r/travel • u/AutoModerator • Mar 17 '15
Topic of the Week - What to look for when choosing accommodation
Weekly topic thread, this week featuring what to look for when choosing hotels, hostels or homestays. Please contribute all and any questions/thoughts/suggestions/ideas/stories about accommodations of any sort.
This post will be archived on our wiki destinations page and linked in the sidebar for future reference, so please direct any of the more repetitive questions there.
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Example: We really enjoyed the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California. It was $35 each, but there's enough to keep you entertained for whole day. Bear in mind that parking on site is quite pricey, but if you go up the hill about 200m there are three $15/all day car parks. Monterey Aquarium
Unhelpful: Read my blog here!!!
Helpful: My favourite part of driving down the PCH was the wayside parks. I wrote a blog post about some of the best places to stop, including Battle Rock, Newport and the Tillamook Valley Cheese Factory (try the fudge and ice cream!).
Unhelpful: Eat all the curry! [picture of a curry].
Helpful: The best food we tried in Myanmar was at the Karawek Cafe in Mandalay, a street-side restaurant outside the City Hotel. The surprisingly young kids that run the place stew the pork curry[curry pic] for 8 hours before serving [menu pic]. They'll also do your laundry in 3 hours, and much cheaper than the hotel.
Undescriptive I went to Mandalay. Here's my photos/video.
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11
u/circa_1984 Canada Mar 17 '15
Read reviews and ratings, but take them with a grain of salt. I always try to remember that most people can't be bothered to leave reviews, especially when write ups are required like on Tripadvisor. Generally speaking, only the extremely happy or extremely unhappy post long reviews.
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Mar 17 '15
I always click on the 1 star reviews of the place I'm looking at. A lot of times the terrible reviews are people with unrealistic expectations, and often it's people who just say something as trivial as "They didn't respond to my email right away, I'll never stay at this place" which of course is ridiculous and should not be a review.
I find that as a general rule of thumb on Tripadvisor, if the hotel/hostel has a lot of 3 and 4 star reviews, and less 5 star reviews, it's probably not that great a place. But if it has a lot of 5 star reviews, and a handful of 1 star reviews, those 1 stars are usually the type of people doing the above-exampled reviews.
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u/johnfbw England, 70 countries. where next? Mar 17 '15
I find reviews are worth reading, ratings are getting ridiculous. People give a rating based on their stay and the type of person they are. Some people will always give 5/5, some never. First time travellers are way too easy to impress, business travellers know what perfection is, so don't see it (but often look for different things to what you might want)
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u/uncertainness USA Mar 17 '15
People give a rating based on their stay and the type of person they are.
Agreed. I RARELY give out 5/5 ratings. It's really only if a place goes above and beyond. 3 should be the average/median, which means that for me, most of my reviews are 3. That doesn't mean that they're boring or bad, just that they're satisfactory.
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u/johnfbw England, 70 countries. where next? Mar 17 '15
I agree, I've had hostel owners criticise me and tell me to change my rating.
Never believe hostel world ratings, I get the feeling they do it a lot
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u/Readdette Mar 17 '15
That is a good rule of thumb. I also will sometimes look at the subreddit of the place I'm visiting and see what people on there recommend.
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u/Dalaik Mar 17 '15
I also look at traveller's pictures of the rooms to get a general idea of the hotel and then take a look at the hotel street and neighbourhood with google earth.
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u/alan_s Wandering the world but still call Australia home Mar 17 '15
Assessing the quality of reviews.
Reviews in booking sites such as Booking.com and Agoda are usually reasonably reliable because the traveller must have booked a room to qualify to review. However, keep in mind that everyone occasionally has a bad night at even the best hotel so don't be put off by an occasional grumpy review.
I treat tripadvisor reviews, and reviews on similar web-sites where there is no requirement for the reviewer to have booked a room, like the scoring for Olympic diving or figure skating: discard the 5s as written by the owner's family and the 1s as written by the staff of the hotel next door and read only the 2s to 4s.
Also note timing. Old reviews, whether good or bad, can be out of date swiftly if the hotel has had a change of management or renovations. I tend to discard any reviews more than twelve months old.
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Mar 17 '15
It is always a matter of balance. What do you want to get versus what do you want to pay. I personally will always pay a bit extra for a hostel with like a common room and a pool table + bar instead of one where I just get a get. I stay in hostels mainly to socialize with other travelers and am therefore willing to pay a bit extra to make this easier. I also read reviews on hostelworld but I prefer talking about hostels with people I meet.
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u/Andromeda321 United States Mar 19 '15
A word on hostels, as I think those are a touch different than the average booking in some ways. In general I tend to start my search on hostelworld.com and sort by highest average ratings, and go from there. It is worth doing some research on the side though for a particular location, as many of the best hostels do not list on hostelworld and other booking websites!
As an extra bonus, after you've found your hostel of choice consider going to Google and finding the hostel's website and booking through there. The 10% booking fee goes to the website, not the hostel, so often you can get a better deal by booking directly (and if not the money goes to the hostel's pockets). Sometimes there are also deals available via a hostel's website that aren't available otherwise- for example, I got a free tour out to Stonehenge from a hostel in Bath once because I booked three nights there, and that was only available through their website!
