Choosing the perfect accommodation when travelling with kids can be a nightmare. 

With so many requirements, people to cater for and safety issues to consider, booking the right accommodation takes us hours. 

When it comes to choosing good family accommodation with kitchen facilities, we have two favourite routes. The first is using hotel booking platforms. We use the search functions to really narrow down the options. For example, if you use Booking.com on a PC you can use the search bar on the left to select only apartments or only places with swimming pools. On AirBnB.com, there is a similar search feature where you can search only for family-friendly properties (under the Trip Type tab) and select items that you require like cribs and high chairs (under the More Filters tab).

Our second favourite way of finding exactly the right accommodation is home-swapping. We are huge house-swap fans having had successful swaps in Denmark, Switzerland, the USA and Jamaica. We swapped our 4 bedroom house in London with families and retired couples. Sometimes for just a week and twice for over a month. I can’t even begin to list all the benefits of house swaps here but they include cost (it’s totally free except a small fee to the organising website), the opportunity to swap cars as part of the deal, child-friendly houses filled with toys, meeting locals and exploring lesser-visited parts of the world. If you’re open-minded and relaxed about sharing your home with strangers house-swapping really is a fantastic and unique way to see the world.

I’ve teamed up with a fantastic group of intrepid family travel bloggers from around the world. With their help, I’ve compiled this really useful collection of tips and tricks to help you pick the perfect accommodation for your next family holiday.

This is the third post in an eight-week series where I collaborate with other amazing family travel experts to bring you the very best family travel advice and inspiration. Don’t forget to check out the previous posts on How to Choose the Perfect Family Travel Destination and Cars, Buses and Flights: How to Save Money when travelling with Kids

Next week, the topic is how to pick the best activities for your family whilst on holiday. Make sure you don’t miss a post by following World for a Girl on Facebook or Twitter.

How to choose amazing family-friendly accommodation

Create a family accommodation check-list

When it comes to choosing accommodations for my family, there is a checklist I like to use. This way I can be sure that we will be comfortable and have a chance to sit back and relax without stepping on each other’s toes.

1. Does it have enough beds for everyone to sleep comfortably in?
2. Is there a kitchenette so we can prepare some of our own meals to save money?
3. Is there a pool for the kids to spend some time in?
4. Is there a complimentary breakfast?
5. Is it close to all the sights we want to see while we are in the area?
6. Does it provide transportation to and from the airport and to activities and events?

Annette is a wife and mom of 5 kids.   Explore her website at https://www.tipsfromatypicalmomblog.com/  for family-friendly recipes, travel tips, parenting advice and product reviews.

Book directly with a hotel if you can

When we are looking for a place to stay on vacation we look at price, location and amenities. First factor we look at is price. When I am researching I use Travelocity to compare prices. I also look on Priceline and Hotwire if we are flexible on location. When it comes to location I try to get within a few miles of everything we plan to do. Since we normally drive, we have our vehicle to use. Lastly, I look at amenities for the hotels. The things that we need are handicap accessibility, refrigerator and microwave. If our stay will be longer than a few days I try to get an extended stay with a full kitchenette. If I can, I also try to use Booking.com to reserve our hotel room because I can earn Kicks from ShopKick and they have rooms you can wait to pay until arrival!

Melissa Temple is lead writer for Disabled Disney.

Find creative ways to save money on family accommodation

When choosing accommodations for my family while on vacation I find the most important thing for us is cleanliness. While this seems like a given, we have found when traveling the USA and the World, the cheap places are not always the clean ones. I have young children that still enjoy playing on the floor and taking a bath. I can not in good conscience let my kids do either of these activities if a place is dirty. This sometimes makes people refer to me as that person who has champagne taste on a beer budget. While this might be true, I find ways to make budget traveling work. I accomplish this by researching more and finding other creative ways to save money. Here are just a few ideas on things I do to save money and find the perfect sleeping arrangements.

Quick-hitting money saving ideas:

1. Think outside the box for accommodations. We have flown to other countries and rented an RV to stay at campgrounds while we drove around to visit different locations. This not only saved us hundreds, possibly thousands, of dollars but it also gave our kids more stability as we traveled because they weren’t unpacking and repacking their suitcases. I was able to stop by a grocery store and buy some cleaning supplies to ensure that the RV met my standards of cleanliness.

