Are you wondering how to find cheap places to stay when traveling in this upcoming year?
Now more than ever, it’s important to find ways to save money while traveling if we want to keep traveling. Thanks to global inflation, life gets expensive, and so is travel.
That’s why, today, we’re going to tell you about eight ways that you can find cheap cheap places to stay when traveling. Some of these methods allow you to stay in exotic locations totally free; others require doing a small amount of work or sharing some of the resources you already have.
But in all cases, these tips will save you money while traveling abroad.
Let’s dive into the list.
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How Can You Find Cheap Accommodation While Traveling?
Let’s see our eight ways to save money on accommodation on your next family vacation.
1. Home Exchange
Our first tip is specifically for homeowners. If you own a house, you’re sitting on an asset that will allow you to find free places to stay when traveling but still in very nice accommodations.
That’s because you qualify to enter some home exchange program. There are tons of websites that help you find the right home exchange for you.
▶️ Try HomeExchange. Pay only when you find the perfect exchange.
But the platform that we’ve had the most success with is actually called Home Exchange. For a small registration fee ($220 membership), you can have the entire world open up to you. You’ll find great homes that you can stay in, and you don’t need to find families who are looking to stay in your city, either.
So far, we’ve found exchanges near Glacier National Park, Banff National Park, Whitefish, Canmore in Kananaskis Country, Truckee near Lake Tahoe, Fernie in British Columbia, Nelson in the Kootenays (BC), Quebec City, Vancouver and many more.
▶️ Read our detailed HomeExchange review here.
That’s because Home Exchange has created a point system that rewards you for offering your home to guests whenever you’re away. Then, you can redeem those points for other peoples’ homes whenever they are away.
Thanks to Home Exchange, we were able to stay for 9 nights in the Canadian Rockies with the points that we received just for signing up for the platform. It literally saved us over $2,000.
In terms of price, location, and safety, we couldn’t recommend Home Exchange more highly.
▶️ Try HomeExchange. Pay only when you find the perfect exchange.
2. House Sitting
Another option for finding places to stay while traveling without breaking the bank is to become a housesitter. Just like with home exchanges, many platforms offer this service.
Here’s how it works:
When someone goes on a long vacation, they need someone to take care of their home. That could be taking care of pets, watering plants, or general household maintenance.
But more often than not, it’s taking care of pets.
Whatever the arrangement is, you and your family can stay in someone’s home so long as you complete the agreed-upon tasks. There are many free places to stay when traveling using a housesitting platform.
There are plenty of options for house sitting that your family can use. Here are our top 3 picks:
Trusted Housesitters is the largest international house-sitting website, and is particularly interesting if traveling to the UK, Europe, Australia or USA, where most of the sits are offered. The yearly membership is 169$ USD, but you can have a 15% discount when using this code with the link: THS12SAVER.
▶️ Read our detailed TrustedHousesitters review here.
Nomador was originally a French house-sitting agency, so you’ll find a lot of housesitting options in France, even if they are now global. The yearly membership is 99$ USD, but they offer a free option where you can apply for up to 3 housesits.
HouseCarers is based in Australia. While they have listings worldwide, there are tons of options in Australia. The yearly membership is 50$ USD.
These websites are the most reliable and safe options we’ve found and all have ID checks. There are also a lot of regional housesitting websites if you are looking for one region in particular. You may need to register to a few local memberships if you’re planning on visiting more than one country, but we’ve heard that as a “newbie”, it was easier to find houses on the regional site rather than the most popular and global websites.
Now, there are a few things to consider here.
First, as I just mentioned, there are usually pets involved. That means you should know what kind of animal you’ll be taking care of while considering what age your children are.
For example, I love dogs. But, with young children, it may not be a good idea to stay at a home with medium or large dogs that we’ve never met before.
Another thing to consider is that your location will be more limited. There are many home exchange participants, but fewer people are willing to let people house-sit. More often than not, most people will pay a neighbor or a friend to take care of their home while away.
Also, it’s a time-consuming process since there are a lot more people looking to house sit than there is home to sit, and competition is high.
We were members of Trusted House Sitters for a year but decided not to renew our membership as it took us so long to send our application and we were unsuccessful. We heard many stories about people only traveling and house-sitting, but it didn’t work out well for us.
3. Credit Card Points
A great way to find cheap places to stay when traveling is to sign up for credit cards specifically designed for travelers.
