably in a circle formation rather than categorised off into sets that are back to back. If you arrive into a hostel where everything is closed off in terms of seating then you know the hostel management haven’t really thought about or put the effort into how they are naturally going to get you mixing.

Making things comfortable

Bean bags are cool, but one of my pet hates is hostels that ONLY have bean bags. I think the Wake Up Hostel in Sydney was my first experience of this in their tv lounge room. It’s really annoying if you want to sit up and have drinks with people and still remain comfortable. By all means have a few bean bags. They’re cheaper than an extra sofa most probably, and act as spare seats… but not as the actual main stay seating! You need something where people can sit around a table, place their drinks, and be able to lounge comfortably so they’re relaxed, but also be able to sit up properly and talk to people.

More than one common room always results in a better hostel atmosphere

Not everybody wants to party 24/7. Sometimes even the most hardcore party boy or girl wants to chill now and again… even if it is just to get over a hangover from the night before! There will be some guests who like to read a book quietly in a common room or watch tv, and others who’ll want to sit there drinking, talking loudly, and getting up to all the fun debauchery that you do as a backpacker. Neither is bad, but when you mix the two types of people in one room it usually doesn’t work. One wants peace and quiet and thinks the other is interrupting their chill time, the other thinks these moany quiet people are being party poopers, spoiling their party. Having two common rooms solves this problem. One quiet room, and one for drinking or anything loud.

Pool tables, table tennis, movies…

If a hostel really is as good as they say they are they will make an active effort to get everybody socialising and mixing with one another. Something as simple as a free pool table, table tennis, or movie nights could do this. Ideally they should arrange a few nights out a week for everybody. This is especially helpful to solo travellers who may not know anybody yet but would still like to go out.

Free booze

I once stayed at a hostel in Lagos (Portugal) that gave us 6 huge buckets of sangria to drink for free out on the terrace. They did this once a week. The hostel made it themselves, buying in some cheap ingredients from the local supermarket. I doubt it would have cost them too much to buy in, and the reaction from the guests was “WOW! I LOOOVE THIS HOSTEL” Free booze is always going to go down well, no matter how cheap it is. We got drunk for free out on the terrace, followed by a crazy night on the town. Everybody wanted to book another night.

Hostel staff to get the party going!

I’ve always found hostels who employ backpackers to mix with guests to have a much better party atmosphere than those who don’t. Often they’ll just offer free accommodation in exchange for a long term backpacker chaperoning guests about to various clubs they have promotions with, or getting the party going in the hostel common room. Because it’s someone who was already a backpacker at that hostel, they understand exactly what the guests want, are usually friends with most of them already. If I ever set up my own hostel, I’ll definitely be adopting this technique! It really helps boost the atmosphere greatly.

Roomorama – An accommodation tool for the global traveller

In the past I’ve always professed my love for backpacker hostels. They’re cheap, provide a social atmosphere, and are a good place for a solo backpacker to meet other people, but a hostel is not for everyone…. There are a lot of people out there who think the idea of sharing a dorm room with a bunch of people they’ve never met is not what they want from their travels! I completely understand. One type of accommodation definitely does not suit all.

So how do you travel on a budget around the world without staying in a hostel? Hotels can be expensive, and even if you would consider a backpacker hostel, what if they’re all full in the location that you want? What if it’s a country like the USA which doesn’t have a culture of backpacker hostels, and therefore you are unlikely to find one where you are? What if you are travelling as a group or a couple, and paying prices by the bed instead of by the room will make a hostel more expensive?

There are always occasions when we need alternatives in life. Having more choices allows us to make the best decisions to suit ourselves and what is best for our travels. For those people who may have asked themselves the questions above, or don’t necessarily fit the hosteling budget backpacker mould, then you may be interested to hear about Roomorama.

A variety of destinations to choose from worldwide

One of the things which I think positions Roomorama well for catering to the RTW (Round The World) backpacker is that they have such a large variety of properties listed around the world. Whether you want to stay in Buenos Aires or near Buckingham Palace, near a beach, in a country retreat, or in a big city location, there is a lot of variety to choose from.

Prices to suit most budgets

I recently spent 5 nights in London using a room I found on Roomorama. London in particular offered prices for a little as 25 GBP per night for a room outside the metro area, to as much as 975 GBP per night for a plush 3 bedroom apartment in the middle of Mayfair.

