Finding a place to stay abroad as a budget traveler can be a very frustrating process. While Vicky and I plan to turn to couch surfers as our main source, you can't guarantee that someone will be available, no matter how many people you mail or how much notice you give. In most cases, the next step will be to turn to a hostel or an apartment share. Where then, are the best websites to go about this, and how do they stack up against each other?
Let's start by considering some of the top hostel websites and see how they handle a fabricated request.
The websites we're going to review are regarded as some of the best in their industry:
HostelWorld
HostelBookers
Hostels
Hostelz
The (fake) Request
Location: Berlin, Germany
Dates: Sept 6th - Sept 9th 2012
Guests: 2
HostelWorld
Results: 167
Lowest Total Price: $46.89 ***after $2 booking fee*** (Ranked 3 in returned results)
When you sort by price it displays the lowest per guest/per night price for all options covering the days you asked. One thing to be careful of is the first night may often be cheaper than say, the second or third, so that it ranks higher in the search engines. For example, the first two hostels that came up were actually $50 MORE EXPENSIVE than what I found by trying a few more farther down...
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Functionality: There's a lot about the functionality that I really liked. First, the search filters allow you to select which features you want, which is clutch if you need a place with internet, for example. Moreover, the map view functionality is extremely helpful if you're looking for certain areas or distances to public transportation. Berlin is a big city and this gets right to the point. In general, review metrics are nice but I don't pay too much attention to anything outside of the overall, unless something stands out as being particularly bad (like cleanliness). Lastly, when you click on a place to view its information, it has some nice summary tables highlighting the features, rates (including days before and after your possible selection) and map in a clear and coherent manner.
HostelBookers
Results: 113
Lowest Total Price: $42.72 ***NO booking fee*** (Ranked 1 in returned results)
It's important to call out a few things here. The first is that the hostel I found here is the same as what I found on HostelWorld, but it was $4 cheaper (that's 10%). The second is that there is no booking fee, which, if you travel a lot, honestly could result in hundreds of dollars saved. Lastly, while with HostelWorld I had some issues in that I felt the price displayed was somewhat misleading (it only represented the cheapest night which was often 50% lower than subsequent nights), I did not run into this problem with HostelBookers. I'm not saying it couldn't happen, I'm just saying I found this site to be more consistent. This is why what ranked #1 in their search results only ranked 3 in HostelWorld, because in HostelWorld, the first two slots were occupied by hostels that had very cheap nights but expensive subsequent nights (resulting in double the overall price).
Functionality: This site and HostelWorld have pretty similar functionality with some minor differences. The first that I liked about HostelBookers is the ability to not only sort by price but by whether or not that price was a shared room or a private room as I can definitely see that being a major decision by someone. The second is that they had some nice extras about the hostel called out that I didn't see in HostelWorld, such as the check in/out time, purchasable extras, and what's included. Outside of that I found everything to be pretty much the same.
Hostels
Results: 163
Lowest Total Price: $46.89 ***after $2 booking fee*** (Ranked 3 in returned results)
This essentially returned the same results as hostel world, and as a result also had the same "issues" with pricing. There is a booking fee as well.
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Functionality: In terms of pricing and results this site is very similar to HostelWorld but frankly hasn't come as far a way in its functionality. It's missing some really key search filters (features for example). Lastly, it doesn't have quite as many extras as the aforementioned websites.
Hostelz
Results: 100+ (Didn't call out specifically)
Lowest Total Price: $42.72 ***NO booking fee*** (Ranked 1 in returned results)
Hostelz actually combines search results from Hostel World, HostelBookers, Hostel Club, Student Universe and shows you the price of booking on each. You can literally see, for example, that HostelWorld charges more for the same place. By booking through HostelBookers you got the best deal. It's a cool way to right off the bat get a comparison of them both.
Functionality: Slightly less appealing to use because it includes some of the extras in the description instead of calling them out separately like HostelBookers and HostelWorld. That said, I give it credit for comparing reviews and prices on the websites that it includes (HostelWorld, HostelBookers, HostelClub, Student Universe)
Recommendation: Hostel Booker
Although HostelBooker returned significantly less results than some of the other websites, I still prefer this one for several reasons.
Overall better deal and more upfront about the prices. With Hostel World if you didn't do you research properly you could end up spending not just 10% more but 100% more.
It's important to note that this was only one case studies and results may vary. Given enough time, I would probably check several of these websites to really make sure I was getting the best deal, but I think Hostel Booker is my first choice going forward.
Dave Schneider runs a travel blog at
http://www.acoupletravelers.com/ which specializes in providing budget travel tips to readers.
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