I’m great at planning. Part of that great planning is making reservations in advance. Other travelers search for accommodations on arrival. The few times I tried to find a hotel on arrival the searches backfired. In Bodhgaya my visit coincided with a pilgrimage period, so I went from one fully-booked monastery to the next before finally looping back to the hotel I should have booked before arriving. Another time, I was late to arrive in Hsipaw and there was one option available—I wound up with a three-bed unit for myself. Over the course of travels, it makes sense to experiment and try different variations. Hopefully you have better luck than me with booking on arrival.
A general rule about booking on arrival is that if you are heading to a resort destination, the hotel supply should outstrip demand and the hotels will be aggregated in certain areas making it easy to go from one hotel to the next. In Trincomalee, Sihanoukville, and similar small resort towns you can literally walk along the beach until you find a hotel you like at a price point within your budget.
The primary advantage to finding your accommodations on arrival is you may save money. The higher price of booking in advance comes from paying a fee to the hotel search aggregator (for example, Booking.com or Hostelworld). You can also try to haggle and negotiate lower rates in person upon arrival. I saw a handful of travelers due this and it’s awkward enough to watch that I wouldn’t want to do it myself. Haggling could save you about $3-5 a night, which over the course of a year is potentially $1,000 to $1,500 in savings—that equates to the cost of one month of travel. I’m not a fan of hassling the front desk clerk at a hostel. I think it’s easier and less stressful to save an extra $1,500 before you leave or drink one less beer per night. Complicating the booking on arrival process is that you may not have a local data plan or access to WiFi when you arrive. Your first stop may need to be a telecom store and not a hostel.
A secondary reason to book on arrival is to see the quality of the hotel before paying. The images online don’t always match what you see on arrival. India is one of the few countries where it may be to your advantage to book on arrival. All hotels tend to post photos that embellish the property, however, Indians have taken this art to another level. Indian hotel quality varies significantly and it’s difficult to ascertain the quality of the hotel from the pictures and reviews. Plus, if you are booking through a western facing website, instead of a local Indian website, the Indians are crafty enough to charge more on the western website. I’ve paid $20 for a hotel room, then when I entered the lobby saw the rooms were $7. I never had any luck negotiating down my rate after booking in advance. The price online versus hotel price gap isn’t as extreme in other countries. Even if you’ve pre-booked in India chances are you will not be brought to your hostel or hotel anyway. There’s an entire side hustle with tuk tuk drivers taking travelers to hotels that have paid the tuk tuk driver a finder’s fee. Sometimes these places aren’t too bad. Sometimes these hotels are the worst place ever. For all these reasons, India is the best place to experiment with booking on arrival.
I prefer booking accommodations in advance. If you want the best hostel in the convenient part of the city, book in advance. The city center hostel may be $5 more expensive per night than outlying areas, but you can walk from the central location rather than relying on public transportation or taxis which will save money in the aggregate.
Booking in advance also has the advantage that you may arrange transportation through the hotel to guarantee you reach your destination (which helps to avoid the Indian auto-rickshaw hustle). I pride myself on being a master of using my feet and public transportation to move around any city but after a ten-hour flight, it’s tough to beat the convenience of a taxi on arrival and the luxury of riding through the streets in a car to the hostel.
I used Hostelworld to book 95%+ of my accommodations. I used hotel booking engines for the remaining 5%. From the descriptions, reviews, and photos it’s easy to tell which hostels were well run, which were party hostels, and which hostels were in the better areas of the city. I can think of no more than five instances in over 100 hostels where the expectations did not match reality—over the course of 500 nights that means the rankings and descriptions are accurate.
ACCOMMODATION PRACTICALITIES
There’s no secret or other worldly wisdom when trying to save money on accommodations. The easiest way to save money during travel is to stay at hostels. If you’ve never stayed in a hostel before, the adjustment period to sharing a bedroom and bathrooms takes a few days. Make it through the first few nights and you will probably be fine with the living arrangement going forward. If problems exist, such as someone is snoring too loudly or you don’t like the room location, return to the front desk and ask for another bed in a new room. Never become too comfortable or let your guard down in a hostel—if you leave items out, whether it’s electronics or clothes, they will disappear.
Airbnb and similar vacation rental by owner (VRBO) programs may provide a more local accommodation experience, but they typically do so at a higher nightly price. Weekly and even monthly rates, when broken down on an adjusted per night basis, are usually more expensive than staying at a hostel. If you need the occasional accommodation upgrade, consider an Airbnb, but if Airbnb becomes a habit, it will destroy your budget. Anecdotally, it is possible to find Philadelphia Airbnbs that are cheaper than a hostel but these Airbnbs are cheaper for a reason—the neighborhoods where they are located are not the safest in the city.
Couchsurfing is the cheapest accommodation option available with the caveat that there’s an expectation you make your house available to other couchsurfers in advance of using the service for yourself. From a safety perspective this feature helps to build a user profile based upon reviews from other couchsurfers. Considering that accommodation will account for nearly 50% of your around the world travel budget, exploring the couchsurfing option prior to leaving would generate significant cost savings over a year of travel.
During your travels you will need a break from hostel life and fortunately hotels are relatively cheap in many parts of the world. I sprung for a $40 a night hotel in Ko Phi Phi, which is a bit of a party zone, over the $15 a night bed in a party hostel. It was money well spent. In India, you will want, no need, to upgrade to hotels a few times.
