Having wisely unloaded your apartment, your summer house, your Volvo and your RV, thus shedding the vast majority of your fixed costs, it becomes a rather urgent matter to have a reliable way to find a place where you can sleep, at a reasonable price.
Not so long ago there were not many choices of services and apps to book hotel stays. It seemed as if Expedia, Travelocity, and Priceline were the go to giants. Since then there has been an explosion of competitors, followed by a massive round of consolidation. Expedia now owns Travelocity, Orbitz, Trivago, Homeaway, VRBO, Hotwire.com, Hotels.com, venere.com, and a bunch of other ones that I have never heard of, while Priceline.com now owns Kayak.com, Booking.com, and others.
Additionally, travel advice sites like TripAdvisor and LonelyPlanet now have links to lodging. And, traditionally flight ticket searchers like Momondo and Skyscanner offer lodging options. Even car rental sites link on to hotel search sites.
There are niche market providers such as Hostelsearch, BYHOURS, Chimani, Hipcamp, slh.com. And, competing with Homeaway and VRBO in the managed peer to peer space, is AirBnb.
As with gear selection, favorite colour, Taylor Swift’s best song, and wine attributes, debate about optimal options can become heated and personal.
It is worth doing a vast amount of upfront research to compare and narrow down to three the platforms that consistently provide good answers to searches based on your travel style and price point; and then just not fret about it ever again. My choices are at Booking Hotels