Pod Hotels, Convents and Dorm Rooms, Oh My...

I've found a few sources that help find convents. The book "Bed and Blessings" is old and out of print, but I got it at the library. Not all the contact info is current, but it tells you places that have stays available. RS books on Italy (and the individual cities in Italy) list a few.

I booked 3 convents for my upcoming stay in Italy through 2 booking agencies: www.romeguide.it and www.monasterystays.com. I hated to pay their fees, but my efforts to contact the convents directly were far too time consuming and fairly unfruitful. BTW, convent stays aren't nearly as cheap as they were about 5 years ago. They're still better than many hotels, but not as cheap as hostels. Ours are between 74E-90E per night for a double with bath. This will be the first time I've used convents, so I hope we'll have a good experience.

There are some outside of Italy (I remember seeing some listed in France), but not alot. Do some Internet searching. The website for American Catholic church Santa Susanna in Rome has a list of some too. Good luck.

A "pod hotel" is typically a hotel that offers extremely small rooms with few (if any) amenities at rock bottom prices. As for square footage - they vary. In Japan, a "pod" may literally be the size of a coffin (think of the Seinfeld episode where Kramer rents out dresser drawers to Japanese tourists). In NYC, the room might be the size of a very small cruise ship cabin (with or without windows) - i.e., 100 square feet. At some pod hotels, you may have to share bathroom facilities - others will offer pods with a small ensuite bathroom (no tub, just a shower stall, sometimes installed over a toilet - just like they are on an Amtrak sleeper train).

Hostelworld.com or bugeurope.com are good starting points for hostel reviews. Can you ever completely trust all the reviews on a website? No. Even ratings/reviews on Trip Advisor or Travelocity are often skewed. Some people on here will say the Hosteling International (HI) hostels are fairly consistent as far as catering to an older clientele and being clean/safe and well-located. While some HI hostels do fit that bill, I've stayed in others that were complete dumps. Even if you stay in a 4, 6 or 8 bunk hostel room with your daughter, you are still paying about 20 to 30 Euro per bed and you're not getting your own bathroom. With 2 of you, sometimes you can do better in a budget hotel or a B&B/guesthouse if you can spend 60 to 80 Euro a night.

I'm not aware of a specific website for unused summer dorm rooms - but if you make a list of what major cities you are visiting in each country and find out what the big universities are in those cities and email them, I'm sure they can tell you if they rent their dorms to tourists during the off-season.

If you really want to look at cutting lodging costs, maybe look into a home exchange or a hospitality exchange organization like Servas.

If you go to Google and type in Pension, or B&B or short-term apt. and the city you will be in, you will get lists of whole lot of very reasonable places to stay. Plus, they will be nicer than staying in a hostel. I would much rather do this than stay in a hostel, as double, private rooms in a hostel can be as expensive as a budget hotel or even more expensive.

http://www.brigidine.org/

is another website for convent lodging.

http://www.gulfnews.com/explore/Hotels/10222513.html

I found the reviews on hostels.com to be helpful.

For the dorm room rentals, many of them just post on a website like hostles.com or elsewhere as a hostel. It is only when you read the details of the hostel that you see it is a dorm room. The only caveat is that campus dorm rooms usually seemed to be pretty far away from all the touristy stuff.

Since you are going to Prague, check out the River Bank Hostel, which I found to be one of the best hostels I stayed at. Just make sure you set an arrival time in advance as no one is at that specific hostel (staff is located at the nearby Emma hostel, with the same owners/employees).

Thanks for all of the input. As always, this board is a gem.

Steven, I would have to disagree that campus dorm rooms are far away from tourist sights. Some are very well located for tourists - ex. Trinity College dorms in Dublin, London School of Economics (multiple locations near Trafalgar Square, Theater District, Covent Gardens, Tower of London), Queen's University in Belfast.

What makes the university dorm rooms so appealing is that they are typically priced close to that of a shared hostel room, but you can land a private room for 1 or 2 that is generally a lot larger and you've got the privacy you don't get at a hostel with the amenities you need (kitchen access, laundry facilities, internet).

Lane,

I stayed mostly at Hostelling International hostels throughout Europe and found them to be just fine. I'm in my late 40s and had a great time and there were plenty others my own age there. I went solely off the hostel page on the www.hihostels.com web site to pick em and book em. If you're traveling with others, most of them had private rooms available.

Cheers,
Maggie

Visit the website www.yotel.com for more information on those pods (Yotel calls them cabins). Airport pods might make sense if you are flying, but probably not otherwise.

My option for very clean budget lodging is Etap hotels. they are easily reserved online and are located in many of your visit areas. While convents are nice reserving is not easy and they are getting more costly than before.