Naturally, EuroCheapo’s Paris guide is devoted to finding the perfect budget hotels for your next visit to the city. However, if you’re in the mood for something a little more intime next time you visit, you might consider staying in a Parisian apartment.

We’re not talking about an apartment rental, mind you. We mean a real Paris apartment, inhabited by living and breathing Parisians.

“Pour Vous Paris” is a friendly group of Parisians who have opened their apartments (and their extra bedrooms) to foreign travelers. Better yet, they’re enthusiastic about practicing their English, answering questions about their city, and even taking their guests on free walking tours of their neighborhoods. And the rooms tend to be cheap — from €45-60 for a single, and €55-70 for a double, depending on neighborhood and “comfort level.”

The group is not an agency and you pay your host directly upon arrival. However, you must pay an annual membership fee of €10 to join the program (€5 if under 26 years old). The apartment selection is small, so interested participants should book well in advance.

Even if you don’t spend the night with the group, anyone who joins the group can still participate in a range of free “Pour Vous Paris”-coordinated activities, such as shopping, conversational exchanges, and even picnics (just bring a picnic). For a fee, members can cook and dine with members, and even attend a “crepes party.” We’re so there.

More information:

“Pour Vous Paris” website

Message boards, in English and French

At EuroCheapo, we’re all about hotels with a little extra flavor. And when in Rome, why settle for a normal night’s sleep?

These three hotels in Rome have traipsed through history, from ancient history to 19th-century, but all of them today offer modern amenities so you can sleep comfortably. 

1) Casa Banzo
Campo de’ Fiori
Doubles from €110

This bed and breakfast, with just three rooms, screams, “location!” Housed in a 15-century palazzo near Campo de’ Fiori, this family-run establishment is far enough from the crazy Campo crowds, but close enough to easily walk to the Vatican, Spanish Steps and other Roman highlights.

Each of the Casa’s rooms are chockablock with vintage accoutrements. Think oil paintings, mahogany surfaces, and lots of marble.  And, we haven’t even mentioned the frescoes! Just keep in mind, book early if you want to stay here. With only three rooms, the hotel fills up quickly.

If you do stay here, tell Antoinette (the owner) and her husband we say hello!

2) Hotel Navona
Piazza Navona
Doubles from €135

If you’ve ever dreamed about sleeping in ancient Rome (and who hasn’t?), this is your chance. The ruins underneath the spick-and-span rooms and bathrooms at Hotel Navona are literally the baths of Agrippa and date back to 33 B.C.!

Stucco walls, terra-cotta flooring, a family-run feel, and plenty of 18th and 19th-century antiques (many taken from the family’s palace in Venice) give the rooms a top-notch vibe. Near Piazza Navona and the Pantheon, you can start off your day by touring the hotel (whose main structure is a 13th-century palace). And yes, this hotel has frescoes, too.

3) Suore di S Elisabetta
Santa Maria Maggiore
Doubles from €64

The quiet Suore di S Elisabetta is a convent that offers low-priced rooms on a peaceful street south of Santa Maria Maggiore. If you don’t mind an 11 p.m. curfew or a bedroom ornamented in crucifixes and the like, then get thee to this nunnery!

Rooms are as simple as a nun’s habit. For example, none of them have televisions. But, the breakfast room sparkles under light of hanging chandeliers and a dome of painted frescoes. An added bonus? The rooftop terrace—with inspiring views of Rome—is quite simply, divine.

Also see:

Our favorite theme hotels in Amsterdam

Maybe it’s Van Gogh’s trippy sunflowers or that wacky, tacky Red Light District. But there’s something about Amsterdam’s love of the unusual that pops up in its hotel offerings. We’ve weeded out the ho-hum hotel experiences to bring you a few of our favorite joints (so many puns, so little space!):

Hotel de Filosoof
What: Three-star hotel near the Vondelpark
Doubles: From € 80
Theme: Enlightenment

Each room here is dedicated to a philosopher. You could stay in “Clouds” and pay homage to Aristophanes and Socrates, drifting to sleep in a bed with a blue, velveteen comforter. Or, opt for Confucius, which lifts up the ideals of Taoism and showcases an array of strong, ancient-looking (intentionally) purple décor. Neitche’s room just plain scared us. (Not surprising, considering the whole “God is dead” thing. Sweet dreams!) Thankfully, the hotel has 38 rooms to choose from, a spacious outdoor garden, and an art gallery.

