Rent apartments in Europe on Airbnb. Renting an apartment or a room abroad Renting apartments worldwide
Gathered in one place links to all sites for booking travel accommodation that I know. Here you will find out how easy it is to spend the night in almost any city in the world at an adequate price or even for free! Or find a really unusual place where you will remember your stay for a long time.
The post includes the largest database of hostels in the world, the largest rental service from hosts, websites for booking unusual designer hotels, accommodation in exchange for help around the house or looking after a pet - in general, options for every taste. Choose!
Classic: hotel aggregator sites
Personally, I open these sites first of all when I am going somewhere on a trip. As the name implies, they combine information from various booking systems, such as: booking, hotels, ostrovok (one of the best prices in Russia), agoda (good for traveling in Asia), trivago, expedia and many others.
Aggregators compare prices, look for discounts and special offers, where you can also find not only hotels, but also hostels, guest houses – it’s very convenient when everything is in one place.
Read also:
Free accommodation
The best way to understand a country and its people is to get to know the locals, and even better, live with them for a while. Such opportunities are given by international hospitality sites, when people invite guests to their homes. Just don’t see them as just a free overnight stay, rather it is a cultural exchange, interesting communication, an opportunity to improve languages and find new friends around the world.
Source: instagram: @myinterior
Accommodation in exchange for housework
These sites should not be considered only as a way to stay overnight for free, but as a new unusual experience and an opportunity to help people and the ecology of the planet for a week, a month, or maybe more. The bottom line is that you work several hours a day, and in return you get room and board.
Source: GettyImages
Cool and unusual hotel rental services
If you want to live in a lighthouse, in a treehouse, visit eco-friendly or vegetarian-only hotels, try out glamping (glamorous camping) or just show off, then there are special sites for this.
✔ and - here you can buy someone else's reservation at a discount. Someone could not go and sells their reservation on the site. You get a good discount, and the person gets money for a non-refundable number.
One of the defining moments of any trip lasting more than a day is the choice of a place to stay for the night. Portal "ZagraNitsa" decided to acquaint readers with the best rental services in Europe. Tiny rooms and inedible breakfasts in the first available hotels are canceled!
Pre-booking accommodation (subject to a scrupulous choice) makes traveling, whether it be a vacation or a business trip, more comfortable and safer. So-called "mashups" (aggregator sites) will help you find suitable options, through which you can rent hotel rooms, apartments or villas around the world. International services allow you to compare offers from several booking systems and rent a room, room or other accommodation for a specific date. Vivid examples of such sites are Booking and Hotels.com: there is an impressive database of objects of various price categories and locations.
Photo: preferredhotels.com "Booking" and "Hotels" are convenient for instant confirmation of the reservation. But as practice shows, you should not flatter yourself and it is better to play it safe. Reservations through online services - due to technical failures or for some other unknown reason - are sometimes not confirmed at the hotel. It's good if there are free rooms, because otherwise you will be left without a place to sleep.
The cost of a room in the same hotel on different aggregators may differ and be higher than the price on the official website of the hotel. If you want to save money, it's always a good idea to surf the different platforms looking for the best deals.
Photo: hotel-madison.com Healthy alternative to hotels - rent from locals
An excellent option for lovers of diversity and authenticity is to rent accommodation from local residents. You can chat with a foreign host and plunge into the atmosphere of the country. Living in a standard hotel, you will not get such pleasure.
On many sites, you can leave comments and participate in the rating of hotels, homeowners and the apartments themselves. Feedback from ex-clients will help you make a choice. These comments are especially valuable when the service is not responsible for the accuracy of the information.
The most popular hosted rental services in Europe are Airbnb, Homeaway and Wimdu. They offer a wide range of both simply cozy apartments and more exotic options. You can find a chalet in the mountains, a villa on a picturesque seashore or a small family castle.
Home Exchange - exchange vacation
You can stop for a couple of days in a foreign city or country without money. Participation in the Home Exchange program will help you find a room, apartment and even a house for free living with the owners or during their absence. So the trip will cost at least half the price.
Photo: solotravelerblog.com
The practice of exchanging vacation homes originated in Europe and the United States over 50 years ago and is gaining popularity every year. No wonder, because this is one of the easiest and most affordable ways to join the daily life of a foreign country, make new friends and exchange cultural values with them, see the most interesting sights. To join the club, you need to pay an annual membership fee. The number of trips is not limited.
Hospitality sites are a kind of social networks where members are ready to give strangers a roof over their heads or just keep them company for a walk around the city. To become a host, you need to have your own housing (confirmation will be required) put up for exchange.
