We live in a wonderful time when we have very many channels and options for finding and booking accommodation for our trips via the internet. Few people would remember the times when you are limited to hotel rooms pre-organised by a travel agent!

​

Through our travels we have used several different booking apps including booking.com; airbnb, zuji, expedia and directly booking with hotels.

​

As adventure travellers looking for epic day hikes, the world's best golf courses, and the world's most awesome ski locations, our preference is for renting houses, apartments and villas rather than the traditional hotel rooms. Key factors and amenities that we typically look for are:

1. Location

Where and how you travel determines the location priority. If you have a vehicle you can be more flexible as you can drive to hiking trail heads and golf courses.

If you are travelling by train, you would want to be in a central location near a train station, grocery store, eateries and with public transportation to your hiking trail heads.

If you are on a ski trip, definitely try to get ski-in-ski-out accommodation that allows you to practically ski to a trail from your door or at least have a shortish walk to the main chairlifts. This is more important if you have a couple of small ones in tow and you have to carry their skis as well as your own.

​

2. Kitchen

When we travel we definitely want to dine out to enjoy the local cuisine. But there are times when it may make more sense to to prepare a meal in your accommodation. When you have plans to do that, a well equipped kitchen is important, preferably that also has a dishwasher! Having at least a kitchenette with a fridge could also save you some cash and inconvenience of having to eat breakfast out. You could at least prepare toasts, eggs and other breakfast favourites.

​

3. Laundry

When you are on a multi-day active trip, having a washer and dryer in the accommodation is so convenient and you can also stay fresh with clean clothes. Knowing in advance that you have access to these amenities also means that you could pack 2 to 3 days' change of clothes instead of 2 weeks worth!

​

4. View

For nature lovers, having a great view from your private window adds so much to the enjoyment of your trip. If you plan in advance, do good research, and actually ask for a room with a view, you could get lucky. ​

​

Search and Booking Options and Channels:

1. Having used several different platforms through the years, I have mostly gravitated to using mostly booking.com and airbnb.

2. With booking.com, when you get to Genius level 2 or 3, you often get some legitimate exclusive discounts. I have verified that the discounts are often genuine in that you actually save - for example vs. booking directly with the property or via airbnb for the same property. We have also used booking.com to book a rental vehicle and the experience turn out to be good too.

3. With airbnb, you then to get more listings for complete homes with multiple bedrooms, kitchen, washer/dryer etc. At times, we felt like the airbnb service fee felt a bit high, but often you do get some awesome deals - like a fantastic 3 or 4-bedroom house with full amenities at great value. Some years ago, airbnb appeared to use dynamic pricing - ie the more times you look at a property or location, the higher the price gets. After sending them several complaints, they appeared to have stopped this practice, but its always good to be aware.

4. One common thing I like and trust with both booking.com and airbnb is their very clear refund policies which are always executed as promised. And every time you are entitled to a refund for cancellation, the experience has been that they do it without any hassle. In addition, both platforms usually have many listings that allow free cancellation until quite near to your check in date. There may be a small price premium to pay for this benefit which we feel is fair, as it gives you peace of mind to secure your accommodation way in advance while still be safe guarded in the event of an unforeseen situation forcing you to have to cancel the booking.

5. While Trivago claiming to present the lowest rates across platforms, I hardly use them, as the one time I did, I ended up booking through a platform that turned out to be an absolute disaster to deal with.

6. There is one platform which we had an absolutely horrible experience with, and would never use again - WOTIF. Our bad experience was in 2021. Hopefully they have improved.

​7. The above are based on our experience. Your experience may differ. Its always good to check around. Some properties do offer better prices directly, whereas others allow booking platforms to be competitive in order to get better reach into the market.