The place I stayed at was in Zone 2 near East Acton station, and only cost 42 GBP per night. It was clean, had cable TV, private bathroom, private kitchen facilities, and a free basic breakfast each morning. I had everything I needed in a central location at an affordable price. I am also just 1 person. The room was able to accommodate 2 people. If you are staying somewhere like I was then you could potentially pay just 21 GBP per night sharing with another person. I thought this was a really good deal for such an accessible location of London, albeit off season.

(Please note: Roomorama gave me a credit to use for the purpose of this review, i.e. I stayed for free. Like any review I do on here, be it my 1 month Inter Rail journey, or my tour of Scotland with Haggis Adventures, I am always honest. I would genuinely use Roomorama as a customer in the future.)

How to get free accommodation that’s not Couch Surfing or WWOOFing

Every time I read a blog post somewhere about free accommodation, it almost always mention Couch Surfing, or WWOOFing. Both are fantastic services, but I sometimes feel like – haven’t we already heard of these services already? Also, what if neither of these options quite suit your style of travel? Or maybe they do, but you just can’t find somewhere when or where you want to be based? Sometimes they can seem like the only option for free accommodation, but that’s not the case at all.

Workaway

By chance I happened to bump in David, the founder of Workaway.info on my last few days in Spain before I headed home for Christmas. For some reason I had not come across Workaway in the past, despite it being quite a popular service already. I am therefore really glad I bumped into David on that day, because it helped me discover what is one of the best services for finding work in exchange for accommodation in my opinion.

Like WWOOFing you’ll find a lot of farming or agricultural style volunteer posts available, but what I liked most about this was that there was more variety than WWOOFing had. I found a lot of hostel jobs available, teaching jobs, language exchange too. You’ll also find that many of the positions offer free food, as well as language courses, or free city tours to name some extras. You could find yourself doing anything from working in an eco lodge, to doing a bit of cleaning in exchange for living with a host family, or running pub crawls at a hostel. The site also covers a huge variety of destinations too, with everything from Europe, Asia, to South America too, amongst others.

For someone like me who doesn’t really like the idea of working on a farm (sounds a bit too much like hard work for me ), had I been in the position where I was looking for a work exchange, I would most definitely have liked the variety of the work available on workaway.info that you may not find on some other sites. However, they do also have all the regular fruit picking kind of stuff too - so you have the best of both worlds.

It costs 22 Euros to sign up to Workaway.info. However, this allows you to use the site in it’s entirety, i.e. respond to hosts, for 2 years. You can also save a bit of money if you have a friend who wants to sign up too. For 2 people it only costs 29 Euros for 2 years (so 14.50 Euros each).

Review hostels & hotels

For any bloggers reading this, something I do regularly is review hostels & hotels in exchange for free accommodation. I’ll either put the review up here on RunawayJane.com, or more often than not on some of my other travel sites. Alternatively, I’ll offer some form of advertising instead, depending on whether it is suitable, and if I feel that the hostel or hotel is reputable, i.e. I won’t advertise anyone I think offers an overall bad service.

I get approached by hostels quite a lot to do reviews, but usually the one’s I take up are the hostels or hotels I have contacted myself, because they fit into where I’m going on my itinerary. There are many hostels & hotels I would love to take up the offers of, but they may be based in a country far away from where I am at the time of contact, and/or that I don’t plan on going to in the next 6 months.

If this is something you’re interested in, but are not sure how to pitch or where to start, I talk about how to do this in my new book – How to travel the world for free (using your blog). It gives you a step by step process of how I do it, and how you can do it too.

Use Twitter

If you use twitter regularly, and follow a lot of travellers, travel bloggers, or people involved or interested in travel, then you’ll probably find you have a network of people based in countries all over the world. Although I have never done this personally, I do know people who arrange to stay with their twitter travel buddies whenever they arrive into their city for the first time. I guess it’s kind of the same as Couch Surfing in a way, except you’re also getting the chance to put a face to the name of someone you’ve been conversing with on twitter for some time.

The only thing to be aware of with this method is that you don’t have the verification process that say Couch Surfing would have, so what I’d suggest is meeting for a beer or coffee somewhere in a crowded place first, and ideally going along with another friend if you can. That being said, if you’re meeting a blogger for instance, who has been blogging, posting pictures & video’s for several months or years beforehand, then I guess there is a little bit of verification in that, but you have to use your own judgement on things, and whether or not you feel secure. If you don’t, then arrange something else, and don’t go.

