SEATTLE — Finding cheap flights and rental cars has become a little easier with all the meta searches and apps available, and now finding cheap lodging is no different.
You booked your summer vacation and now the next big question is, where are you going to stay?
Travel experts tell KIRO 7 that Airbnb is still leading when it comes to searching for alternatives to hotels, but if you want something unique and significantly cheaper than staying in an Airbnb or hotel in some cities, check out farms.
You can search hundreds of farms on Farm Stay USA — Farm and Ranch Vacations.
It may be hard to believe but waking up with the roosters and spending your day immersed in farm life can be a great experience, and in some places with rates as low as $40 a night.
But if farms aren’t really your thing and you would rather stick to hotels, Kyle Potter from Thrifty Traveler said that when it comes to meta search engines like Trivago, Kayak and Hotels.com, Google Hotel Search is his go-to.
“You can zoom out on a map and kind of wheel around to find a great rate in the area you want to stay in. You can set some filters and limit how much you want pay, you can filter for only 4- and 5-star hotels. It really is just the most powerful way to find a good deal, and once you settle on a hotel, in many cases it will give you a list of 20 different options of different websites to book that hotel through, whether it’s through the hotel itself, or one of these third-party travel agencies,” said Potter.
If you’re planning a trip to Asia, you can check out Agoda for last-minute reservations.
Agoda is a great resource in the U.S., too, but hotels in countries like Japan really bank on selling the rooms that aren’t booked, at a fraction of the price.
You can find 4-star hotels on the Agoda app for as little as $30 a night.
Lastly, don’t miss out on travel points, whether they’re from your credit card or directly from hotels.
Sometimes all the points add up to a free night’s stay or room upgrades.