Solo Travel and the Apartment Versus Hotel Question: A Two-Year Comparison

As a solo traveler, I have split my time between renting out apartments and booking hotels for my trips. For me, the decision to rent out an apartment or book a hotel has largely been based on the length of my trip, the destination and what is available when I am looking to book out a place to stay. It is interesting to look back on both options and highlight the main differences between them as well as the positives and negatives for solo travelers.

I wanted to provide a honest comparison of Apartments vs. Hotels for cost, for the type of trip that you are going to get, for the social interaction you will receive, and for your general style of travel.

The cost difference

In terms of per night cost the Apartments are usually cheaper than hotels for longer stays. See the cost pattern below.

1-3 nights – hotels are generally cheaper as the booking and cleaning fees charged by apartment platforms don’t get spread far enough to bring down nightly rate of the apartment. 4 to 7 nights: As the cleaning charges are applied for the return arrival day for a one way booking, the nightly rate will start to become uncompetitive against similar quality hotel offerings. However, as the stay extends to a week or more, the rates will start to be of a similar price. 8-14 nights the apartment will start to lose money as cleaning is required for return stay, however a 20% weekly discount will be applied to Weekly and Monthly rate. Staying in apartments for more than 14 nights is also cheaper than staying in hotels, often as low as 50% of the equivalent hotel rate for a monthly stay.

At first glance, it might seem that the nightly rate is the only thing to consider when comparing hotels to apartments for extended stays. However, when looking at 10 night stays for example in moderately priced cities, the difference in nightly rate between hotels and apartments ends up being less than one might have thought. The bigger difference in cost for travelers ends up being what they can save while staying in an apartment by not having to eat out for every meal. For the 10 night stays in moderately priced cities that we used as examples, we estimated that the traveler can save as much as $300-$500 per person for the entire trip by opting for an apartment to stay in as opposed to a hotel.

The lifestyle difference

This is where the choice really matters.

An apartment gives you:

1) A kitchen where you can make your own breakfast, store fruits and make simple meals. A washing machine for your clothes. Note that not all apartments have a washing machine, others have to be sent out to a laundrette. Locals’ products in local shops. Instead of going out for breakfast every morning, you can even include it in your daily routine and buy the morning’s provisions in a local shop. A dedicated workspace such as a desk to work from. For digital nomads the space to work in apartments can be far more suitable than that found in hotels. An apartment gives you the feeling that you are not just visiting places but that you are staying in a home. This is the biggest difference for most people when they are deciding between booking a hotel room or an apartment for their stay.

Here are the 4 key features of hotels:

A hotel is always clean. The beds are always made for you. 4) The services of the front desk, with staff who can recommend places to eat and things to see and solve problems that arise during the guest’s stay. Breakfast included in many cases. One less decision per day. Reliable quality. Apartments vary; hotel chains are predictable. No need not look after the space where they sleep while they are traveling. They can leave in the morning and return in the evening to the same room. The same will be the case for all of the days in between.

The social texture

In terms of the social life of a traveler, apartments are in general more isolating. Only when you greet neighbors you occasionally see in the corridors of your apartment you have contact with them while in the apartment. (You could call them, but then you are still alone.) In a hotel as I said before all the people who can be of help to you (front desk, housekeeping) work in the building itself so contact with them is also easy. Restaurant staff and shop staff etc also give you contact, which as I said before can form a community, but again this is limited to staff and location. Thus as opposed to hotels, in apartments there is no social life in the building and you have to go out of the apartment to get in touch with people. For some travelers, such as soloists this may be a feature of apartments, but to others it is a defect. Again I am among the latter, but then I am also used to having a lot of social contacts (at home, in cafes, in the street etc). On trips I prefer to have the amount of social contacts that I am used to at home, i.e. a lot.

For most travelers, Apartments offer a more isolated type of living than Hotels. As already noted, the social life of a traveler can be in the building while he or she is staying in a Hotel. That is, there is the social life of the building as a whole, and of all the staff, as well as that of individual guests. In terms of the social life of a traveler, there is no social life in the building when he or she is staying in an apartment, while the rest of the time there is and it can be plenty of fun. As already noted, for many travelers this would be a bad feature. On the other hand, for soloists it is a feature of Apartments. For them, there is no social life in Hotels either. For them too, there is no social life in the building. It is just that for them this is not a defect. For them, it is even a positive feature. For some travelers, as for me, it is a big defect. For them, the amount of social contacts that they have while they are traveling should be the same as the amount of social contacts that they have at home. And that means a lot of social contacts. And this is not the case for all travelers. That is why it is a feature for some, and a defect for others. For me, it is a big defect.