Europeans are mostly friendly, but not ready for a journey into the unknown. They want to clearly understand who they are visiting, and are not averse to conducting reconnaissance. To do this, they communicate online for a long time (six months to a year): they correspond or conduct “live” conversations via Skype.
It is better to find out all the details with a preliminary acquaintance. Exchange photos (personal and housing) and detailed descriptions of apartments/houses. Ask any questions that will help you get comfortable in a foreign city. By the way, residents of the United States and Europe often plan vacations in advance, so you rarely see last-minute options for an exchange vacation.
Rent apartments in Europe
The site for renting apartments and apartments is called Airbnb
How does it differ from the traditional online accommodation booking system that I wrote about earlier ()?
Firstly, the site specializes only in apartments and apartments.
Secondly, on the site you can rent an apartment or an apartment for a long (more than 30 days) period.
For booking.com, the booking period is limited to 30 days.
This opportunity is important for those who, for example, decided to go on their own or send their children with their grandmother to the sea for the summer.
Or for those who are going to go to give birth in the USA (on a tourist visa in the USA you can stay for 3 months and as a rule this is enough for a child to obtain US citizenship).
The process of searching, selecting and booking the found option on AirBnb I described in sufficient detail in my previous articles:
Here I will just give a couple of direct links to popular destinations:
Accommodation booking
After you have decided and in the period of time you specified, the apartment or apartment is free for rent, proceed to booking.
Be sure to read the terms and conditions of your rental property carefully.
Keep in mind that additional services cost money (this is written on the site) and their cost will be added to the final price
The final cleaning of the apartment or villa and laundry are also paid additionally (sometimes it comes in a separate line)
After filling in your details, go to the payment page.
This is probably the most interesting. After all, you don’t want to part with your hard-earned money ... Yes, I understand. When communism comes, we will go on vacation for free.
If more than 45 days remain before arrival, to confirm the reservation, it is enough to make an advance payment of 30% of the cost of living, and pay the remaining amount 1.5 months before the date of arrival.
Payment is accepted by Visa, MasterCard bank cards and bank transfer is also possible. But I hope a credit card is better than the extra 50 euros to pay for a bank transfer.
Airbnb Visa Verification
Also, many are interested in the question - is the booking confirmation suitable? apartment or apartment for self-acquisition of a Schengen visa?
How to rent an apartment or apartments in another area, city or country directly from the owner, without intermediaries?
How to rent a house, so that by sending money - a deposit or an advance payment - not to lose them ... - that is, to have firm guarantees on this score that the owners will not deceive and slip a bed in a hostel instead of an apartment.
There is such a service - Airbnb
An American invention, but due to its great popularity it has conquered the whole world. Therefore, it will suit both those who go on a business trip to Penza, and those who go with their families to relax on the coast of Spain.
I personally rented an apartment in the center of Moscow through this service when my own apartment was being renovated ...
If you are going to rent for a period of a week, then the prices are cheaper than a week's stay in a hotel.
Yes, you yourself can play around with directions and dates: go to the AirBnb website, select the city and dates of arrival and departure and press search
How this booking system works
You look at the housing options offered to you for the requested dates and, having chosen the options you like according to the photos, equipment and price, you begin to carefully consider them
Look at the photos, and although they are not true - after all, they can be retouched by painting over a hole burned by a cigarette butt in the upholstery of a sofa or by adding a missing leg to a chair in Photoshop - you will get a certain picture of the apartment that you want to shoot.
hosts
After that, move on to the host persona. Look it up Photo, look reviews about the apartment from other tenants who lived here before you. look Contact details the owner - does he have accounts in social networks? This is good - it means he does not hide himself and probably pays taxes.
You can contact the owner through a special feedback form. Ask questions. For example, “where do the windows go” or “is it possible to bring a small dog with me.”
Rent terms
If everything suits - carefully read the terms of the lease and canceling this apartment is very important.
The rental price of the apartment may not include final cleaning, and it is also necessary to take security deposit. As a rule, equal to the cost of one day of accommodation and it will be returned to you in exchange for the keys upon departure.
Having found out all the questions and finally deciding for myself: I take it! - go to the booking page, where you will be asked to enter your data and the data of a plastic card, from which the cost of renting an apartment for the period you requested will be debited 100%.
