No matter what style of traveler you are or what budget you are on, there are all sorts of accommodation options for travel. In fact, it can be very daunting to find what you are looking for. Here are some resources to give you ideas and get you started.
Hostels For the truely Adventurous or $Dirt Cheap, we suggest you get some tips from Sleeping In Airports!
There are a lot of misconceptions about hostels. In our view, hostels are the social centers to traveling as a backpacker whether you are on a $Dirt Cheap or $$Champagne Backpacker budget. We love them because they are the best places to meet other travelers, hook up on cool 'tours' or trips, find new friends to go drinking with and well, just a group to sit around and swap information and stories.
Booking Hostels There are all sorts of extremes in hostels from the horrible European 20 to a room style to the pension style ones in many third world countries. The best way we have found to book your hostels ahead of time is HostelWorld. In many third world countries you will probably be met at the train/bus stations by people running cheap hostels. However, if you are worried that you are going to end up in a dive hostel, Hostelworld also has reviews and community information to help you book. Hosteling International (HI) has a standard quality that their hostels must adhere to. However, you do need to become a member to stay at one of their places. It is free if you are under 18, otherwise it's a yearly fee. See more information under Hostel Discount Cards.
Homestays If you’re looking to save money and to meet friends try Couch Surfing . It's a community site where you can meet people to stay for free on their couches. Hospitality Club is a similar concept.
For a more traditional Homestay we suggest looking through: HomestayWeb
Hotels We are also big fans of the virtual tools on hotels.com:
Need Recommendations? Search for CheckPointBlack Travel Reviews or speak to people who have travel to the places you are heading! Top US hotels Trip Advisor - For the best collection of reviews on hotels
To splurge on a Spa we suggest you search this great site:
Vacation Home Rentals If you are traveling with a family or with a group of people you might prefer Vacation Home Rentals.
Other Sites:
Vacation Homes - they have over 1,100 destinations worldwide Vamoose - they have over 250,000 listings Great Rentals - they have a great US search map
Three essentials for India:
GET YOUR VISA ORGANIZED AHEAD OF TIME. The Embassy wait can be brutal!
A-Z of Adventure Travel Insurance from World Nomads as you will probably get "Delhi Belly."
Hostelworld was a great help for finding cheap, but decent accommodation in India!
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For the truely Adventurous or $Dirt Cheap, we suggest you get some tips from 
There are a lot of misconceptions about hostels. In our view, hostels are the social centers to traveling as a backpacker whether you are on a $Dirt Cheap or $$Champagne Backpacker budget. We love them because they are the best places to meet other travelers, hook up on cool 'tours' or trips, find new friends to go drinking with and well, just a group to sit around and swap information and stories. 
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