Choosing a Hotel or Airbnb: Finding a Dream and Not a Dud

Have you ever stayed somewhere that you regretted booking as soon as you’ve dropped your bags? Or it looked fine upon arrival but then got worse and worse? I’ve been traveling since the first days you could book a place to stay online, so I’ve learned a few things about choosing a hotel or Airbnb to avoid that awful feeling. 

I travel some on press trips where I’ve got no choice about where I’m staying, but when I go off on my own for a while like I do frequently, I spend a fair bit of time researching hotels and apartments to stay in where I’m going to be.  Last year my wife and I spent around four months traveling through Europe and soon we’re going back to different areas for two months. Plus we travel a good bit around Mexico and other parts of the Americas when we’re on vacation or tacking days onto the end of a business trip. 

All the information at your fingertips now can be both a blessing and a curse. It’s great to have so many options, but those options can be overwhelming and there’s so much out there about where to stay in a city that it can feel like drinking from a firehose.

So here are my tried and trusted ways of filtering out some of the noise and finding the real hotel gems and nice short-term rental apartments in your price range. I’m very rarely disappointed in where I stay when I’m paying after following these steps so I’m hoping this helps you have a good experience far more often than not. 

Listen to People You Trust on Places to Stay

Word-of-mouth is the oldest form of information and it can still be one of the best. If someone you know personally has been to a place you’re going and they have a similar style and budget level as you, then you can probably just take their recommendation and run with it. If they stayed at a hotel, guesthouse, or rental apartment and loved it, you’re probably not going to hate it unless you are two very different people. 

The online version of this is to listed to bloggers and social media personalities that you trust. If you’ve been following someone for years and that haven’t led you astray, you can cut down your research time by following their recommendations. Sometimes on one of the video channels they’ll even be leading you around the room.

Make sure they say they paid for it or used points for it though and find out the rate: they may have gotten their room comped (like I sometimes do) because they are publicizing the place. If you trust the person from past history, it probably won’t matter because you know they’re legit, but if it’s just some random influencer on Instagram that you stumbled upon, different story.

Seek Out Real Photos and Room Videos

I’ve probably reviewed 2,000 hotels at this point in my travel writing career and my photos seldom match the official ones you see on the hotel website and on booking sites. It’s not because I’m a bad photographer who can’t shoot hotels; it’s because I don’t spend an hour setting up artificial lighting, bringing in props, and putting smiling models with food and drink beside them in the photos. 

I’ve been in some hotels where the photos on the website clearly went through some major Photoshop action after all that additional lighting and no guest ever would see that image. Sometimes they’ll even add a view to a standard room you only get from a suite, or crop out what’s ugly outside, or make the room look twice as big as it really is. These are more like fantasy images than ones that can really help you choose a hotel that will be great. 

So if you’re reading a hotel room review on a blog or in an article, pay attention to what kind of photos they’re using. If they’re originals, great. If they’re official stock ones, be wary. As you’ve probably run into, the stock photos are often years old as well, from when the place was new or renovated. 

If it’s an Airbnb place, make sure they’re showing what you really care about, like the bed, the kitchen, and the living room — not the cute quote on the wall or a close-up of the artfully arranged house plants. If there are more photos of the artsy touches than what you’ll actually use, be wary. 

Some websites are popping up to address these issues and give you a more accurate sense of what you’ll actually see with human eyes. Check out RoomCougar.com for hotel room videos and hey, you can submit to them to earn a few bucks yourself. At the moment they’re paying 50 bucks for long video tours of where you’re staying. 

Pay Close Attention to the Right Hotel Reviews

That headline says the right hotel reviews because you only want to look at reviews from people who have actually stayed in the hotel you’re considering. Sure, use TripAdvisor and Google Maps reviews as a gut check, but there’s nothing keeping people from posting on there who have never stepped inside the property. And they may have an ulterior motive: like they work for the hotel (praising it) or they work for a competitor (trashing it). 