In certain cities and certain countries, certain hotels are part of the travel experience, so avoid the autopilot mindset of booking a bed in a hostel. No country has as wide a range of accommodation styles as Japan with sleeping experiences ranging from onsens to capsule hotels. When you book a capsule hotel, the more businessmen present, the better—showering alone isn’t any fun. There are other locations where you will want to splurge for a hotel like South Beach Miami and Marina Bay Sands in Singapore, home to the selfie pool extraordinaire—it’s a rooftop, infinity pool that extends across three room towers. Or the opposite extreme hotel experience like Chungking Mansions in Hong Kong—which is a mini-world unto itself.
The primary advantage to finding your accommodations on arrival is you may save money. The higher price of booking in advance comes from paying a fee to the hotel search aggregator (for example, Booking.com or Hostelworld). You can also try to haggle and negotiate lower rates in person upon arrival. I saw a handful of travelers due this and it’s awkward enough to watch that I wouldn’t want to do it myself. Haggling could save you about $3-5 a night, which over the course of a year is potentially $1,000 to $1,500 in savings—that equates to the cost of one month of travel. I’m not a fan of hassling the front desk clerk at a hostel. I think it’s easier and less stressful to save an extra $1,500 before you leave or drink one less beer per night. Complicating the booking on arrival process is that you may not have a local data plan or access to WiFi when you arrive. Your first stop may need to be a telecom store and not a hostel.
A secondary reason to book on arrival is to see the quality of the hotel before paying. The images online don’t always match what you see on arrival. India is one of the few countries where it may be to your advantage to book on arrival. All hotels tend to post photos that embellish the property, however, Indians have taken this art to another level. Indian hotel quality varies significantly and it’s difficult to ascertain the quality of the hotel from the pictures and reviews. Plus, if you are booking through a western facing website, instead of a local Indian website, the Indians are crafty enough to charge more on the western website. I’ve paid $20 for a hotel room, then when I entered the lobby saw the rooms were $7. I never had any luck negotiating down my rate after booking in advance. The price online versus hotel price gap isn’t as extreme in other countries. Even if you’ve pre-booked in India chances are you will not be brought to your hostel or hotel anyway. There’s an entire side hustle with tuk tuk drivers taking travelers to hotels that have paid the tuk tuk driver a finder’s fee. Sometimes these places aren’t too bad. Sometimes these hotels are the worst place ever. For all these reasons, India is the best place to experiment with booking on arrival.
I prefer booking accommodations in advance. If you want the best hostel in the convenient part of the city, book in advance. The city center hostel may be $5 more expensive per night than outlying areas, but you can walk from the central location rather than relying on public transportation or taxis which will save money in the aggregate.
Booking in advance also has the advantage that you may arrange transportation through the hotel to guarantee you reach your destination (which helps to avoid the Indian auto-rickshaw hustle). I pride myself on being a master of using my feet and public transportation to move around any city but after a ten-hour flight, it’s tough to beat the convenience of a taxi on arrival and the luxury of riding through the streets in a car to the hostel.
I used Hostelworld to book 95%+ of my accommodations. I used hotel booking engines for the remaining 5%. From the descriptions, reviews, and photos it’s easy to tell which hostels were well run, which were party hostels, and which hostels were in the better areas of the city. I can think of no more than five instances in over 100 hostels where the expectations did not match reality—over the course of 500 nights that means the rankings and descriptions are accurate.
ACCOMMODATION PRACTICALITIES
There’s no secret or other worldly wisdom when trying to save money on accommodations. The easiest way to save money during travel is to stay at hostels. If you’ve never stayed in a hostel before, the adjustment period to sharing a bedroom and bathrooms takes a few days. Make it through the first few nights and you will probably be fine with the living arrangement going forward. If problems exist, such as someone is snoring too loudly or you don’t like the room location, return to the front desk and ask for another bed in a new room. Never become too comfortable or let your guard down in a hostel—if you leave items out, whether it’s electronics or clothes, they will disappear.
Airbnb and similar vacation rental by owner (VRBO) programs may provide a more local accommodation experience, but they typically do so at a higher nightly price. Weekly and even monthly rates, when broken down on an adjusted per night basis, are usually more expensive than staying at a hostel. If you need the occasional accommodation upgrade, consider an Airbnb, but if Airbnb becomes a habit, it will destroy your budget. Anecdotally, it is possible to find Philadelphia Airbnbs that are cheaper than a hostel but these Airbnbs are cheaper for a reason—the neighborhoods where they are located are not the safest in the city.
Couchsurfing is the cheapest accommodation option available with the caveat that there’s an expectation you make your house available to other couchsurfers in advance of using the service for yourself. From a safety perspective this feature helps to build a user profile based upon reviews from other couchsurfers. Considering that accommodation will account for nearly 50% of your around the world travel budget, exploring the couchsurfing option prior to leaving would generate significant cost savings over a year of travel.
During your travels you will need a break from hostel life and fortunately hotels are relatively cheap in many parts of the world. I sprung for a $40 a night hotel in Ko Phi Phi, which is a bit of a party zone, over the $15 a night bed in a party hostel. It was money well spent. In India, you will want, no need, to upgrade to hotels a few times.
In certain cities and certain countries, certain hotels are part of the travel experience, so avoid the autopilot mindset of booking a bed in a hostel. No country has as wide a range of accommodation styles as Japan with sleeping experiences ranging from onsens to capsule hotels. When you book a capsule hotel, the more businessmen present, the better—showering alone isn’t any fun. There are other locations where you will want to splurge for a hotel like South Beach Miami and Marina Bay Sands in Singapore, home to the selfie pool extraordinaire—it’s a rooftop, infinity pool that extends across three room towers. Or the opposite extreme hotel experience like Chungking Mansions in Hong Kong—which is a mini-world unto itself.