Rent payment
But, the money does not immediately go to the owner. No. He will receive them only on the second day of your stay in the rented apartment, because if you arrive and find that the photographs of the apartment you have seen are photographs of a completely different apartment or that this apartment does not match the description on the Internet, you must contact the AirBnb support service in order to so that you are immediately offered a similar option for less money (a moral damage bonus), or your prepayment is returned.
In turn, the owner of the apartment is interested in making you like the apartment, since he does not receive money for rent immediately, but only after your inspection of it, that is, on the second day. As you can see, the system takes into account the interests of the tenant and guarantees him from deception.
And one more thing: be sure to read: there people share their experience in renting accommodation all over the world through AirBnb, warn if it is necessary to warn, and also leave reviews about good housing options they have rented.
Accommodation in a hotel is often an unaffordable luxury for a student who has decided to study abroad. Moreover, not every university has at its disposal dormitories and apartments to accommodate foreigners. And the only way out in this case is renting an apartment or room in the country of study.
In fact, everything is not as dramatic as it might seem at first glance. It might be cheaper to live in a university dormitory, but the option of renting private accommodation is much more profitable than staying in a hotel. We have selected several effective ways to find inexpensive and comfortable housing abroad, which you can read about below.
Services for finding housing abroad
| Resource | Offers | countries | Peculiarity |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2,000,000 | 191 | Online search platform for short-term private housing rentals around the world | |
| 7,000,000 | 246 | One of the largest guest networks for finding free accommodation and new experiences abroad | |
| 80,000 | 200 | An online service that allows you to rent city apartments, rooms and even small private houses for a couple of days | |
| 1,000,000 | 190 | An online platform that allows you to rent a private room, apartment or exotic villa for the price of a hotel room | |
| 26,000 | 170 | The service offers a search for hostels, cheap hotels and B&B "s (bed and breakfast) | |
| 33,000 | 170 | A site for finding inexpensive hostels around the world, which, if there are any difficulties with settling in a hostel, will return the money and pay an additional 50 USD | |
| 4,000,000 | 180 | A site of free ads where you can successfully find housing, furniture and even a car |
Effective ways to find apartments abroad
Interestingly, some services offer discount coupons for using their services. For example, the Airbnb online platform gives 25 USD, which can be used on the next booking of accommodation. The main advantage of such services is the ability to find the most interesting accommodation options that reflect the local flavor, which cannot be found in boring hotel rooms.
What should be considered when looking for an apartment?
Before you book and pay for the selected room or apartment, you should consider a few nuances:How is the process of renting a home abroad different?
If you need to rent housing abroad, you need to figure out in advance what lies behind this process. Many nuances apartment rental significantly different from those that exist in the CIS countries. What you should be aware of when renting a home abroad:- Contract signing. In European countries, this is an absolutely normal practice, as the landlord and tenant are protected by law and in case of any disagreement, the dispute is regulated by the contract. In the CIS countries, it is not often possible to meet a landlord who wants to register his activity and pay taxes from it to the state treasury, so the tenant remains absolutely unprotected, because the agreements are made orally.
- Long-term apartment rental the real estate agent's commission is paid by the landlord;
- Damage to property. If you want to rent an apartment with furniture, you need to be rather scrupulous about their safety, since damage to the property of the owner of the apartment can be a real reason for premature eviction.
- Interestingly, in some countries No pet ban applies in rented housing, even if it is written in the contract. Therefore, it is important to know your rights and be able to defend them.
- Long term lease. In some European countries (Germany, France), the lease period starts from two years, this is due to the fact that in this way the tenant demonstrates his seriousness and solvency.
- Tenant protection. If the tenant has a signed contract in his hands, it is almost impossible to evict him from the apartment ahead of schedule (if there are no gross violations), nothing can be done with housing during this period (sell or rent to someone else);
- The need to pay an initial deposit. The tenant must pay the landlord an initial deposit, which is equal to a maximum of three monthly rents (utility payments are not included in this amount).
- Provision of documents and personal data. The tenant is obliged to provide the landlord with all the necessary information about himself: passport details, personal profile, income statement, as well as recommendations from previous landlords (if any).
How not to fall for the hook of scammers?
Apartments for rent was and remains one of the most profitable forms of business. There are a lot of easy money lovers working in this industry who know how to extract money from a client. Therefore, it is important to know a few rules that will help protect against the actions of scammers:If you want to rent a home abroad on a long-term basis, you should be prepared to shell out the amount of several monthly installments, which is quite a lot. As for the short-term rental of apartments (from 3 days to 2 weeks), in this case it is also necessary to have an initial deposit, which will become a guarantee of solvency and careful attitude of the tenant to the property of the host.