Staying in a hotel in a neighboring town can be much less expensive than staying in a popular town, even if it is very close by and easy to get to. This is especially true during conventions or other major events, where hotels in the host city will be much more expensive. Often just a 10- to 15-minute drive to a neighboring town can translate into huge savings on hotels. Depending on where you’ll spend most of your trip, weigh the costs of staying in the city center and using only local transportation options, versus staying outside the city center and renting a car to get around.
Some travel search engines take care of this for you, by including a radius around your target city when checking for prices. However in some cases you might find the best deals by searching directly for individual cities. Check online maps (e.g., Google, Mapquest) to find the names of the cities: zoom in on the main city in the area, then zoom out to see what towns are nearby. Try Tripadvisor.com for reviews and names of other hotels in specific cities. And always check for hotel coupons and deals.
If you find one hotel that comes up in a search in a neighboring town, then try searching for that town directly. Very often where you find one hotel, you find many!
Staying outside of town can be worth 10-20% or more of a discount. That’s $10-40 per night on a $100-200/night hotel, or up to $200 annual savings on five hotel nights per year!
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A LOZO expert posted this tip. |