Easy and cheap ways to book short-term stays in apartments in Europe

• What are these short-term European apartments like?
• Important trend: cheap and easy apartment stays in eastern Europe
• Two fast & easy ways of finding short-term European apartments
  1 – Use filters on standard hotel-booking sites
  2 – Check hostel sites for apartments and private rooms
• Cheaper and more complicated ways of booking European apartment stays

If you plan to travel in Europe anytime soon, you should be aware of the availability and rising demand for apartment rentals as an alternative to standard hotel stays. Today, you can find these apartments all throughout Europe, and they almost always offer better value than a hotel would at the same price.

Even if you are aware of this, you may not be familiar with the many methods for locating and reserving these apartments. There are two basic ways to make reservations, with one being much simpler and the other being more affordable. One of the approaches listed below will work best for you, depending on whether you have more time or money.

What are these short-term European apartments like?

Before we discuss the ways of finding and booking European apartments, let’s first talk about what they really are. Unsurprisingly, they can range from tiny to huge, but it’s more helpful to think of them as being small because at least 90% of them are. They will almost always be larger than a hotel room at a similar price, but still most of them have a bed in the living space, and at least a small kitchenette.

You can expect:

• A larger main room than a typical hotel room in the same city
• One or more separate bedrooms in some cases, although studio apartments tend to dominate
• At least a small kitchen with a sink, electric kettle, and often a microwave or stovetop
• Pots, pans, dishes, plates, and silverware to prepare and serve basic meals
• A small refrigerator, usually empty
• Bath towels, sheets, soap etc., just like in a hotel
• Usually a TV and free Wi-Fi

What not to expect:

• A central location very close to the main square
• A front desk and concierge to help answer questions (although you can often get help other ways)
• The ability to check-in or check-out at odd times of day (usually)
• A central location very close to the main square
• A front desk and concierge to help answer questions (although you can often get help other ways)
• The ability to check-in or check-out at odd times of day (usually)

Important trend: Cheap and easy apartment stays in eastern Europe

If you are thinking about staying in an apartment in one of the major tourist destinations in western Europe, such as London, Paris, Rome, or Munich, you can expect to pay rates that are comparable to what local hotels charge for a somewhat larger room.

But in the eastern capitals like Berlin, Prague, Budapest, Krakow, and Zagreb, flats usually provide significantly better value than hotels.

The reason has to do with the fact that apartment building owners in western cities may command high rents from residents and are frequently constrained in what they can do with their structures. However, many owners have renovated historic structures in the eastern cities by converting them into "apartment hotels." They may make more money renting out short-term homes to tourists due to the rise in visitors than they can by renting to locals for meagre monthly rents.

Even for the larger flats in better locations, this rise in supply has maintained per-night rates for apartments in these areas very cheap.

Two fast & easy ways of finding short-term European apartments

Using the 2 methods below, you can get instant availability and booking confirmation, but prices are usually a bit higher than the complicated methods further down the page.

1 – Use filters on standard hotel-booking sites

You might not be aware that apartment hotels are already listed alongside conventional hotels on all of the major internet travel firms. They are rarely the absolute cheapest accommodations, and they never pay to be one of the first few "recommended hotels" that booking services direct you toward, so you'll frequently struggle to discover them in the listings. These factors make them rarely appear on the first page of results, making them simple to overlook.

1. Go to your favorite European hotel-booking site
2. Enter your city, arrival, and departure dates
3. Check the filters to search just for “rentals” or “vacation rentals”
4. You’ll now be looking at apartments and similar properties

The best thing about this is that you can instantly see availability, check TripAdvisor reviews, and pay with a credit card for instant confirmation. You also usually get some sort of front desk at these places, which can be really handy for first-time visitors.

Hotels.com – Part of the Expedia family, Hotels.com has extensive coverage all over Europe and has some of the best rates of any site. They also list thousands of apartments in cities all over the continent.

2 – Check hostel sites for apartments and private rooms

Today, both hostel booking sites and hotel booking sites provide a variety of short-term apartments. There is typically a "apartments" checkbox right on the main search area, making it a little bit simpler to find them. This allows you to focus your search with fewer clicks. Hostel booking websites frequently advertise the same units that hotel booking websites do, typically at the same costs (more or less).

But traditional hostels also offer individual rooms, which should be taken into account. Along with the conventional dorm beds, there are a rising number of private rooms, including ones for just 1 or 2 individuals. Of course, there are also private rooms for parties of between 3 and 16, so you can find something that comes very near to being appropriate for your group in most European towns.

A private room at a hostel typically includes the communal kitchen rather than a little private kitchenette, in contrast to traditional apartment hotels. They aren't as conducive to mingling in groups because the rooms are typically mostly furnished with beds rather than sofas and tables. On the other side, front-desk service is typically provided by hostels.

Hostelworld.com – This site dominates the hostel scene, and they make apartment hunting extremely easy. Another benefit is you can reserve with a small deposit (about 10%), and it’s easy to cancel or change dates if you need to.

Cheaper and more complicated ways of booking European apartment stays

By now there is a good chance that you’ve heard of Airbnb.com because it’s been in the news for a variety of reasons in the last year or so. Part of this is because it has undergone monstrous growth in listings and bookings, so it’s far and away the market leader for short-term rentals in place of apartments.

Once you find a place you might want to rent, you can usually check the availability calendar right on the listing, but you have to email the renter through the airbnb system in order to actually start the booking process. It’s usually easy to find renters who respond quickly and get good feedback from past guests, thanks to a helpful rating system the site uses.

The site recommends you contact several hosts in order to be more certain you’ll find availability, and this is one of the things that takes some effort. Unlike the methods above, you might send a dozen emails over a week or more before you find one that confirms for your dates. Frequent users say that booking is usually quite easy, especially if you try for places that are booked frequently.

Arranging to get the building key and door key is another complicating step because renters are rarely stationed nearby, and you might have a limited time window in order to check in as well.

9flats.com

Similar to Airbnb except it’s much smaller, 9flats.com is another one to consider if you don’t like Airbnb or you just like to be different.

vrbo.com

Short for “vacation rentals by owner,” vrbo.com has abundant listings in Europe and it’s a long-established player in this market. But they tend to specialize more in “vacation rentals” rather than short-term apartments. In other words, if you are looking for a larger place for at least a few days if not a full week, then this is a good one to try. They also have a great variety of beach homes and other posh places in resort areas rather than cities.

homeaway.com

Not only is homeaway.com similar to vrbo.com, but this site actually bought that one not long ago.

craigslist.org

There’s a good chance that you’ve at least heard of craigslist, even if you don’t use it regularly. It’s a hugely popular classified-ads website with sub-locations all over the world. There is a “vacation rentals” tab for each of the hundreds of cities they cover, but there are many notable downsides to consider as well.

First off, craigslist is insanely popular in the US and Canada, but its use is very spotty everywhere else. You might find 40 vacation rental listings each day in one city, and few or none in another city of a similar size. You just have to check for yourself. Some countries have a more popular equivalent such as gumtree.com in the UK, while other countries have nothing like it at all (or at least nothing in English).