Play the video to find tips on how to get free accommodation on a round the world (RTW) trip!

Last year (2011) I visited 17 countries. Other than a few nights staying with friends, and one month renting a flat in Seville, I stayed in backpacker hostels the entire time. In fact, since I took my first backpacking adventure in 2006 I’ve by enlarge stayed in hostels throughout the entirety of my travels.

In that time I’ve experienced all manor of weird and wonderful hostels - some good, some bad. Despite a saving in cost compared to more traditional forms of accommodation, the atmosphere and ease of meeting other backpackers is a huge part of why I rarely stay in hotels on the road.

The key to a good atmosphere in a hostel is a good, social, common room! Why? A common room is the area backpackers from all around the world go to meet each other, and it is what makes a hostel distinct from hotels, other than for the dormitory style rooms it houses.

Open area seating

If you want to get people chatting then you need to have seats that are in an open format. By that what I mean is facing seats and sofas, preferably in a circle formation rather than categorised off into sets that are back to back. If you arrive into a hostel where everything is closed off in terms of seating then you know the hostel management haven’t really thought about or put the effort into how they are naturally going to get you mixing.

Making things comfortable

Bean bags are cool, but one of my pet hates is hostels that ONLY have bean bags. I think the Wake Up Hostel in Sydney was my first experience of this in their tv lounge room. It’s really annoying if you want to sit up and have drinks with people and still remain comfortable. By all means have a few bean bags. They’re cheaper than an extra sofa most probably, and act as spare seats… but not as the actual main stay seating! You need something where people can sit around a table, place their drinks, and be able to lounge comfortably so they’re relaxed, but also be able to sit up properly and talk to people.

More than one common room always results in a better hostel atmosphere

Not everybody wants to party 24/7. Sometimes even the most hardcore party boy or girl wants to chill now and again… even if it is just to get over a hangover from the night before! There will be some guests who like to read a book quietly in a common room or watch tv, and others who’ll want to sit there drinking, talking loudly, and getting up to all the fun debauchery that you do as a backpacker. Neither is bad, but when you mix the two types of people in one room it usually doesn’t work. One wants peace and quiet and thinks the other is interrupting their chill time, the other thinks these moany quiet people are being party poopers, spoiling their party. Having two common rooms solves this problem. One quiet room, and one for drinking or anything loud.

Pool tables, table tennis, movies…

If a hostel really is as good as they say they are they will make an active effort to get everybody socialising and mixing with one another. Something as simple as a free pool table, table tennis, or movie nights could do this. Ideally they should arrange a few nights out a week for everybody. This is especially helpful to solo travellers who may not know anybody yet but would still like to go out.

Free booze

I once stayed at a hostel in Lagos (Portugal) that gave us 6 huge buckets of sangria to drink for free out on the terrace. They did this once a week. The hostel made it themselves, buying in some cheap ingredients from the local supermarket. I doubt it would have cost them too much to buy in, and the reaction from the guests was “WOW! I LOOOVE THIS HOSTEL” Free booze is always going to go down well, no matter how cheap it is. We got drunk for free out on the terrace, followed by a crazy night on the town. Everybody wanted to book another night.

Hostel staff to get the party going!

I’ve always found hostels who employ backpackers to mix with guests to have a much better party atmosphere than those who don’t. Often they’ll just offer free accommodation in exchange for a long term backpacker chaperoning guests about to various clubs they have promotions with, or getting the party going in the hostel common room. Because it’s someone who was already a backpacker at that hostel, they understand exactly what the guests want, are usually friends with most of them already. If I ever set up my own hostel, I’ll definitely be adopting this technique! It really helps boost the atmosphere greatly.

In the past I’ve always professed my love for backpacker hostels. They’re cheap, provide a social atmosphere, and are a good place for a solo backpacker to meet other people, but a hostel is not for everyone…. There are a lot of people out there who think the idea of sharing a dorm room with a bunch of people they’ve never met is not what they want from their travels! I completely understand. One type of accommodation definitely does not suit all.

So how do you travel on a budget around the world without staying in a hostel? Hotels can be expensive, and even if you would consider a backpacker hostel, what if they’re all full in the location that you want? What if it’s a country like the USA which doesn’t have a culture of backpacker hostels, and therefore you are unlikely to find one where you are? What if you are travelling as a group or a couple, and paying prices by the bed instead of by the room will make a hostel more expensive?

There are always occasions when we need alternatives in life. Having more choices allows us to make the best decisions to suit ourselves and what is best for our travels. For those people who may have asked themselves the questions above, or don’t necessarily fit the hosteling budget backpacker mould, then you may be interested to hear about Roomorama.

