I used to swear by hostels until I stayed at a $30/night Airbnb in Lisbon and saw the difference

Back in 2019 I was all about hostels for saving money. Then last spring I booked a tiny apartment in Lisbon's Alfama district for 30 euros a night. Same price as a hostel dorm but I got my own room, a kitchen, and quiet. The thing that changed my mind was being able to cook breakfast and pack a lunch for day trips. Saved me at least 10 euros a day on food. Has anyone else had that moment where one stay flipped your whole budget strategy?

3 comments

3 Comments

spencerm461mo ago

Wait, you mean I'm allowed to have a kitchen and not share a bathroom with a guy from Sweden who leaves his wet towel on the floor? That sounds like a scam. I had a similar flip when I booked a bunk in a hostel in Barcelona that turned out to be basically a closet with three other people in it and I couldn't open the door all the way. After that, I started looking at Airbnb and found a tiny studio in Madrid for the same price as a hostel dorm and I actually slept more than three hours. The only downside was the host left a list of rules longer than a CVS receipt including "no loud music after 9pm" and "please air out the apartment after cooking fish." Still beats waking up to someone's snoring at 4am though. Your mileage may vary but if you can handle a slightly weird host, the private room thing is a no brainer.

williamhill1mo ago

Whole world is just trade-offs between freedom and rules, hostel chaos or fish rule lists.

piper_reed1mo ago

The four-person closet in Barcelona sounds rough but those hostels taught me something valuable about what I actually need vs what I want. I started noticing that the Airbnb hosts with the longest rule lists usually had the best kept apartments with actual helpful stuff like extra blankets and a working coffee maker. The fish rule though that made me laugh because I had a host in Lisbon who left a twelve point rule sheet and point seven was literally "do not flush anything except toilet paper and human waste" with it underlined three times. So I'm curious did the Madrid apartment have any hidden gems like a decent knife block or spare towels that actually made the rule list worth it or was it just a bunch of rules with no payoff?