Hemp Hotel 
What: One-star hotel in the southern canal ring
Doubles: € 65 - 70
Theme: Baked not fried

Proclaiming itself “a unique specialty hotel for the hemp-aware traveler,” the Hemp Hotel is on our top ten list of favorite hotel visits (for purely professional reasons, natch). We were awed and amused by the various hemp-themed rooms decorated with eclectic furniture and a host of hemp-a-riffic accoutrements: hemp curtains, towels and plants.  The hotel is owned by a prominent marijuana activist and inventor of the Pollinator, a device that extracts hash from hemp leaves. With a coffee shop downstairs, the Hemp is a bit of a time vortex and many guests remain on for long, strange trips. (One guest, in fact, never left — and became one of the hotel’s managers!)

Winston Hotel
What: Two-star hotel in the Red Light District
Doubles: € 60-105
Theme: Artist madhouse

After spending a couple nights at the Winston, we labeled it ”The Winston Museum of Contemporary Art,” as each room was designed by a different artist. Décors range from simple opaque canvases to large-format paintings that resemble Spirograph creations. Many rooms also have their own distinct genres. For instance, the Heineken room enjoys a green, bottled-up effect (Note: See also Smirnoff Button room.).  Maria’s Room is furnished entirely in white, producing an immaculate, yet oddly Clockwork Orange feel. We bunked in a dominatrix-themed space. And liked it.  

The Greenhouse Effect
What: Two-star hotel in the Red Light District
Doubles: € 95-130
Theme: Out of this world

At this diamond in the snuff (it’s situated in the heart of the red-light district), themed rooms run the gamut from the plain and proper (”City Oasis” suite) to the downright surreal (”Turkish Delight” and ”1001 Arabian Nights”).  A trance-inducing club downstairs features live music each weekend and looks sure to provide oodles of Kerouac-ky observations for postcards and personal diaries.

Lloyd Hotel
What: One-star to five-star hotel in the Eastern Docklands
Doubles: From €90 (see Website for special offers)
Theme: Pick a star (rating)

Offering its guests a range of rooms from a one-star to a five-star rating, the Lloyd really knows how to shake up hotel classification systems! This sophisticated and chic hotel, located in a fashionable area, displays architectural majesty—1920’s art deco mixed with modern flair, and lets you pick a room, any room, via various star ratings. However all rooms provide the same amenities (free WiFi and satellite television) and all guests (even the Cheapos) enjoy the same 24-hour service. Furthermore, all have access to the fancy “Cultural Embassy,” a space that serves as an art gallery, entertainment space, and lounge.

A 1-star room offers less space and shared bathrooms, while a 3-star, for example, has noteworthy 1920s furniture designed by De Bazel. We’d likely opt for a 2-star, deemed “surprising” by the hotel on its Website, as you get your own bathroom with “plenty of room to take a shower” (insert joke here), and some even provide water views. On a search we did for February, we found double rooms from €90 (one star) to €210 (five stars). What a range!

We’d say all of these hotels are worth the trip.

Did we miss a themed hotel in Amsterdam that you know about or would recommend? Tell us below!

We recently came across a guide to Castle Hotels and Mansions in Austria and bordering countries published by Historic Hotels of Europe. Castle accommodations aren’t usually Cheapo territory, which is why we were overjoyed to find multiple listings for rooms under €100/night, as well as several castles with rooms for far, far less.

The lakeside Seeschlössl Velden in Velden (Carinthia) has rooms that begin at €65, including breakfast. Herberge an der Nikolauszeche in Purbach (Burgenland) sports single rooms that begin at €66, including breakfast. We found another great value at Strasserwirt Herrenansitz zu Tirol in Strassen (East Tyrol), where room rates begin at €48 per night for three-night stays.

The conventional wisdom is that this sort of lavish accommodation is well beyond Cheapo budgets. We’re happy to discover plenty of evidence to the contrary.

Recently we learned about the existence of UK site Motorhomeholidayswap.com. Site founder Chris Farrow, who hails from the north of England, emailed us to tell us about his business. Just six months old, Motorhomeholidayswap has already facilitated motorhome/campervan exchanges among people across Europe, North America, and Australasia.

Members need to cough up the annual fee of £45 (€66; $91) to exchange motorhomes, though registration itself is free.

Motorhome exchange—much like house exchange and other cheap exchange-oriented strategies—looks like a great way to cut down on costs and assemble a budget-friendly itinerary. We say right-o.

