A common question for Dan and I while we’re on the road travel nursing, is whether we should stay in a hotel or an Airbnb. A lot of our travel involves getting from contract to contract around the US, but we also like to take an overnight trip or two during each new contract. In general, price tends to be the biggest factor for us when deciding where we stay, but there are a lot of other factors that we consider too. When we’re taking long road trips between contracts, we have our cats with us so that’s a huge factor for us and plays into the price when considering Airbnbs vs hotels.

Disclaimer: I’m not talking about Ritz Carlton’s nor am I talking about island bungalow retreat Airbnbs. I’m also not talking about private room Airbnbs or hotels off the highway that you’re likely to be murdered at. For refence, we mostly stay at the Hampton Inn for hotels and for Airbnbs we only book “entire places.” With that in mind, we focus on finding the cheapest option possible (within reason) so that’s the perspective I’m coming from: Airbnb vs hotels for the budget traveler/travel nurse.

1. Price
2. Location
3. Consistency
4. Convenience
5. Amenities
6. Pets

Price

When Airbnb first started, and for quite a while after that actually, it was WAY cheaper to book an Airbnb than to book a room at a hotel. The quality of Airbnb that you could get if you were willing to spend even just $100 was way better than whatever cheap hotel you could get for $100 a night. Unfortunately, this has changed. Airbnb is much more heavily regulated and taxed now which has caused the prices to go way up. Things like cleaning fees skyrocketed during Covid and haven’t come back down much since. All that to say, most cheap Airbnbs are pretty comparable in price to cheap hotels even going up to the Hampton Inn which I would say is a nicer cheap hotel.

At this point, I would argue that if you want a reasonably nice Airbnb, you should expect to pay a minimum of $100 a night no matter the location. There are definitely pleasant surprises where you can get cheaper stays than this, but they’re the outliers and are rarely in a generally desirable location. For hotels, I’d expect to pay $100-150 a night or more, though again there will be outliers. For both of these estimates I’m assuming you need free parking (be that safe street parking or a parking spot).

Location

While the price advantage has dramatically decreased, Airbnbs often do have hotels beat when it comes to location (again assuming you’re going for budget-friendly options). It’s more common to be able to find a budget friendly Airbnb in the downtown area of a city or resort town, than it is to find a budget-friendly hotel. This isn’t always true though. Dan and I stayed in a very affordable Day’s Inn in San Francisco that was right on Lombard Street in the Marina District (great location). That said, the quality of that hotel was rough; we wouldn’t stay again.

Excluding some rural areas, there are often far more budget-friendly options on Airbnb than there are hotels within a comparable budget. It’s become incredibly popular for homeowners to do short term rentals through Airbnb and it’s becoming more possible for renters even to do this. They’re super prevalent and you can often find Airbnbs in great locations, though the better the location the higher the price. We’ve had a hard time finding affordable Airbnbs in good locations in places like Charleston, instead we stayed at a Hampton Inn in North Charleston and made the short drive into the city for the day to explore.

Consistency

There are plenty of people out there, my husband included, who would choose hotels over Airbnbs nine times out of ten for one simple reason: consistency. You don’t always know the quality of the hotel you’ll be staying at, sure, but they are in general far more consistent than Airbnbs. For this reason, my husband is always a bit hesitant to stay at Airbnbs and in general would rather stay at a Hampton Inn for example. We still stay at Airbnbs probably more than half the time for various reasons, but for some people the consistency is what does it for them.

Dan and I only ever stay at highly rated Airbnbs with multiple (most of the time hundreds of) reviews and we have still been disappointed to find them dirty or something of the like. People leaving reviews for Airbnbs have all different standards and they’re reviewing based on those standards. They are also probably more inclined to leave a nice review because Airbnb is a relatively personal platform when it comes to guest/host interaction on the app if not even in person at the property. You can’t always trust the reviews and even if you could, random people renting out their shed for a little extra cash are bound to be less consistent in their care and cleaning than trained staff at a hotel doing it for their livelihood.

Convenience

Similar to consistency, my husband loves hotels for their convenience. Though this has not always been true for us (we had a ridiculous stay in Miami on our honeymoon), hotels are usually better and faster at resolving every and any problem you may have. Airbnbs can be hit or miss with this, though I will say we’ve almost always had incredibly helpful and prompt hosts.

There is far less guessing when it comes to hotels in terms of where to park, how to check in, what will be included, etc. than there is when staying at an Airbnb. This can be minor, but if you’re say on a long road trip across the country and have just driven 14 hours, then those little things can make a big difference. The same can be said for when you’re leaving after your stay. Hotels you just get up and leave, maybe throw your towels into a pile on the floor, whereas at an Airbnb there’s no telling what they’ll ask you to do. That’s a bit of hyperbole, but there have been multiple times that we’ve been asked to collect all the trash and take it out, wash and put away all dishes, etc. It’s nothing too difficult, but when it comes to convenience in the Airbnb vs hotels debate, hotels win every time.

Amenities

When it comes to amenities, I see one big one in favour of hotels, but far more in favour of Airbnbs. Hotels often offer free breakfast which can be huge if you’re hoping to save a bit of money with one free meal a day. I keep mentioning them because it’s where we almost always stay if we stay in a hotel, but the Hampton Inn always seems to have a decent free breakfast at least from our experience. As you can imagine, Dan loves this whereas I much prefer going out to breakfast at a cute brunch place or coffee shop. So the money saving aspect of this is limited for us, as I insist we just have two breakfasts at least one of the days we’re visiting someplace new.

When it comes to everything else, Airbnb has hotels beat by a mile. Free parking is much more common at Airbnbs than hotels, be that street parking or a parking spot. You would be hard-pressed to find an Airbnb without a smart TV, Chromecast, or something of the like allowing you to use various streaming services. In comparison, at most cheap hotels you’ll be out of luck if you want to watch your favourite show unless it happens to be on cable that day. Airbnbs very consistently have all of the basics that hotels do (mini-fridge, microwave, coffee-maker) and then some.

Pets

This obviously doesn’t apply to everyone as most people probably aren’t travelling with their pets. But it does apply to us and this ends up being the deciding factor for us of Airbnb vs hotels whenever we travel with our two cats. Yes, a lot of hotels allow pets (although “pets” very often only means “dogs” which is endlessly irritating), but they charge all the arms and all the legs for you to be able to bring them with you. Some hotels (cheap ones!) even charge per pet per night totaling in crazy numbers like $200 extra per night. That’s on the more extreme end of what we’ve seen, but still. The minimum we came across was $50 extra per night if I’m remembering correctly. That adds up.

In contrast, Airbnbs may not have any pet fee at all, though most do. Now, it can get more complicated with Airbnb hosts who decide on a case by case basis whether or not to allow pets. Then you have to explain and perhaps even offer to do some cleaning up like vacuuming yourself. Some make you promise not to allow them on the furniture (I don’t know how they think you do this when you’re sleeping). In the end though, this ends up making Airbnbs much cheaper for us than hotels when we are travelling with our cats from contract to contract.

We’ve never had any issues with them at an Airbnb and we also haven’t ever stayed at a hotel with them. If either of those things change I’ll be sure to update.

where do you land in the Airbnb vs hotels debate?