Hosteling with kids best deals for your money

Keisha, We stayed at several different hostels in the Netherlands this past summer (family of 4) and had a great time. Check out Stayokay.com .The breakfasts were hearty, the staff friendly and the beds comfy.

For Italy, we rented a flat (with kitchen) at Homelidays.com .

Our budget overall for the trip was 120 Euros per night and during our 5 week trip we stayed within budget.

I found some short term apartments and B&Bs to be the best value for the money.

Some hostels are great for families ,, some are not. Some are not a better deal then getting a cheap hotel room.

You should check out some other forums that will have people who hostel more ,, like Lonely Planet and a Hostelling forum,, just start googling.

I am sure you know not all hostels have family rooms, so you first need to figure out which ones do.

The best deals I got were B&Bs, Pensions and Apartments. The hostels have a fixed price.

I don't do reservations except day of arrival and night before departure. I call in the AM before arriving at a destination. I find that most lodging alternatives will give you a good price because they know they are sitting on empty rooms for the night. Apartments are often run in connection with a hotel and will ignore minimum stay requirements at the last minute.

I travel outside summer season. You're probably less likely to find last minute availability and good prices in the summer.

Check out the tourism websites for the areas that you plan on visiting, or try searching for self-catering in the area, like "self-catering bern". You can also search for farmhouses in Germany and Switzerland. Some areas only rent out for the week, but often in Germany you can rent day-to-day. We've found an awesome farmhouse in Austria that rented apartments daily for 50 euros that way. This may be as good as or a better deal than hostels. Plus, it had cows, horses, and 4 other families with kids to play with. What could be better?

Cynthia Harriman's book "Take Your Kids to Europe" is a huge resource on finding accomodations. It takes a lot of work to do the searches, but can be well worth it in money saved and fun had.

Homelidays.com is a very valuable resource for very inexpensive rentals being that I plan to stay for at least 5 days in each country this is the best bet because most hostels cost overall more than that, thanks a million any other info You have for travel as a family will be greatly appreciated

keisha, you might enjoy reading www.ricksteves.com/graffiti/graffiti117.html in the Graffiti Wall section of this website. There are lots of great comments there!

Cheers!

The hostels in Germany and Switzerland are immaculate.

Apartments are usually a great deal in Germany if looking at more rural and resort areas, where Germans tend to vacation. You'll likely pay around 50 Euros or less for an average small apartment. Nice to have that kitchen and all the room. The most complete source of info is the local tourist office or their website. This site lets you search by region and has rentals in other countries too:

www.accommodatiion.de

Hostels: a good choice in cities where rentals are scarece. When are you traveling? The best deal I know of in Germany is the winter online special from mid-Nov. to mid-March in the Rhineland area hostels. You get 2 nights B&B for a family of up to 5 people and dinner for all on the evening of your arrival. Total price is betweeen 39 and 65 Euros depending on the category of the hostel. You can't beat this if you plan to visit places like Mainz, Koblenz, Trier, or smaller towns in the area like Cochem (kids might like the all-season water park next door) or St. Goar. We booked this deal a couple of years ago and stayed in a castle-hostel in Diez (Bacharach's castle-hostel should be bookable on this plan as well.)

To book:
www.diejugendherbergen.de

and click on the tiny British flag

Thanks for introducing me to Homelidays...when i checked the site i found a "houseboat"/"peniche" docked at the bottom of our hill in Lafrette sur Seine..lovely! good price 430 euro a week..We already have a home but i'd (jealously) suggest it to friends, even if it would take them 20 mins minimum to walk UP the hill to the train station for the 20min trip into Paris