Photo by Kari Hoerchler

Who made Nikola Brajević king of Split?

Oh, that’s right. We did. A recent stay with his family at their aptly named Garden Accommodation was so beautiful, we promptly appointed ourselves subjects for life.

Located at Solurat 22, 300 meters west of Diocletian’s Palace in Veli Varos and less than 200 meters from the Adriatic sea, the Garden provides an easy respite from central Split.

We spent three nights in the “Zelena” stone cottage, for €46 per night. Our own house included a kitchen, bathroom, and private patio complete with picnic table, chairs and clothing line. Lots of love has been put into the doors, beamed ceilings, and shuttered windows, all of which were stained a rich green to match the common area just off the patio. Shared by all guests, the common area is equipped with a stone BBQ pit, and a lovely picnic table.

A café with a terrace is located less three doors down, offering drinks and a gorgeous seaside view. A grocery store, bakery, laundry mat, Internet station, and juice bar are only a 10-minute walk east.

Finally, the Brajević family treated us like royalty, with friendly smiles and their service-oriented penchant for perfection. Nikolai’s father popped in for a moment to offer us a “dobro dan,” and his brother didn’t hesitate to help us out when we blew out the power. (Note: Don’t turn on the water heater, stove and a hairdryer at the same time.)

All hail, Garden Accommodation.

Wandering Cheapo Kari Hoerchler is a blogger, budget traveler, and science fiction novelist stationed on Planet Earth. She has recently been spotted on small stages of New York coffeehouses telling tall tales of a tropical island—and future vacation hot spot—in the Bermuda Triangle. Book ahead.

Photo by Federica Loi

Through the middle of October, those traveling along the southern coast of Spain have chance to enjoy the Costa del Luz on a serious budget, by taking advantage of the region’s many camping sites. The Costa del Luz, for neophytes, marks the beaches that begin on the western—or Atlantic—side of Tarifa.

Beginning at €6 per person per night, the camping parks along this stretch of the coast come equipped with all the bells and whistles, including bathrooms, showers, laundries, and even swimming pools—despite the fact that one of the most beautiful stretches of beach in Spain lies just a few minutes walk away. A few camping sites also offer bungalows, which start around €100 per night.

Our favorites—both with sites located just a few minutes by taxi from the middle of Tarifa—are Camping Torre de la Peña and Camping Tarifa.

Photo by Frogletina

Gites de France, France’s biggest and most popular source for rural holiday rentals and farmstays, has launched a huge promotional drive called “Mai” toi au vert on its website this week, with over 2000 rental holiday homes (which sleep up to six) available at a flat rate of €200 a week. This rate represents a discount of up to 60 per cent on standard rates. Larger gites designed to accommodate up to 12 persons are going for €250. The offer is valid through May 26th.

The gites are rated with wheat stalks—or “Epis”—instead of the usual star system, and most can be rented for weekends.

The Gites de France Web site—go to the French version because the English one doesn’t feature all the promotions—has other interesting deals this month, including 30 percent off certain weekends at a 4-epi eco-gite in Normandy, near Alencon. Discounted rates apply for the following weekends: May 4-6, June 8-10, and June 15-17.

Photo courtesy of RetRome

Just over a year old, the cute and kitschy RetRome guesthouse, located on the safer, prettier side of Termini Station, has been booked solid for months. The once word-of-mouth-operation is making waves in Europe and beyond, probably for their radically low rates. Doubles range from €36 to €80! This is Rome, and rates like these are an uncommonly good deal.

The three rooms are decked out in yesteryear charm, and crammed with 1950s and 1960s treasures. A large, fully equipped kitchen is available for your own, homemade pasta banquets. As far as we’re concerned, that kitchen is just another excuse to save in style.

We chanced upon the Unusual Hotels of the World site the other day. As astute Internets Detectives might assume, the site showcases odd accommodations throughout the world.

Taking a look at their European offerings, we were especially taken by several of their accommodation categories: “underground/cave,” “ice/igloo,” and “prison” were among our favorites, though we think that “treehouse” trumps all categories. Call us overgrown children. We don’t mind.

The site divides accommodations into several rate categories, beginning under $100. Our favorite individual hotel? The Controversy Tram Hotel in the Dutch town of Hoogwoud (see above). Named after the Prince song and album, the Controversy Tram Hotel consists of four bedrooms in converted trams. Nightly rates begin at €60 and drop for extended stays.

Now you’ve got another reason to explore the province of North Holland…