Couch surfing. house swapping and house sitting

Usually I am focused on the luxury segment, but for low budget traveling the Web can be a good source: Couchsurfing.com is a site in line with the current www hype: building communities. Couch surfers can get into contact with people who put a couch available for a stay for free on the understanding that everybody is willing to participate in the scheme. On this site couch surfers meet, discuss, get new contacts, organize meetings and give tips….
Other idea’s are house swapping and house sitting….just Google those terms.

Holiday roundup: Weekend Hotels abroad

buitenland

In preparation of the holiday season Willem in Weekendhotels Abroad and some comments thereon gave some ideas and tips:

    Sources:
  • Alastair Sawdays: an English journalist/publisher of travel guides and a nice website: Europe + Morocco and India.
  • Rusticae: Spanish origin: Spain and Latin America.
  • I-Escape: English initiative, travel agent: Global hip destinations.
  • Design hotels: Expensive and design, Worldwide: from Bali to Ibiza.
  • Destination BCN: for appartments.
    Individual Hotels:

Sleepover Suite: Let’s party!

Sleepover Suite

What’s that? An -of course- pink hotel suite where wild parties of your teener daughter can be hosted instead of at your home. The rooms are sound proof: Hard rock music or karaoke sessions don’t bother the other guests. A spacious walk in shower and ample make up facilities and -products are available and off the girls can go. Read more at Old Towers Time

Last edited by GJE on December 3, 2011 at 12:56 pm

Hotel Pillows in Zwolle and IJsselhotel in Deventer

They just opened the splendid Chateau De Raay, but the Sandton Group is already busy developing two new 4 star hotels:

Pillows
  • Pillows gets 45 chambers and is an entire new development.
  • IJsselhotel seems a renovation and gets 32 rooms. It is situated along the IJssel (one branch of the Rhine river that splits from it just before Arnhem) opposite the city of Deventer and will be conected with the city with its own little ferry..

In the meantime Sandton also took over Hotel de Filisoof in Amsterdam.

Not so sweet: Suite Scam

Hotel Scams

An article in USA Today warns you not to book anything you see advertised on the web without looking up references. Mala fide owners or tenants of dire blocks of apartments put an advertisement on a travel site. The innocent tourist thinks it’s a nice three star “suite”, books it, and arrives in a dump where the folding couch doesn’t fit even in the room, because once fold out it hits the kitchen sink.