Europe Without Hotels

IN the middle of a cool, cloudless Parisian afternoon, light was pouring into my guest room from a turn-of-the-century courtyard in the 10th Arrondissement. I clambered up to the loft bed, suspended above dark oak floors, and stared at the textiles shop sign swinging in the courtyard through the large, almost floor-to-ceiling windows.

A bottle of Bordeaux was breathing; other amenities included a pantry stocked with cereal, milk and yogurt. I also had a phone number to call if I needed dinner recommendations or, perhaps, extra shower gel. But I was happy sitting at the window, nodding at my new neighbors as they wheeled their bikes onto the street and headed into the cafe-lined Marais.

Hotel guests pay handsomely for such perks, but I wasn’t in a hotel. Nor was I in some vacation rental. I was in the home of Julien Szeps, a 26-year-old chef whom I met through a new kind of short-term rental service called AirBnB.com. And the studio apartment was only 65 euros a night, about $80 at $1.23 to the euro. Not bad for an entire apartment with a full kitchen and bathroom, less than 10 minutes by foot from the Louvre.

While AirBnB is the largest of these new services, it isn’t the only one. A half-dozen upstarts have emerged in the last two years — with names like iStopOver.com and Crashpadder.com — offering the convenience of a hotel, the comforts of a home and the price tag of an up-market hostel. Call them social B&B; networks, or maybe peer-to-peer hotels. Despite the confusing legal issues in many cities surrounding subletting, these new short-term rentals are making inroads into the hospitality industry, with hundreds of thousands of listings across the globe; there are over 3,500 short-term rentals in New York State alone.

Social networking first significantly influenced the world of travel in 1999 with the start of Couchsurfing, a service in which members offer a spare couch — or bed, or floor space — to fellow Couchsurfers, at no charge. It spawned a social phenomenon, and today counts almost two million people in 238 countries as members.

Social B&B; networks are a natural next step, imposing an important distinction: money. The new sites appeal to a traveler’s desire to see a city through local eyes (and from the vantage point of a resident’s home), but add a hedge against disaster: with Couchsurfing you get what’s given (it’s free, after all), while sites like AirBnB generally provide detailed descriptions of the private rooms or apartments available for rent, along with protections if things go wrong.

In my own personal evolution, the proliferation of these new services couldn’t have come at a better time. I used to Couchsurf frequently, from mattresses in Soviet-era tower blocks in Poland to luxurious condos in Madrid. But gradually, I’ve stopped using the service. These days I want a little privacy, especially if I’m traveling with my girlfriend. And I’m happy to pay a little money to guarantee a bed. Various vital signs are indicating that — sigh — I am growing up.

Unfortunately, my bank balance is still in the throes of adolescence, and upscale hotels are still well out of my reach. So I decided to test-drive a few of these new social B&Bs; in a three-stop trip through Europe this spring. I began at home, in London. I decided to use Crashpadder.com, a two-year-old British-based site covering 59 countries, with a particularly strong selection of peer-to-peer listings in the city. You’re lucky to get a London hotel for less than £100 (about $143) a night, but on the first page of my Crashpadder search results, I saw beds going for £21. In northern cities like Manchester or Leeds, there were beds for under £10.

To book one, I first had to create a short profile of myself. Unlike Expedia.com or other traditional hotel booking services, these sites rely on social networking, and everyone is encouraged to have a face and a little back story. I rewrote my entry three times before settling on: “Hello there. I am a 26-year-old from London. I like Chinese food and early ’90s Italian football shirts.”

NEXT, I scoured its listings. There was a luxury apartment in north London owned by an information technology professional who rents it out for £65 a night when he’s out of town. In Bloomsbury, an American social worker had a room for £35 a night. But my dash across Europe necessitated a bed near St. Pancras International train station, so I opted for a “clean simple room with a chrome silver double bed” in the once-seedy district of Kings Cross for £50, owned by a 39-year-old vintage-clothing buyer.

Once you’ve found your room on Crashpadder, you can interact with the host through the internal messaging system and ask any questions you might have. (Do I need to bring towels? Do you have cats?) Hosts can ask for the money either up front or upon arrival.