By doing “travel hacking”, you’ll save money on hotels when traveling. You’ll also save a lot for money on flights.
Typically, these cards offer reward points for spending a certain amount of money throughout the year.
Now let’s be clear: We in NO way encourage you to pull out new credit cards you don’t need.
But if you’re starting your own business, looking for a card for everyday expenses, or planning on getting a new card anyway, this can be an AWESOME option.
Here are a few of the best credit card programs for travelers:
The American Express BonVoy card is perfect if you use Marriott hotels when traveling. It gives you 50 000 points as a welcome gift if you spend 1500$ in the first 3 months. At 120$ CAD per year, the card gives you 5 points per dollar spent on Marriott properties or 2 points per dollar spent on other purchases.
With our BonVoy credit card, we could pay for most nights of our summer road trip and stay in a hotel with all amenities (wi-fi, free breakfast, pool, in the city center, …). We even had a hotel with private rooms and a full kitchen.
- American Express Cobalt
At a cost of 120$ CAD per year with a welcome offer of 30 000 points, this card gives you 5 points per dollar spent on dining and groceries and 2 points per dollar spent on gas, taxis, public transit and travel purchases.
- Chase Sapphire Preferred Card (for USA only)
The Chase Sapphire Preferred card has an annual fee of 95$ USD. It will allow up to earn 2 points per dollar spent in restaurants, supermarkets and travel purchases. To be eligible to the 60 000 points welcome gift, you need to put up to 4 000$ on your card in the first three months.
- Citi Premier Card (for USA only)
The card, with an annual fee of 95$ USD, will allow up to earn 3 points per dollar spent in restaurants, supermarkets, gas stations, air travel, and hotels. To be eligible for the 60 000 points welcome gift, you need to put up to 4 000$ on your card in the first 3 months.
Again, you need to use this card responsibly. And if you can, then you’ll get loads of benefits. Not only will you improve your overall credit, but you’ll also accumulate points to find better lodging on your next vacation.
We use credit card points to “splurge” occasionally and book hotels we wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford.
Since we pay off our card at the end of every month, we can stay in nice locations worldwide for free.
But be careful. Credit cards will often give out great “deals” and hide the fact that their interest rates are outrageous. Make sure to do your research, find a card that you’ll use, create a budget, and stick to it.
Remember, the last thing you need is more credit card debt. Then you won’t be able to afford plane tickets, even if you do find cheap lodging!
4. Accommodation Booking Sites
You should bookmark all of those search engines that find deals for accommodations while you travel. These would be sites like:
- Booking.com
- Expedia
- Hotwire
- Travelocity
- TripAdvisor
- Airbnb and VRBO (to some extent)
And others. We’ve often found amazing deals and can typically get between 10-30% off what we would have paid through the hotel directly.
This is probably a travel tip that you’re already familiar with, but no list on how to find cheap accommodation while traveling would be complete without it.
We usually look at Booking.com when we book hotel rooms in advance.They have a great cancellation policy and often great deals.
5. Consider Staying in Hostels
Hotels are great affordable accommodation. And it’s even possible to stay in hostels when traveling with kids.
Staying in dormitories will save money on accommodation, but some hostels are even offering private rooms with private bathrooms or private rooms with shared bathrooms. That’s what we did with our kids. We stayed in 3 different hostels in the Canadian Rockies:
One good thing about hostels is that they are even well located if traveling to a city. You’ll not only save on accommodation but on public transportation.
Make sure you research well since hotels vary greatly in comfort, cleanliness, and prices.
6. Hotel Rewards Programs
Like credit card points, you can also join various loyalty rewards programs. As our family drove across Canada in 2020, we joined the Wyndham rewards program and stayed exclusively at Wyndham hotels.
Our favorite was the Ramada, but mostly because it had a big water slide for the boys. That said, they have other hotels like DaysInn, AmericInn, Baymont, Travelodge, and Super 8. And many others. These aren’t luxury resorts, sure. But many of the Wyndham hotels we stayed at were a pleasant surprise. They were clean, affordable, and, most of all added to our rewards points.
Then, we got into the Marriott BonVoy. And I love it.
Marriott BonVoy rewards program was voted #1 according to the U.S. News & World Report. With more than 30 affiliate brands, they are lots of lodging options around the world. You can earn more points as a BonVoy member if you have the American Express BonVoy Credit Cards.
