where to stay

When it comes to traveling finding a place to stay is one of the most important things for a lot of people. Budget plays a huge role in this. Hotels are not cheap - especially nice ones. And since we've already established that we were traveling on a budget, we had fewer options.

We first established what part of each city we wanted to stay in, basing it on many things such as; safety, transportation, things we wanted to do/see, and so forth. I really focused on using Airbnb, and if you're not familiar with the site let me explain. Airbnb is a site that people use to rent out their apartments, houses, extra rooms, etc.. to anyone. There are many ways to modify your search such as if you want your own place, or if you're okay with shared space, how many rooms you need, and much more. Most Airbnb hosts post many photos and descriptions of there places with specific rules and things that are included.

One of the great things about Airbnb is most guest rate and talk about their experience and you can see how recent they stayed there. Pricing is based on whatever the host thinks is appropriate, and it even tells you how many times they've hosted. We used Airbnb for all but one of our stays in Europe and most of our stays were around 60 or less a night. All of the hosts were wonderful and left tons of suggestions on where to eat, what to do, advice, etc.. we felt completely safe in every place and were super comfortable - while saving money. Another plus of using Airbnb is that most come with kitchens which helps with saving food from restaurants since a lot of hotels lack fridge/microwaves - and if you want to cook you have the option to do that too. Some of our places even had a washer - which was needed since we were gone for over a month.

While I know it can be nice to have the luxury and familiarity of a hotel, but using Airbnb is really an awesome experience.

Basilica in Florence, Italy.