Chances
are you’re no longer a penny-pinching college student who’ll happily
sleep on any old surface — clean or not — while travelling, just to save
a few bucks. And while your keg-stand days are a hazy, foamy memory in
the past, your desire to score a good deal isn’t.
This
week travel journalist Vaughn Stafford Gray (VGH) took one for the team
(“team” being those of us who aren’t yet prepared to stay in a shared
home abroad) and booked himself into a private room, rather than
searching for “entire accommodations” on Airbnb.
In
major cities like New York, Paris, Toronto, Tokyo and Miami, which is
where Stafford Gray was visiting, booking a private room inside of a
stranger’s home was significantly cheaper than booking someone’s entire
apartment or a hotel room.
Not
only did the lower accommodation cost allow for a more flexible budget
on more important things, like food, it also meant he had access to
insider info on the city and his neighborhood of choice, all because he
was staying with an outgoing local.