2. If staying in a hotel: join rewards programs, look for places you can cook (with a kitchen) or has food provided (such as breakfast and/or evening receptions), sign up for their email alerts, and be flexible on dates such as traveling during the week.

3. Many sites are now available that let you stay in a house for a few nights to several months. You can find places such as houses that are only used for rentals to true house swapping where you and another family agree upon a length of time and pretty much free accommodations and everything in between. Depending on your requirements and level of comfort this could mean your accommodations only cost you pennies a night.

Tiffany from Mommy And Me Travels.com is a long time travel lover and has expanded her travels to include her 2 young sons, who love to go on “adventures”! 

Making spontaneous accommodation decisions can be part of the adventure

Choosing where to stay depends on location, climate and the focus of our travels. For wildlife and nature-based trips, we love car camping. We fill one big check-in duffel bag with tent, tarp, sleeping bags, and pads. We rent an economy car at our destination and seek out small campgrounds at beaches and parks. Wherever we pitch the tent the kids call “home” – and we get to use our own personal bedding! When the kids wake up, there is wild space to run around. We’ve toured Hawaii, Costa Rica, Alaska, Florida, Mexico, Australia and New Zealand this way.
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With trips focused more on history and culture – in more urban areas – we find an apartment, bungalow or guesthouse through Airbnb or Booking.com. Homestays are great to get to know the locals and culture. Scanning the website photos helps us identify simple, rustic accommodation that matches our style and needs. We use the mapping feature to choose a quiet neighborhood, within walking distance to sites and stores.

Traveling mostly in the off-season, and avoiding the beaten track, we decide on a day-to-day basis where we will stay, rather than booking in advance. The trip is a spontaneous adventure!

Deborah is a California-based environmental educator, polyglot and mother of two adventurous kids. Her family travel blog Worldwise Kid inspires educational discussions around the globe.

Research campgrounds just as you would hotels

Choosing where to stay is probably just as important as choosing where to go. Accommodations need to be comfortable, affordable, and most importantly close to our destination and the activities we plan to do. Our family travels full-time in a travel trailer, so our choice of places to stay consists of campgrounds, both public and private.

We love staying in State and National Parks, but they are not always close to the activities we are planning to participate in. Honestly, price plays a big part in our decision on where to stay. We research quite a bit before making our final decision. Whether the campground or RV park has full hook-ups, showers, gravel or paved parking pads, trees or open spaces, fire rings, picnic tables, and other things all influence our decision. Since we usually only stay a few days or a week in any place, it allows us a lot of flexibility in choosing our accommodations, if we aren’t happy with the place we are in, we move!

One of the great things about traveling in an RV is the ability to be flexible. We almost never make reservations because we like to be able to change our plans on the spur of the moment. If someone tells us about a really cool activity, but it’s not on our route, we can change course easily. Some of our favorite accommodations have been in the least likely places.

Sarah is a full-time RV traveler that has been traveling the US with her husband and three children, ages 11, 9, and 6, for the past 2.5 years. If you’re interested in RV-ing around the USA check out Sarah’s in-depth and super helpful post about RV life with kids. 

Take food allergies into consideration

Choosing accommodations is different for us than it is for some families. We don’t always want to be in the middle of all the action. We crave downtime to decompress after exploring, so busy hotels aren’t our thing. A relaxing “home away from home” is perfect. I’m reframing that old adage, “If mama’s happy, everyone’s happy” to “A well rested child makes for an easy vacation!”

Moreover, with food allergies, we need a rental home with a full kitchen so we can have home cooked meals. Fortunately, Airbnb and VRBO, and some of their lesser-known international counterparts, let us “tour” potential accommodations before we go. If the place looks good for sleeping and cooking, we’ll gladly walk a few extra blocks for sightseeing. My advice for renting a home is to Google “best website for lodging in [the country you’re visiting]”. Know that it might be a different site than the one you use in your home country. You’ll likely get the best rates, security, and overall experience this way.

A published writer, positive parenting educator, wellness advocate, and world traveler, Sarah invites you to join her adventures at Dandelion Seeds.