Hospitality club - sleep for free everywhere

Hospitality club (HC) is an online community of people who love helping other travellers out in many different ways. This website is the impoverished, but more idealist brother of Couchsurfing (as mentioned earlier in this blog).

The core function of the website is to give other travellers a place to rest their weary heads after long travels through strange countries.

People register on the website and after they are approved can both go to stay at other people's houses and have people stay at their house.

This is very similar - and older - than the popular Couchsurfing.

The difference between Couchsurfing and HC is that HC is less commercialised and is very basic. This is both a good thing and a bad thing.

Ideologically, HC is more pure than Couchsurfing because it stays true to its core function as a hospitality website, wheras Couchsurfing is more aimed towards events.

The downside is that the website was designed by an amateur webmaster many years ago and it has not been upgraded since. Sometimes this means the website is slow or does not work. It is also very unattractive and the search function is extremely limited.

What it does do better than Couchsurfing is the forum where people can talk to eachother about almost anything. Of course this does mean a meeting of the minds.

Although the membership base is getting smaller (due to website dilemmas) it is still and excellent community full of like-minded people who just want to help a brother out.

The way to use the website is simple - you register, contact members and stay at their house for free! There is no membership fee, there is no obligation for you to reciprocate if you don't have the time/facilities/will.

This will save you a lot of money.

Trains the way to go (save time and euros)

In Europe you get cheap flights from point A to point B, but in Western Europe, it is often worth taking the train instead. They run very frequently, there is no check in time and often it will take the same amount of time. Plus you won't need to get connections. If you were going from a location 100km west of Berlin to a city 100km south of Paris, an overnight train would probably end up being the best option for example, because of the hassle of getting to the airport, checking in, waiting, flying, landing, getting bags, then getting to your new location. Better just to sleep in the train.

So how do you save money with the train?

There are the obvious ones like Eurail and Interrail, but less often used by tourists are things like the BahnCard.

The BahnCard is Deutsche Bahn's way of giving return customers a discount and there are a few of them. The one that will interest tourists will only be the BahnCard 25, which gives you a 25% discount off all fares. It is useful for people who spend more than 200 Euros a year on train travel annually.

Note that this is not the only option and you should talk to the ticket salespeople for the best ways to get to places. However, it is worth knowing about!

Disounts EVERYWHERE (save euros each day)

This is only good if you are a student, a teacher or under 26. If you are none of these, stop reading.

But if you do come into those catagories, then you'd best read on. This is a very simple thing to have and it is cheap to get, but it will save you bulk when you go to get train and bus tickets, when you go to museums and even when you look for a place to sleep or eat.

Most places in Europe have prices listed for adults and for students and it is best to take advantage of that. By having the card, people all over the continent will let you in for cheap. The more you do, the more you save.

For example, if you climb a town hall tower in town X and then take a train to town Y you could end up spending 20 euros, but with the student card, it could be 15 euros.

Over a short trip, this doesn't mean that much, but over time, you can make some pretty significant savings.

Its easy and convenient - get it. You can get these in most travel agents or at your university. OR order one online from ISICcard.com