Budget travel: Rent a private room
In the previous article we wrote on which websites we search for accommodation for travel. By No 2 Advice we want to share our experience of “Private room” category rental.
By choosing a Private room the travelers are willing to live with the owners and use everything together, while paying the owner for the night. Those having experience with couchsurfing will think that it’s just the same, only with a certain payment per person. So it is. We will explain below why to choose such accommodation, what are the benefits and disadvantages. We will show on the examples how we lived in Private rooms in Greece.
To begin with, we arrived in Athens during holidays and days off. Before coming there we wrote to several owners on airbnb, that we would like to rent the whole flat. Many of them went out of Athens on May holidays for those days and could not accommodate us, others had other reasons. So it turned out that there were no free apartments at the price that suited us.
And we were stroke by the thought (Plan B) to check the search for a Private room. Initially we were not eager to live with someone. But we found an account of the photographer whom we immediately liked. Even the fact that there were only two apartment photos and few feedbacks – we immediately wrote to him and he just had free space.
The apartment is located in the center; Acropolis can be seen from the balcony. The car’s in the street, under the window, and a separate room for us. Two friendly and calm dogs in the house, the apartment area approximately 100 m2. Plenty of space for everyone.
We immediately mixed well with the owner 🙂 He takes photos at weddings and just worked on the processing – we felt sorry for him :))))
We initially booked accommodation for 2 days and then arranged to stay for longer time.
Most people will immediately have the question: how could we leave thongs? and how it is to live with a stranger? and how to communicate if you do not know the language?
It’s very simple. Did you ask yourself: how owners are not afraid to leave the keys from their homes to strangers? In our case, both we and the owner had photographic equipment and computers. And no one was afraid to leave those things at home while going somewhere. We need to trust people. At least because if someone is booking or renting accommodation, such as on airbnb website, the administrator demands every registered person to be identified by submitting passport information and attaching bank card. And the feedbacks of the travelers and home owners work even better. Everyone leaves his or her feedback and describes the impressions from the guest or the accommodation. In fact it’s a usual practice for the Europeans to trust their guests. It’s you that must be honest, friendly and care for things belonging to others, and respect the very people.
And we like living with pets’ owners. As a rule, this is stated in the apartment condition since there are travelers who don’t want to live with animals for various reasons. And we do love. These two spent all the time in our room)
When it comes to communication. If you don’t speak English even at the intermediate level – there’s nothing terrible. Don’t think everyone around knows the language perfectly. All are studying all the time by interacting with others. And ordinary everyday things are easily understood. You won’t speak at the scientific terms level 🙂 Practice, practice, and practice once again. The more you communicate, the faster you forget the question: how to speak.
We do not usually ask advice where to go or what to see, since we like to seek out places on our own, except some cases. But the apartment owners will help you with pleasure, and sometimes even will show and go with you. Don’t think they rent the apartment only for the money. It’s a thrill for open people to meet new people and boast their city, make friends from other countries.
We were so pleased to live in that apartment with the dogs and near Acropolis so it was a pity to go away.
But we went to Thessaloniki. And again we opted for a Private room from a young couple. One reason was the price. All possible apartments from our price category were occupied, so we found a room for EUR 20.
The room at the other end of the apartment with a large balcony.
Why it’s cool to live in a habitable apartment is that it has everything you used at home. After all, in the apartments equipped for travelers in most cases there are only the most necessary kitchen utensils and that’s it. Also just a few things in the bathroom and bedroom. And while living with the owners you can use all those things you miss: blender, irons, coffee makers, etc. 
So, briefly about the BENEFITS of renting a Private room:
- Price – the payment is usually lower than for the whole apartments.
- Availability – we always found a spare room of our category in the absence of free flats; that’s a kind of Plan B.
- Communication – where can you better learn about the city and the country than from the locals?
- Security – read out the feedbacks about the owner and trust.
- Conditions – the availability of necessary things and fine Internet for sure.
Now DISADVANTAGES:
- Atmosphere – having at least some experience with rental you will be able to understand and intuitively predict whether you will like to live in the company of this person (people), basing on information about the owner and his or her photos. Read out the feedbacks, at first each and every – no matter how many they are.
- There may be cases when the owner rents a room just for the money, because he or she sees no other way out; has yet no experience in dealing with guests; some other rare cases – because there always are exceptions. But do not think about it, just look into the photos and feedbacks from different people, you’ll find someone who’ll match your preferences.
OUR EXPERIENCE of RENTing a Private room: during our 5-months trip over the Balkans we rented 5 private rooms in different countries. We began from Greece and finished in Romania. Of course, when you frequently change apartments it’s better to choose different categories of accommodation. For example, to live in a private room with the owner for five days in one city and to rent a flat in the next city and to spend time in quite other way. Of course, this depends on the person’s nature, because it was just for us to alter the accommodation types. And it would be a challenge for us to constantly live with someone. Though we chose young owners, occupied with their work, who sometimes came home late and we could not meet with them for the whole days. It’s cool to choose people like you, for example, we were interested to live with a photographer.
We liked this experience and we will rent accommodation with such conditions during next trips.
How to get discounts on accommodation via Airbnb (coupons 10 euros)
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