As a Solo Traveler the apartment could be very good, but also negative. As mentioned above for me it is negative. But it’s up to every person to decide. For very short Trips I prefer to have the social environment of a hotel, for longer Trips the apartment will become my “base”.

The trip each one produces

The basis for a longer trip is serviced apartments which, as a temporary residence, allow a traveler to become a ‘resident’ for the time they are traveling. As such the daily routine of a temporary resident is likely to involve a favorite cafe where one has been a regular customer and an interest in the daily lives of the local inhabitants and not in the many tourist attractions of the city as a tourist.

In terms of the quality of a visitor’s experiences, Hotels are more likely to create trips of the ‘visiting’ variety. Serviced Apartments create trips of the ‘residing’ type. In terms of memory, Hotels create ‘events’ that are more easily remembered than the routine of daily life whilst residing in a Serviced Apartment located in a particular neighborhood. The outside events of a visitor’s trip would likely form the bulk of a visitor’s recollections of a trip based in Hotels as opposed to daily life in a particular location whilst on a trip based in Serviced Apartments.

Both forms of vacation are great, however they are not the same.

Locals seem to take a vastly different view than the guide books. Every local guide I asked for advice to seem to differ from every guide book I read.

The decision framework

My rules for choosing now:

1-3 nights: hotels, as the setup for an apartment takes too long to start feeling like ‘home’. 4 to 7 nights: I usually would be guided by my above rules. However, for some parts of the trip I would like to have my “home base” where I can go to work in the evening. An apartment would then be best for me. On the other hand, if I did not want to deal with the setting up of an apartment and wanted to have minimum logistics then a hotel would be best for me. However for trips of 8 nights or more it is better to take an apartment, unless the city is very large and is divided into several districts (Tokyo is an example of such a city) and, for example, you are staying in one district for the whole of your stay. In such cases you could stay in different hotels in different districts of the city, thus sampling them all. Work: As I said before work from an apartment with a desk. Trip in a very familiar city: apartment. Trip in a city where the language barrier is significant for me: hotel. The front desk’s ability to translate and problem-solve for me is worth the higher price for the hotel.

The hybrid trip

For longer trips I use a mix of both kinds of accommodation. Two nights in a hotel at the start of a stay in a city is often ideal. That way I get to sort myself out for the arrival in the city and have someone there to deal with all the various arrival issues that there are. After that I go to an apartment in a neighborhood of the city that I like. Such a transition from one place of residence to another is never completely easy but the results are always wonderful. The hotel has eased me into the new city. My apartment in a neighborhood then becomes my “base” for the rest of my time in the city and I experience the daily life of the neighborhood as a “resident” of the neighborhood for the time I am there.

Some tourists therefore opt to combine their hotel-based and apartment-based ways of traveling around. This can be particularly beneficial for longer trips. As an example, the two nights one first spends in a new city can be spent in a hotel, which eases one’s way into the city and makes it easier to sort out all of the issues that come with arriving in a new place. After that, one can switch to an apartment, in which one has a base in a very specific part of a city (e.g. a neighborhood). This will provide the basis for a more ‘residential’ style of trip, in which the traveler can fully experience life in a single place or places. The only negative note is the amount of effort required to move from one place of residence to another. However, the ensuing experiences are often so rewarding that this is more than worth it.

What I would tell a first-time solo traveler

However, for a first solo trip it is better to book a hotel. It is just too scary if things start going wrong and you have no safety net of help from the front desk. By trip 2 or 3 you will have worked out what you like and don’t like of the two different options for your solo stays and an apartment will start to look like a much better option for long trips to different destinations.

The Apartment is much better for solo travelers than Hotels for longer trips (more than a week) as it provides privacy that is what most tourists are looking for in their holiday and also you can have what you like, when you like as you have a kitchen. The only trips I would recommend you stay in Hotels for are the very short ones and in very complex cities where it would be better to have a different Hotel in different parts of town. As a solo traveler you will find that Apartments are your default form of accommodation as you become more confident as a solo traveler.