Work on Cruise Ships

If you want to earn a wage as well as receiving free accommodation, albeit on board a ship, then working on a cruise ship could be an option. You’d be amazed at the variety of jobs on board cruise ships. They need everything from graphic designers, to doctors, to entertainers, receptionists, bar staff, cleaners, and more. The wages can be pretty good, and with next to no expenses, including your free accommodation, you’ll find you can probably save a lot of cash. One of my friends worked on a cruise ship for 6 months and managed to save $10,000 so it’s definitely worth considering!

Call in some favours

The more you travel, the more you meet people from a variety of destinations around the world. I would never become friends with someone just because they live somewhere I’d like to visit, but a great benefit of having friends who do travel, or who live in far away destinations, is that you can call upon them to crash on their couch from time to time, and of course return the favour when they come to your hometown too.

Staying with friends can either be the best form of free accommodation or the worst. In my experience I’ve only had good times when staying with friends. Even with friends of friends, I’ve had great experiences. I remember crashing at my friend Mathieu’s flat in Paris for 3 nights once. At the time he was more a friend of one of my old flatmates from Edinburgh, but after then he became a friend of mine too, so that was pretty cool.

I have heard of some friends who have done similar to me, and not enjoyed their time at all. For instance, a friend of mine went to Greenland and stayed with a friend of hers for 6 weeks. By the end of it they were both sick of each other, but I suppose 6 weeks is a really long time. For me, I think it’s best to stay just a couple days, or a week at most. You don’t want to overstay your welcome, but I suppose in her case she was probably thinking “when am I ever going to come to Greenland again?”, so I can understand why she would want to stay there that long.

You also have to appreciate that people have lives to lead. They may be working during the day, or tired at night, so don’t expect to be shown around. Plan to do things on your own, and if they’re around to share some memories then great! Just don’t expect it. Also, it’s always nice to either cook/buy them dinner some nights, and buy them some beers.

- Couch Surfing and WWOOFing are fantastic services, and this post is in no way meant to criticise them. I just sometimes feel that every blog post I read on free accommodation mentions them, or site’s which are basically a carbon copy. Hopefully this provides you with some more free accommodation options you may not have thought of before!

How To Save On Accommodation As A Study Abroad Student

Need a good place to stay in Barcelona?

As part of my Inter Rail journey through Europe that I am currently on, I stayed at a really good hostel called Sant Jordi. “Sant Jordi Alberg” to be exact, as there are 6 Sant Jordi hostels in Barcelona.

I don’t usually write a post completely dedicated to one hostel, but seeing as Barcelona is one of the most popular destinations in Europe, and that being able to find a good hostel in a city can sometimes make or break a trip… I thought I would put this up here for anyone struggling to choose a hostel in the area, as I can vouch for this hostel personally.

Things I liked about Sant Jordi Alberg:

• The location – it’s smack bang in the city centre.
• The staff – the staff are all really friendly, come on nights out, and were very helpful.
• The facilities – Sant Jordi has all the main facilities that you would need for your stay. These include free internet, kitchen, laundry service (costs €10 but they do it for you), nice big beds, common rooms, lockers in rooms, a lift, free map etc.
• Cosy atmosphere – Sant Jordi hostels are not very big, but this makes it a great hostel to get to know everybody in. There is a really cool vibe about this hostel, that really manages to combine the atmosphere of a party hostel, but with quieter areas where people can go if they just want a quiet night in.
• Nights out – The best thing about Sant Jordi for me was that every night they would take you out somewhere. It was in a sense a pub crawl, but it didn’t cost you any money to go out with them, they often gave you free drink vouchers, and entry to clubs they took you to was usually free. It gave you a chance to get to know everyone, but more importantly, most of the places they took you too were actually really cool or different to just an average bar. Chupitos and Opera Club in particular standing out during my stay. Some nights they would also supply you with free Calimocho (Spanish drink), and free popcorn etc, plus there was lots of movies to choose from on the box for the TV if you wanted to have a night off.

Usually I try to balance these things out with some downsides to staying at a hostel, but to be honest, there is not anything bad I can say about Sant Jordi Alberg. It was a really good hostel. If you’re looking for a place to stay in Barcelona I highly recommend there.

(Please note: Sant Jordi provided me with free accommodation during my time in Barcelona. However, I didn’t have to do such a big write up for them. I simply chose to do so because I genuinely think that Sant Jordi Alberg is a really good hostel!)