On the booking sites, people usually can’t leave a review unless they’ve stayed there. You’ve surely seen this with Airbnb, where the new places have very few reviews but the established ones have a lot. Only guests can leave a review. The same goes for Booking, Expedia, Agoda, or Hotels.com. 

My favorite feature on Booking, when annoyingly seems to disappear now and then, is the filtering choice “Best reviewed and lowest price.” This is a dream for me when choosing a hotel or looking for a short-term rental apartment. I can find a place to stay where the price fits my budget and the reviews are really good (I aim for 9 and above but usually end up with 8.5 or above).

When it comes to apartments, I feel like guests are far more honest on Booking than they are on Airbnb because they’re not being rated by the owner in return. You don’t have to read between the lines so much. 

Some of the hotel chains let guests who book direct rate their hotel as well, which is admirable considering some of those reviews are not at all kind. I do use these as a guide when booking free hotel stays with loyalty points and have avoided some that were borderline as a result. Even if I’m using points, I still want it to meet expectations and not be a letdown.

Double-check the Location on Another Map

While Airbnb, Vrbo, and the hotel booking sites all supply some kind of a map, that map is usually not as detailed or accurate as Google Maps. So you want to figure out where the rental apartment or hotel is, then go look at that same location elsewhere. 

Often you’ll find out that the area is fine and it’s where you want to be. You’ve looked at the distances for where you want to go and it all checks out. 

Other times you find out that it’s two miles from the subway and there are no grocery stores nearby. Or any commercial businesses at all. Or to walk to the center, you have to go through an industrial zone. Or you’re on top of a bar that stays open until 3 a.m. 

You can also use Google Street View to see what the actual block looks like from the outside. And see the front of the building that they might not show in their website photos. Just understand that these images can be out of date, so they’re part of the picture, not the whole scene. 

You also might want to read an article or two about the best neighborhoods to stay in. The bigger the city, the more this matters. Plus some have a well-defined core where everything you want to see is located, but in others like Berlin it can be quite confusing. 

Picture Yourself Doing What You’ll Really Do

When I’m renting an apartment for days or weeks, I may care about very different things than you do. I’m going to be paying close attention to where my laptop will be set up because I’m renting the apartment to get some work done in the city. My wife is going to pay very close attention to the bed because she’s a light sleeper that needs a pile of pillows.

Someone else may pay close attention to how comfy the sofa looks because they’re going to veg out and watch movies for days, while someone else may care most about the kitchen set-up for cooking. The key is to focus on real use scenarios and not get distracted by what looks pretty around the edges but may not matter if the Wi-Fi is crappy. 

For hotels, it’s more cut-and-dry. Sometimes you just need a place to crash near the airport. Other times you’re going to use the hotel as a base for exploring a new city for three days. Other times you need to get some work done and you’re hoping to grab some food on site and you may not leave. Figure this out and find a place to match. 

Use the Right Service for Choosing a Hotel or Apartment

Not all booking sites are created equal and some are better in a certain geography or for a certain kind of place. You know what Airbnb is good for, but don’t stop there and assume they’re the only choice for choosing apartments. I’ve written before about alternative ways to find an apartment to rent for a month or more, but for shorter stays, also check vrbo and Booking. You’ll likely face lower fees on top of the rate for both. 

Don’t stop with Booking.com when choosing a hotel: in Europe and Latin America they tend to have the best choice, but in Asia and USA/Canada, maybe not. Agoda generally works best for Asian countries (including hostels and guesthouses), with the most choices. Expedia and Hotels.com are stronger in the USA and Canada. There are dedicated sites for searching hostels if you’re going that route. 

Also, I tend to start with a metasearch site if I’m just looking to see what’s available and get a gut check on prices. The two biggest are Kayak and Trivago. They’ll show you the prices from multiple sites. Sometimes those prices are equivalent, but many times they’re not. 

How about you? What methods do you use when choosing a hotel or Airbnb place to make sure you get a place to stay that you’re happy with?