Indie Travel Podcast brings you the best cheap accommodation options, from traditionally cheap hostels to modern twists like Couchsurfing and apartment rentals.
Hostelling
We highly recommend hostelling to find great, budget places to stay while you travel independently.
Modern hostels are generally clean and have a lot of amenities hotels do not offer. It is not uncommon to find free wifi, relaxed bars and private rooms for the dorm-shy.
We book through Hostelbookers — which also powers our own hostel booking engine — and can happily recommend them as a site without booking fees and over 2,500 properties available to book worldwide.
More and more these days, we’re using the Couchsurfing network to find local people to stay with. Even if we can’t get a “free” bed, we’re loving being able to meet people for a coffee, beer or meal as we travel around the world. This is one of the best ways to discover a little of local life, to fin out what people are thinking, and to get off the treadmill of tourism and into the grain of daily life.
At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter if you’re hostelling, staying in guesthouses or even in five-star hotels. What matters is finding time to do what you enjoy, doing something different — perhaps even meaningful — in the places you visit.
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Accommodation stories and travel tips from Indie Travel Podcast
When it comes to travel, cheap accommodation options can help you to save money, but great accommodation will help you to really enjoy your destination.
Couples looking for accommodation will have slightly different priorities to other travellers. However, Couchsurfing is one of the best options, for everyone really, but especially for couples.
With most of Lisbon, Portugal already explored and some time left before my next destination, I decided to take a bus to Evora, just over an hour away.
What is couchsurfing, how to couchsurf, and is couchsurfing safe… Advice from years of couchsurfing, making new friends and finding free accommodation around the world.
Away from the hustle and bustle of the Algarve’s popular coastal resorts, lies a world apart of traditional villages, Moorish castles and ancient cobbled streets.
After five years of full-time travel, hosts Craig and Linda Martin take a few minutes to reminisce and highlight some favourite moments from their travels.
Now that the Christmas rush has subsided, there is no better time to explore Chamonix’s extensive network of lifts and slopes, nor its mouth-watering range of bars.
Our first full week in Asia has been excellent, full of tasty food and good company – although we were uncharacteristically affected by time zone issues.
Author Jessica Spaulding reviews two reasonably priced options for staying in Washington DC for those times when you’re not on someone else’s expense report.
Jason Morris has developed several applications for travellers and today we speak to him about Playtripper, Sherpa and Hostel Hero. These three applications help us to research and to use our tech as we travel.
Focusing on US, author Jessica Spaulding compares long-term travel in a car to long-term travel out of a backpack. Which is best for your upcoming trip?
No matter how carefully you shop around, the cost of accommodation will take up a major chunk of your travel or holiday budget. And with the bite of recession pushing us to stretch our travelling funds further this year, finding real value for money on your accommodation is even more important. Here’s how to open up the world of travel — even in the credit-crunch — by keeping the price of accommodation to a minimum.
In our recent road-trip episode, we mostly talked about planning for car journeys. Since then, we’ve headed out on the road ourselves (though certainly not for the first time) and have learnt a bit more.
Your impact on the environment isn’t just about carbon emissions. When you travel, you can tread lightly by thinking about the environment you’re in, whether it be natural or otherwise.
A cancelled flight at Christmastime is a direct route to frustration, right? Well, yes, but Dave Prine shares how his fellow travellers made an experience out of a disaster.
Vienna, known for its elegance, its opera, and its schnitzel, is the capital of Austria and one of our favourite European cities. In response to requests for location-based podcasts, we discuss one of the jewels in Europe’s crown.
Many people dream of travelling full-time. Most never fulfill their dream, since it seems too expensive, too difficult, too much work. But it can be easy if you prepare in advance, sort out your finances and start dreaming specifically rather than generally.
Things do go wrong when you travel, and travel insurance lessens the pain. Craig talks to Graham Kingaby of World Nomads Travel Insurance about what sets them apart from the other providers.
If you’re looking for a place to stay and want to meet locals while you’re at it, Couchsurfing is a great way to do it. In this episode, Linda chats to two couchsurfing hosts in Kuala Lumpur – French students Aurelie and Elsa.
The conventional image of hostels as backpacker haunts with only the most basic facilities has been transformed thanks to a new trend in high-quality budget accommodation. Check out these ten unique hostels.
With a cramped kitchen and common room the internet hostel has much more of a homey than a hi-tech feel to it. The old ladies that manage it and the clean dorms make this a good choice. And Dream House just downstairs…
Since there are no hostels currently in Porto, this three star hotel makes a nice alternative. Clean and secure with friendly staff, plus great location at a reasonable price.
Probably the best in the area — for ANZAC day celebrations or exploring Galipoli and Troy — but not really recommended. Ad-hoc shared bathrooms probably the biggest offender.
With wonderful views, rooftop terrace and uber-friendly hosts this is a great place. Single, double and triple rooms with en-suite bathrooms, close to the bus station and town centre. BOOK this hostel.
With the middle of the year now come and gone, it’s time to reset all the popularity stats on the Indie Travel Podcast. We do this every six months, just to keep things fresh. So, to keep the record straight, here are the Top 10 Indie Travel Favourites for the last six month
In this episode of the Indie Travel Podcast, Craig and Linda Martin share ten things to look for when choosing a hostel from a hostel-booking site. In brief: price, rating, atmosphere, location, affiliation, dorm size and gender, extras, facilities and exclusions.
In this article, Sherry Ott tells us why solo travel is right for her and probably for you – not least because you spend less time waiting for your friends in the toilet.
In this edition of the Indie Travel Podcast, Craig and Linda talk about being a guest – an important part of world travel. If you manage to do a RTW trip without staying in someone’s house, something is very wrong; experience the people as well as the places! In this show we talk about approaching friends and acquaintances to ask if you can stay with them; preparing to get there; arriving (both expectedly and unexpectedly!); courtesy and helping in the home; leaving gifts; and following up after you’ve left.
In this episode, Craig talks with Tim Patterson about learning languages while travelling. Amongst humorous anecdotes Tim points out some of the points he made in his article, “7 Tips for Learning a Foreign Language on On The Road”.
In this show Craig and Linda give a great rule of thumb for making a simple budget: If you have pre-paid all your transport, double the price of your accommodation. If you haven’t triple the price.
Linda and Craig give some advice for for travelling around New Zealand including: New Zealand English and some Maori words; flying into New Zealand, New Zealand customs regulations, Auckland’s backpacker’s car fair, hostel culture and camping options and working holiday visas. If that wasn’t enough we mention a couple of great sites and invite your questions and tales about travelling in Aotearoa.
indie travel podcast talks to Carolyn Zukowski of Hostel Krumlov House. Krumlov House is both the first and the smallest hostel in Cesky Krumlov, in the south of the Czech Republic. She talks about how hostelling is changing and gives novice hostel-goers some tips on backpacking in Europe.
The indie travel podcast’s first book review looks at Lonely Planet’s Europe on a Shoestring guidebook. Craig and Linda talk about its good and bad points and suggests three types of traveller such a guidebook would be good for.
The indie travel podcast speaks about changing currencies and carrying a variety of ways to pay in this episode. Advice includes:
1. Have money in several different forms, with at least some cash in the local currency.
2. Don’t carry all your money in one place.
3. Know the rate of exchange and shop around for the best deal.
4. Sometimes it’s better to pay in a non-local currency, but most often it’s not.
Since November 2006 the Indie Travel Podcast has evolved into an independent travel hub with regular audio and video podcasts along with articles by travellers from all over the world. 
Hosts Craig and Linda Martin started travelling in February 2006 and have been to over 50 countries. They were 