When it comes to organizing a gap year or summer vacation travel bonanza, one of the biggest logistical headaches people have is accommodation. While flights can be changed and you can often take advantage of all-inclusive ticket services such as an Interrail pass–both of which make moving around a lot more flexible–very often you can’t make similar arrangements when it comes to places to stay.
This means you have two different options. You can arrange all of your accommodation in advance, which means that you will then have to keep to a strict itinerary (something that can spoil the spontaneous opportunities that arise when travelling); or you can try to book your places to stay at much shorter notice. The second option will give you a lot more freedom, but often people worry that it will limit their options.
However, this needn’t be the case. While your travel agent would love you to book everything all in one go, there are still plenty of ways for you to find equally good (and perhaps even cheaper) gap year accommodation options at short notice, leaving you to let the moment guide you and change your plans as you meet new people and discover other places to visit based on tips you get while you’re travelling around.
Unsurprisingly the internet is the top to place to look for ways of booking accommodation at short notice. We’ve picked out three different sites that you can potentially make use of for booking places to stay on your gap year, with each one offering a slightly different type of accommodation.
Although it’s one of the best-established hostel booking sites on the web, hostelworld.com may nevertheless have escaped your attention if your gap year is the first time you’ve gone backpacking or travelled alone.
They offer a huge selection of cheap accommodation from all around the world, with loads of economical options available everywhere. The bulk of it is beds in shared dormitories–the best type of accommodation if you’re on a budget and/or looking to meet travel buddies–though they also have plenty of options for more private and upmarket accommodation.
Each hostel or hotel listed on the site features a detailed description, plenty of photos and–most importantly–reviews by people who’ve stayed there before. And the booking system is a breeze to use, meaning you can get a bed or room confirmed in just a couple of clicks.
If you get sick of staying in hostels yet don’t want to go for the more impersonal option of staying in a hotel then Airbnb is the place to go for you. On this site people from all across the globe list rooms for rent by the night in their apartments. In many cases the people who list rooms on the site do so in part out of a love of letting travellers into their home so they can share their city or country with them. Hosts tend to be full of great tips of local places to visit, meaning the Airbnb experience is much more personal than staying in a hotel. Listings almost always include photos, there are plenty of reviews of the rooms offered, and the payment system is secure, meaning you don’t need to worry about getting scammed, especially if you take the time to exchange a few messages with the person whose room you’re staying in before you book.
At some point in your travels you may want to just take things a bit easier–months of sharing dorms with snorers, party animals and early risers will take their toll on anyone!–and it’s at this point that you should turn to Laterooms. This site deals mainly in hotel rooms, and has a huge selection to suit all different budgets. And like all the sites we’ve recommended, it has an easy-to-use payment system and plenty of reviews of the places on offer.