UCFJayBird wrote:BadMofoPimp wrote:UCFJayBird wrote:Oh yea, don't know why I didn't mention this. Make sure to check out AirBnB. I use it whenever I travel now because you can find great places for cheap. Sometimes it's a room in someone's house, sometimes its an entire apartment or house you can use all your own (which would be preferable for a honeymoon, haha). But I've been able to stay in areas with insane hotel costs for at least half the cost. They also usually have better amenities than the hotels (at least the ones i've stayed in).
I have a few friends who have had horror stories using AirBnB and some great stories. It is hard to tell. They would be telling me, "I have no idea how they got all those great reviews, then when I got there, I was in the hood afraid to leave."
Not sure how your friends wound up in the hood, you gotta research the neighborhood not just the house/room. I have heard a few bad stories as well, I think there's certainly some risk to it. My friends booked an AirBnB for their Honeymoon in Europe, I think their first stop was in London and they got to the AirBnB and the host wasn't there. They couldn't get a hold of him and called customer service and they booked them into this really nice hotel for the duration of their stay to compensate. So that's a helpful tip, if things aren't as advertising AirBnB customer's service dept seems willing to help and make up for it.
Personally though I've done it twice and have had a great exp. Doing it again in October when I visit Chicago. Ironically last time I used a hotel was in NYK and wound up in a Chinese neighborhood in Queens where few spoke English.
For me being an outdoorsey type of person, I usually look for Cabins or Rental property to rent by the week like when I go diving to have my own dock or when I am in the mountains to have a private cabin etc. I just got back from diving in the Keys and next vacation will be in the Appalachians in a fairly remote area. (No cell service!!!)
haha