Cheap Hotels

Hotels in Rome are available en masse especially around the Termini Station district of the city. During the holy year in 2000 when numbers in visitors to Rome nearly doubled all hotels started to renovate and expand as much as they could. Those additional capacities stayed but it seems that there are still more people coming to Rome every year that fill those extra rooms up quickly. In spring Rome is the maddest of all cities in Italy. Crowds of tourists, backpackers and weekend city breakers fill up the narrow lanes of the historical centre in Rome. Hotels adjust their rates very quick to high demand. It’s easy to end up paying the double money only having booked one week difference in time. Easter is such an example, so if you want to save money on accommodation during Easter holidays, stay with the 18 bed dormitories outside town. Some of the smaller private hostels, such as hostel Ottaviano sitting right on the Vatican City’s door steps, might has beds for 16 Euro, but the skill is how to book them. Often in such high season times such as Easter holidays the smaller private city hostels will only sell you a bed when you are actually there super early in the morning. Yep, that’s risky, isn’t it. Around the Vatican City area there is only one or two hostels apart from the Pensione Ottaviano but towards Termini Station there is another bunch. Alessandro Hostel, Yellow Hostel and Star Gate Hostel are a couple of ideas to give you on the way for your hostel bed hunt at Easter.

Hotels in Europe generally speaking are clearly not the cheapest on this planet. This has to do with Europe having very high standards in the hotel industry and consequently quality has its price. If you don’t plan correctly in advance its easy to travel in Europe and spent an entire budget for the month within just several days on hotel accommodation. The best thing to do is to sit down and plan out your holidays before you start your trip to Europe. In order to save money on accommodation it’s good practise to prepare your mind to stay in no-star accommodation for the biggest part of your vacation period. That usually means staying your nights in either very cheap hotels where you share at least the shower or even your room. In Spain they are called hostales. Which is not a hostel and not really a hotel but something in between. You could compare it with Bed and Breakfast accommodation. The second option certainly is to stay most of the time in hostel dormitories, sharing your room with lots of budget travellers and backpackers.

Hostel owners and staff know their backpackers very well. Often you will find that staff members of hostels have been backpacking themselves for years and know about their customers needs and budget limitations. Once booked in one of the hostels, in “hang-out” mood its tempting to stay for a while in a hostel. The atmosphere is usually extremely sociable and even the shyest person will open up within a day and start meeting other backpackers. Its extremely tempting to stick around a hostel for a while especially when cheap hostels offer very cheap stews, sandwiches, drinks at the hostel bar and simple plates. Its common practise to team up with another backpacker or group of budget travellers and head to the supermarket for cheap food and drinks to party outside or in the hostel common room.

A cheaper alternative to staying in a hotel is to rent furnished accommodation. This can be done on a daily, weekly, monthly or yearly basis – the longer you rent the better the rate. There is a wide variety of standards and accommodation size in all area of a city. One of the big advantages going for an apartment rental instead of a cheap hotel room is that the apartment can make you feel more home and independent. This is particularly so on longer stays such as long term holidays or for people that first arrived and work on short-term contracts and need clean and cheap accommodation quickly while they sort out something longer term. Apartment rentals are usually fully furnished, including everything from bed lining, a fully equipped kitchen plus a cleaning service. Additionally, there may be additional features as part of the package deal such as the use of sports facilities, gym memberships, swimming pool in the building or outdoors.