If you are a solo traveler and want to meet people, try and go for hostels that have a bar or arrange activities or similar. Hostels that lack a common room are usually not ones where you meet other travelers. Of course, there are always exceptions to this, but that's been my experience.
Similarly, if you're solo, on Airbnb consider renting a single room over an entire apartment, as I've met many nice hosts this way and hung out with them more than I would have otherwise. Don't go for people with very few reviews on Airbnb in popular tourist spots (unless you're booking in a town that doesn't get much tourist traffic) as they're much more likely to be a scam.
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u/alan_s Wandering the world but still call Australia home Mar 17 '15
Assessing location.
Never trust the map on the booking web-site. Insert the hotel address into a map site such as Google or Bing and double check. The errors can be significant if you are choosing to be close to a place such as a venue or transport hub.
If you don't have your own transport do the extra research to look at the local transit system and taxi/tuk tuk costs. Choosing a hotel in the suburbs because of better price or quality can be counter-productive if you lose excessive time or money getting to town or tourist sites.
You can be too close. Choosing near the rail or bus station may be convenient if you are arriving or leaving on the train or bus, but it can also be noisy and sometimes an unsafe area.
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u/alan_s Wandering the world but still call Australia home Mar 17 '15
When looking at pictures on booking or review web-sites, keep in mind that the real thing never looks as good as the pictures.
The camera may not lie but it won't show poorly cleaned rooms, ancient plumbing or snowy TVs.
1
u/Clownfeet Get off the Gringo trail Mar 19 '15
I just turn up, wander about and pick a cheap place that seems good. Why does everyone plan so much??
5
u/Kier_C Mar 19 '15
Because if your only gone for 2 weeks there is no point spending a lot of your time trying to decide where to stay. Not everyone is backpacking for 6 months.
1
u/meatb4ll Mar 22 '15
I'm a fan of hostels personally, since you can meet interesting people if you're there a while, and they're perfectly adequate if you're just staying a night or two and want to keep to yourself.
Personally, I try to balance price and location. I'm not a picky sleeper - I sleep lightly, but I get used to wherever I am quickly and I'm not there to make a huge fuss over whether I have bedsheets washed in distilled baby tears, but I really care about being able to get around easily.
For example, when I first came to Berlin, I went to the Plus Hostel. It was relatively cheap (considering it was right after new years), and near all sorts of cool stuff. Burgermeister, the East Side Gallery, O2 World, and Schwarzlicht Minigolf were all a quick walk away. Alexanderplatz, Hackescher Markt, Friedrichstraße, Brandenburger Tor, etc... were only ten minutes away on the S-Bahn. And as a bonus, Intershop 2000 which sells DDR-era stuff is three blocks from there too, so now I have a flag from that.
20
u/CapAWESOMEst 7 countries for now more to go Mar 17 '15
When picking a hostel I have 4 things I look at.
1. Location. How am I getting there? Do I have to take a cab? Can I walk? Is the area safe? Is it close to stuff I'm interested in? Some hostels may look very nice, but they're a pain to get to. If I want to spend a night in the city, or the day looking at museums and markets downtown, I'll pick the closest one to that area. There may be nicer ones in the outskirts, but I like knowing that I can go back and take a nap with ease. Example: There are several nice hostels in Playa del Carmen, but I picked Quinta Playa since it's right off the main strip and steps away from the beach. It didn't have free breakfast and was a bit more expensive that the alternatives, but the location could not be beat.
2. Ammenities. What do I get besides a bed? Some hostels offer free breakfast, WIFI (fairly standard), free bike rentals, free katak/canoe rentals, etc. I may sway away from a better location in order to get better amenities. Example: In Merida, Mexico, there was 2 hostels I was very interested in. One was in the perfect downtown location, one was a few block away. The one downtown did not offer any amenities but WIFI. The one a few blocks down offered free breakfast, had a pool, cooking classes and salsa lessons. Hostel is Nomadas Hostel, in case anyone is interested.
3. Price. Is the location/amenities worth the extra $$$? Sometimes I can swing the better alternative with better location and great amenities, and it's great! But sometimes I can't, or will only crash there for the night, so there's little point of getting good amenities. I weigh in the pros a cons of both and pick what price seems right. Example: In Tulum, Mexico, there's an abundance of hostels. Some looked very nice and calm, but I wasn't gonna spend a lot of time there. I was only in for the ruins, hit the beach, sleep and bounce. I ended up picking Lobo Inn. It was close to the ruins and beaches, it was cheap, and had free bike rentals. The rooms were crappy and the place was a but shoddy, but it had everything else I wanted and for a very low price.
4. Reviews. It's impossible to ignore those. You can always go there and check it out, but time may be an issue. Online reviews are not very trusty and should be taken with a grain of salt. However, if there's consensus among many reviews of random strangers, maybe it's worth listening. I've stayed at places with terrible reviews and had a great time, I've stayed at places with good reviews and found out there weren't exactly true. The biggest thing I look at while looking for reviews is: pictures, comments on cleanliness and staff, and safety.
I usually look at them in this order, but the order doesn't mean importance. The order is a filter only. The importance is what you need and want at the time.
Hope this helped!