AirBnB, Hotel, or Hostel?

Just look at this room, a clean comfortable room near the metro, near La Rambla, and pretty darn cheap. It has an en suite bathroom with toilet, bidet, and shower. Look at the breakfast area. breads, meats, cheeses, hot eggs, beans, sausage, and a glorious coffee maker.

The typical rate is $79 according to Google , but we got if for perhaps $45 and change in December with a discount code. You can't do Motel 6 in the US for that little in a big town. The key was research. A hostel could set you back only $18, but that is in an 8 bed dorm, with towels for rent, and no free food. Could be closer to $30-35 after you add food. If we were a bit younger,that would be fine; but a mature married couple likes a little privacy. So how about an AirBnB? Great option for a lot of people...

Recently I checked and saw some good Barcelona AirBnBs from $29-$77, some with breakfast... but my first thoughts were 1) are they smokers... that smell does not go away 2) do they have pets... I am very allergic and 3) very few have an actual en suite for privacy. A private room with a reserved restroom is not an en suite. A lot of folks don't mind, Susann does. No walking out of the room waving to the owners when we need to do our business. The next issue is, you never know where a AirBnB actually is... they will tell you an area, but until you book it is a bit of a crap shoot; and we really like to be right on the public transit when we travel. We like to scope out the area in Google Street View in advance. No go with AirBnB. So, they can all be about the same price when you consider all of what we are looking for... and again we are not 5 star hotel shoppers. We get a place with the facilities we want, we know where it is, and we know we'll have an en suite, wi-fi, be close to the action, and be able to get a little grub in the morning.

I'll be some of you disagree, but that is my take on it.

#Hotels