Travelers without a home, what do you use to find lodging?

[Roland of Gilead]

If you are traveling around the USA with just a car, where do you find reasonable lodging for several months at a time?   Air B&B  is not meant for longer term stay is it?

We want to spend maybe November, December, January and February in the Florida Keys.  I see some house shares and rooms available on craigslist but have never tried that before.   Are there any other safer/better sites you world travelers use to find medium term lodging?  Our ideal thing would be to split the cost of a small house with another couple, or rent a room + bathroom from someone with a larger house.

[dandarc]

Some AirBnB's will give you a significant discount for a long term stay, so don't count that out entirely.  Had a relative do that for about 1.5 months this summer for an internship - they said it was easy and economical.

[JoJo]

You can do Airbnb for longer periods.  Many places have discounts for long stays, but if there's already shorter bookings mid-stay you won't find those long term listed.

There's also VRBO.

One thing I don't like about Airbnb is the fees... you're going to pay at least 12% extra to Airbnb.  Another 3% if paying in another currency.  And then Airbnb charges the hosts too.  I've seen 3% for service fees, but a place I visited in Indonesia claimed they were charging them 18%!

Craigslist will likely be your cheapest option.  You might find some deals there but probably get the best deals if you don't book too far ahead.  So maybe Airbnb for a few days while you look for a place.


The Keys in those months is not cheap.  Several years ago, the cheapest Airbnb I could find was $60 a night + fees for early November.    I also stayed a couple days at this fisherman's motel in Islamorada.  It's just a block from my favorite bar Lorlei, great happy hour, and they do weekly rates.  The motel is OK - clean, wifi, cable TV, nice A/C.
http://www.keylantern.com/rates.htm
Looks like if you do the weekly rate, the nightly rate for 1 bed is $55.71+ taxes.  Maybe can negotiate better if staying longer.

Another option is camping, but that's still going to be $40 per night or more.

[Roland of Gilead]

Yes, I realize the Keys are not cheap.   Renting a 3bd 2 bath house is about $3000 a month which is not Mustachian affordable.  Half of that however would be affordable if you could split the house with another couple.   Finding the other couple who are not serial killers, drug users, deadbeats, scammers, etc. is the troublesome part.

I guess I was hoping there was a website like "houseshares_for_mustachian_early_retirees_with_no_kids_and_820+_credit_scores.com"