Rick Steves' Budget-Friendly Advice On Finding Travel Accommodations Is Game-Changing

There's no doubt about it: International travel is becoming more expensive, and European destinations are no exception. As reported by Eurostat, prices on package vacations rose from 2023 to 2024. The cost of flights keeps going up, too, not to mention the fact that travelers are now required to pay tourist taxes in more than 60 countries. So, what's a budget traveler to do? According to guidebook author Rick Steves, the secret is choosing your accommodations wisely. After all, if you're able to save money on your overnight stays, the overall cost of the trip is likely to be significantly less. 

"Expensive hotels can rip through a tight budget like a grenade through a dollhouse," Steves wrote on his website. "[People] come back from their vacations with bruised and battered pocketbooks, telling stories that scare their friends out of international travel and back to Florida or Hawaii one more time." Essentially, travelers needlessly overspend on lodgings, he points out, as there's often little correlation between a hotel's cost and its value. 

So, while researching accommodations for his own publications, Steves walks around European cities and towns, scoping out available options — and the best spots for cheaper hotel stays in Europe, he says, are usually small and mid-range. Above all, though, he looks for places that are clean, central, reasonably quiet, moderately sized, and run by a friendly owner and staff.

Apart from seeking out small hotels and family-run bed-and-breakfasts, there are other ways to score budget-friendly accommodations. Staying in a hostel is a solid choice, for example. Even if you forgo a dormitory-style bunk bed for a private room with a shared bath, you'll still pay less than you would for a conventional hotel room. While many hostels cater to the student backpacker crowd — hence the name "youth hostel" — many don't enforce an age limit, so guests of all ages are welcome. Pro tip: Do your research ahead of time to get a sense of whether you'd be comfortable at the hostel in question. The same goes, of course, for scouting out any kind of accommodation before traveling. 

Other ideas for extra savings include booking a private room in an Airbnb — a money-saving option that's available in cities where it's allowed. Barcelona, for example, has taken aim at unlicensed Airbnb rentals and implemented restrictions on short-term bookings, including private room rentals. Alternatively, if you're willing to trade your space for someone else's on a house-swapping adventure, you can bypass the cost of accommodations altogether, provided that you're planning to stay in one place for the whole trip. 

At the end of the day, Steves writes that travel is about forging connections, not secluding yourself in a sterile hotel room. "As far as I'm concerned," he says, "spending more for your hotel just builds a bigger wall between you and what you traveled so far to see."