There are other loyalty programs you can sign up for. Here are a few popular options:
Hilton Honors rewards program is another great program if you use the Hilton brands while traveling. Another cool thing with this program is that they offer the fifth night for free if you pay your four consecutive nights with points.
These points are a great option to keep in your back pocket for those awkward times between locations when you just need a night or two. Finding a cheap hotel is always a win.
Or even better, these can be the ultimate life-saver when looking for a hotel next to an airport for early morning flights. At a certain age, the kids are either too young or the adults are too old to sleep in the terminal like we did in our 20s.
7. Work Away
Work Away programs are great for budget travelers, language learners, and adventurers. But it can even be a good option for families trying to figure out how to find places to stay when traveling.
Workaway programs are an agreement between a host and yourself to complete certain tasks in exchange for lodging. The tasks may vary, but they’re outlined before taking the trip.
That means you shouldn’t have any unpleasant surprises about what’s expected of you upon arrival.
Some families like to break the tasks up among different family members. Emilie and I had talked about doing this for the world trip and still might. The idea would be that one person would work while the other takes care of the kids.
At some point, we’d even like to involve the kids where we can.
Again, there are a few considerations to take here.
Yes, you can save money, which makes this one of the best free ways to find lodging. But you will lose a certain amount of time each week. This can be anywhere from 15-40 hours, depending on the agreement.
This can make scheduling your vacation itinerary a bit difficult.
You may also have to share bathrooms and a common area in someone else home.
That said, if you’re on a budget but still want to travel, workaway programs can be an excellent option.
Check out this work away website as a good introduction to the concept.
8. WWoofing
WWoofing is similar to workaway programs but tends to be more agricultural. In other words, you’ll likely be doing more manual labor on a farm than anything else. And for many people (us included), that’s OK!
If you try WWoofing, you can expect to work about half a day, 5 days a week. While that’s a lot, it’s easier to find lodging for families this way. That’s because you’ll usually be on a farm, which means the weather will be nicer and there’ll be plenty of space for the kids.
Plus, WWoofing has programs in different places and has become known as a safe and convenient cultural movement for travelers.
If you’re not big on working outdoors, this probably isn’t the right program for you. But if you enjoy gardening, doing yard work, or working with animals, this can be an excellent option for the entire family.
For more information about how WWoofing works, check out this introductory resource.
What to Look for in Affordable Accommodations
Whenever you’re trying to find cheap places to stay when traveling, there are a few things you need to keep in mind. This is true whether you’re traveling on a budget or not.
The three main factors that you need to consider when looking for lodging include:
- Price: Will this fit into your budget?
- Location: Is the distance to major sites worth the savings?
- Safety: Does this seem like a reliable and safe place for your family to stay?
Each of these factors is as equally important as the next.
You need to make sure that wherever you’re staying is going to fit your budget. That way, you will have enough money left over to experience the destination the way you wanted to in the first place.
But pricing can’t be the only factor.
It would be best if you also were sure that where you’re staying is close enough to make the destination accessible. Sure, you may save $200 a week by visiting 3 hours outside of the city center.
But is the distance, the time lost, and the trouble of getting from point A to point B worth the savings?
That answer will change depending on where you’re going, but it will always be a factor.
Finally, you need to make sure that what you’re saying is safe. This is especially true if you’re traveling with your family. And this can be one of the trickiest parts of finding cheap accommodations when your only resource is a website.
That’s why it’s essential to do your due diligence while researching where you’ll stay on your next vacation or adventure.
With that said, we’re going to share with you how to find cheap accommodation when traveling so you can save money, stay close to your destination, and feel safe the whole time.
Final Thoughts: How to Find Cheap Places to Stay When Traveling
And that’s it! These are some of the best ways to find affordable accommodation for your next family trip.
Traveling doesn’t have to be expensive and as you can see there are many ways to save money on accommodation.
We hope you enjoyed this post.
Emilie is the founder of Love Life Abroad. She helps moms plan epic road trips and outdoor adventures with their families. Because who said adventuring had to stop once we have kids? She’s based in the Canadian Rockies and shares her love for the region as well as other unique places in Canada & USA. She works with tourism boards and outdoor brands to inspire families to experience new unique destinations and outdoor activities.