Home Exchange takes the idea of home-swapping to the digital age. Participants list their home on the website and then search more than 150 countries around the world for other participants who may be interested in swapping homes for a while. The swaps themselves are unlimited and free, after a $150 annual membership fee. Home Exchange features more than 65,000 homes. Live like a local, and stay for free.
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TripAdvisor is the world’s largest travel website, reaching 375 million unique visitors every month. TripAdvisor is best known for its traveler reviews of hotels, restaurants and other attractions. The site boasts more than 225 million reviews of 5.2 million listings, in fact, complete with photos and tips from other travelers. After researching the opinions, travelers can then pick their favorites, compare prices and book airfare and hotels. TripAdvisor connects travelers to booking tools that scan hundreds of sites to locate the best price on hotels, so it’s also popular among budget travelers.
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Roomer Travel has a unique concept that saves travelers money on lodging, while helping other travelers who have a change in plans. Travelers who no longer can use a nonrefundable room that they have reserved can list it on Roomer Travel, which will rent it to another traveler who needs it, for a discounted price. The website handles all details, including the reservation name change. The seller gets some, if not all, of the money back. More than 221,000 hotel rooms that are paid for are unused every day in the United States, and Roomer Travel taps into that market.
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Booking Now is the app run by Booking.com. It makes booking a room quick, last-minute and easy, with the tap of your finger and no booking fees. The app features a special ranking system, designed to personalize the selection to best meet travelers’ needs. The app features nearly 800,000 properties (from apartments and houses to B&Bs and hotels) in more than 80,000 destinations around the world. Travelers can use millions of reviews to help select the best room.
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For travelers who want more from their lodging that the physical space, Homestay is about connection with residents. Travelers don’t book homes here, as much as they book hosts. Residents in more than 140 countries around the world open up their lives and homes to travelers via Homestay. Part of the deal is that the host will be around and spend time with the traveler, to provide an authentic, local experience with hospitality and the inside scoop on the destination, for a fee. It’s almost like an exchange student program, but for adults.
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Hotwire.com works to get travelers a discounted rate on hotels (as well as flights, cars and packages) by working in partnership with other travel companies. Hotwire’s partners provide access to unbooked inventory (for hotels, that means empty rooms), and then Hotwire rents them out for as much as 60 percent off. Hotwire features a wide selection of top hotels and last-minute deals to choose from, with information on properties’ star-rating, amenities, location and recommendations from other travelers. Hotwire reveals the specific names of the properties after the deal is booked.
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HomeAway is a popular vacation-rental website that connects travelers looking for an alternative to a hotel with property owners who have a place to rent. HomeAway offers more than one million vacation rental listings in more than 190 countries around the world. Budget-conscious travelers can filter by price and sometimes find ideally located properties for less than hotel rates. They can view photos, descriptions and read reviews of vacation-rental properties. HomeAway launched in 2006, so it has nearly a decade-old reputation.
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HotelTonight aims to offer travelers a different kind of experience booking lodging. With this app, it’s all about last-minute and simplified results. Travelers can start a search and the app will hand-pick the best-matching options to book immediately or up to one week out. Because it’s last-minute, travelers can often score great deals. HotelTonight covers discounted hotels in Europe, Australia and the Americas. The app promises a great deal in just 10 seconds.
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Trivago specializes in hotels. In fact, it offers the world’s biggest hotel search, drawing in more than 80 million users every month. Trivago compares prices from more than 200 other sites, and helps budget travelers save up to 39 percent on their lodging. Trivago’s search engine connects travelers to more than 700,000 hotels around the world and does the comparison-shopping for them. To help travelers make the final decision, the site features more than 140 million reviews with millions of photos from other travelers. 
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BedandBreakfast.com is the place to go to book professionally run B&Bs, inns and boutique hotels around the world. It boasts the most comprehensive listing of B&B-like properties (more than 12,000), and helps travelers sift through that extensive list with hundreds of thousands of traveler reviews. For budget travelers, the website guarantees the best price, and it also offers gift cards at thousands of the properties with no blackout dates or restrictions. Luxury travelers can find hundreds of Diamond Collection properties here, too.
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