A variety of destinations to choose from worldwide

One of the things which I think positions Roomorama well for catering to the RTW (Round The World) backpacker is that they have such a large variety of properties listed around the world. Whether you want to stay in Buenos Aires or near Buckingham Palace, near a beach, in a country retreat, or in a big city location, there is a lot of variety to choose from.

Prices to suit most budgets

I recently spent 5 nights in London using a room I found on Roomorama. London in particular offered prices for a little as 25 GBP per night for a room outside the metro area, to as much as 975 GBP per night for a plush 3 bedroom apartment in the middle of Mayfair.

The place I stayed at was in Zone 2 near East Acton station, and only cost 42 GBP per night. It was clean, had cable TV, private bathroom, private kitchen facilities, and a free basic breakfast each morning. I had everything I needed in a central location at an affordable price. I am also just 1 person. The room was able to accommodate 2 people. If you are staying somewhere like I was then you could potentially pay just 21 GBP per night sharing with another person. I thought this was a really good deal for such an accessible location of London, albeit off season.

(Please note: Roomorama gave me a credit to use for the purpose of this review, i.e. I stayed for free. Like any review I do on here, be it my 1 month Inter Rail journey, or my tour of Scotland with Haggis Adventures, I am always honest. I would genuinely use Roomorama as a customer in the future.)

5 things you should know about Scotland before you visit our shores are:

• Never call a kilt a skirt in Scotland
• Never refer to Scotland as England
• Unpredictable weather – rain, snow, sunshine, and wind all in one days is normal
• We like to drink a lot of alcahol. We did invent whisky afterall…
• We officially have the worst national diet in Europe… but it does taste gooooood!

Watch the video above for more info and to have a laugh at me on my 1st real video blog!

One of the things I love about travel is that there are so many different styles to choose from. Some even over lap, and many are much more specific than just the loosely termed backpacker or luxury traveller. You have long term travellers, business travellers, digital nomads, flashpackers, budget backpackers, WWOOFers, volunteers, eco-travellers, country & continent specific travellers… The list goes on! There are also those who don’t like to be labelled (which I can understand), and those who like to travel in a different style depending on the occasion or how the mood strikes. Everybody is different, and usually a combination of many styles, not just one. Sometimes your style is simply defined by your budget.

For me, I’ve always very much been a long term budget backpacker. Even back when I was a student, when I may not have had the money to go away as often as I would have liked… Every trip I planned was long term, aimed at making my money last as long as possible. It didn’t matter necessarily how much money there was in the pot. It could be 100 dollars or a million dollars… I’d still be staying in backpacker hostels and looking for ways to make the money last as long a time as possible. If it lasted a week then that was because it was all I could afford. It it lasted a year then it was under the same principle.

The style that I describe above is not going to change much for me in the future. I will still be staying predominantly in budget backpacker hostels, and still making long term plans. This is how I like travelling. However, a lot of my trips of late, despite lasting several months in total, they often revolve around going to a lot of destinations within a reasonably short period of time. This means that although I’m a long term traveller in terms of the physical months of travel under my belt, I’ve actually not staying a very long time in each destination. This is something I want to change.

I visited 17 countries last year in 10 months. 16 of those countries were squashed into 6 months of travel, while the other 4 months I spent in Spain just hanging out, eating tapas, and trying to learn some Spanish. I went to some incredibly unique and inspiring destinations in that 6 months out of Spain such as Bucharest and Belgrade to name a few… but you know what? The best times I had were actually in Spain.

It was all to do with the people I met. I had an instant connection with these people, but more importantly, I actually stayed there long enough to strike up real friendships with them. That may sounds silly to some people, but I’ve been missing something in my life since I started travelling long-term and that is a base. A real base, with a home, and a network of friends who will miss me when I’m gone. People who really know me, and who when I come back months later it feels like only yesterday.

I began to think about all the places I’ve been to on my travels, and the ones which I always looked back on most fondly. They were all destinations I’d stayed in for at least one month, sometimes much longer than that. All the 2 day or 1 week destinations were almost forgotten. In fact, for a while I’d forgotten I’d been to Luxembourg. A beautiful city/country, and a place I enjoyed, but I was only there 2 days. How can you get to know a place and people in 2 days? The answer is quite simply – you can’t.

So I’m changing my travel style to revolve around a base. I may change bases every couple months, or have one place I base myself permanently while I hop around… I don’t know yet. That base may even be home in Scotland or in another city around the world. All I know is this constant chopping and changing every few days and weeks is not how I want to travel anymore. I don’t think it was ever how I wanted to travel, it’s just something I ended up doing.

Slow travel is the way for me…