At this point in the course, you should be understanding this so much about getting the right deal is really understanding what you want to get out of travel. And that's going to come more to light as we talk about how to get the right accommodations. Getting the best accommodations really involves three parts. One is determining your travel purpose. Remember, we said earlier that everyone has a different travel Why? So your clue or your task is to really narrow down and get more clarity about the purpose for this particular trip that you're taking.

Then, as usual, you explore options you start looking around at pricing, availability, options, features and so forth, so that you get a sense of what options are out there. And then you do some more focused comparisons. Once you've narrowed down to one or two types of accommodations, you do some more comparison shopping around. And then finally book. The key takeaway is that you do have options. Many people think that when you travel, you get your airline ticket and then immediately you have to go book a hotel.

Nothing could be farther from the truth, you have options. The key is, as we said earlier to figure out what you want out of your next trip and choose an accommodation that fits with the experience you're seeking. So again, it comes back to you having clarity and then making a choice that fits with what you're looking for. There are all different types of accommodations, some include resorts, I think many of us are familiar with these all inclusive resorts, you just it's convenient. You just pay your money and you Get everything you get the check in, you get the room, you get access to all of the facilities, you get your meals, you get all types of amenities, right. So these are resorts that are beautiful and luxurious.

You've probably seen all kinds of pictures of places that are so well planned out, have beautiful landscaping and architecture and have everything that you could ask for. Right. So that's a resort. Then we have hotels, which are everywhere, and they range in quality and luxury. So you have you know, obviously you're one star down to your motels up to five stars, and we're used to that there's a check in and the checkout time and you pretty much expect housekeeping and you know, access to whatever it is that they have in terms of recreation, and restaurants and so forth. And then we have the bread and breakfast places which could be be much more quaint.

And depending on where you're actually going, they may be called something different. They may have local names. So for example, when I was in the Cape Verde Islands, the local Bed and Breakfast was really called a pin sale. And it was a small place usually family owned, you would get continental breakfast and you would speak with the owner and they would really sort of be there day to day and it was a really small, but very cozy and quaint experience. And even bread and breakfast is range in level of luxury and price, and then hostels. And then hostels are pretty popular, particularly for people who want to, for example, hike across Europe or go throughout different countries in Asia and they're really looking to just help either an adventure or a really amazing experience in one or more countries, they're not necessarily looking for luxury, and even hostels range in their level of quality and luxury.

There's some really nice hostels out there. But it's usually more of a communal living space or sleeping space, or similar, either short, sharing a bathroom or something like that. And what's really become very popular now is Airbnb. And that's where people are renting out their homes, so that travelers from out of town out of the country can come and experience sort of like a bread and graphic breakfast experience in a local neighborhood. And it's becoming really, really popular. And then so our home stays is sort of similar to Airbnb but you actually have a host where you're staying as if you're staying with the host family for example with travel abroad and these are becoming Much more popular too.

So you see you have the luxury the standard hotel down to a more immersion experience where you stay in a homestay. And again, staying in the community these two things are becoming much more popular with Airbnb, one of the keys is that anyone potentially could become a host. So you could be actually staying in any number of neighborhoods in your destination city. So usually when we think about hotels, we might think about downtown or a tourist area. But with Airbnb, you could be actually in a neighborhood. And that's pretty amazing.

And you're staying in someone's house, which itself likely has a cozy feel to it. And then homestays take it a further a step further, because you actually have someone who's dedicated to being a host for you, and they give you background and immersion in the culture. The country where you're going. So again, I said it's almost as if you were studying abroad and staying with the host family. So with homestays, you can book and you can actually actually sign up to become a host family that way. That's another way to sort of travel without leaving because you get people coming to you from different countries and exposing you to different cultures and customs by being a homestay host.

So both of these websites are really great to explore, you can see and the other thing is the prices are usually very reasonable. That's one of the big ways that they both become more and more popular. The prices beat hotels hands down. But not everybody is looking for an Airbnb or homestay experience. And certainly Airbnb has come up in the news and in social media a lot lately because of some things in terms of poor guests who My trash the person's apartment, as well as poor hosts who might get into conflict with their guests. So none of these are without risk.

Now, if you feel like you're just a luxury hotel person, there are tons of sites, they can help you to get deals. The same way we talked about those airlines sites that you can monitor and look for flash sales. Well, there are similar types of sites for hotels, and hotels, I use that term term pretty loosely because many of them may have vacation homes that come up on their site or resorts, or any sort of even in some cases, bed and breakfast. But these are luxury accommodations. So there's a site called jet center.com. And you can log in you can sign up so that you can get information about flash sales.

These are these last minute deals, all inclusive resort 40% send off, you must book by certain time and travel within these dates, right? Very, very exciting. Then there's luxury link calm. They also offer discount rates, rates on hotels and resorts. There are other free perks that come along with booking through them such as free Wi Fi, free parking, luggage and so forth. And then they actually auction off some of their bookings, the same way that Priceline would auction or you could name your price and go up for an auction for a ticket.

You can do the same thing for accommodations. There's also secret escapes comm that I like it's a membership site, but it's a free membership. And again, you can get deals for up to 70% off of luxury hotels and resorts. Very great site. Another one is lynda.com. Again, there are member perks, so not only Might you get discounts on your your accommodations and rooms, but you might get some extra add ons that make your state all that much more relaxing and what you hoped for.

They also have a point system. So this is becoming very popular so that you continue to book through them and you build up points and rewards that go along with membership. There's another one called tablet hotels COMM And this also has last minute deals. They also so that's a free membership part where you can get information and notification about last minute deals. They also have a paid Plus program where you get some additional access to discounts and perks if you pay a fee. So that's a tiered program.

And then booking comm has become increasingly popular. This is sort of a wide open search site where you can look for all types of properties worldwide. So Villa vacation homes, hotels, resorts, Bed and Breakfast is sort of a one stop shop. But it's not as narrow as some of the other sites where you would really be able to hone in on specific flash sales or purse programs. But it's worth looking around. there been some complaints about booking through booking calm, because they can serve as a middleman and so if there's a need to cancel or any other problem, you can run into some difficulty.

But you can certainly start by looking around and seeing what's available. They literally have properties, all types of properties listed around the world. So now that you see the different types of accommodations that are potentially available to you, I want you to do this Skill Building Challenge. And this is where you really go back and tap into what your travel Why is in your travel purpose. This is called aligning accommodations with your travel purpose. So first is to decide the primary purpose of your next trip.

By now you should have been thinking about your travel goals, your travel fears, your travel wise, even thinking about where you might want to go on your next trip either in general in terms of region, or maybe you have it narrowed down to the specific city and you know exact location that you want to visit in a particular country. So decide on that primary purpose, which is either vacation, relaxation, adventure, personal growth, whatever it may be, what is the primary purpose of your next trip, and then choose accommodations that will help you to experience that purpose. So certainly, if you're going for relaxation, luxury relaxation and the full vacation experience, you Probably wouldn't choose a hostel, maybe a bed and breakfast but I would say most likely a resort, all inclusive or semi inclusive if you could find one, right. So the other thing is some people go, as we said for cultural immersion, depth of understanding of what a society is like the culture, the language, the customs.

That's a good idea to think about using a homestay for so that you can really stay with the host family. Get a sense of being in the community, even with Airbnb. If you're in the community, you might get a better feel for what the society is like. So do those two things, decide the primary purpose of your next trip and choose an accommodations, type or choose accommodations that will help you to experience that purpose. So with this, all of the activities and the lectures, were really trying to make sure that all of the things that are part of your travel experience fit together, that your purpose for travel fits together with how you travel. So this is an exercise this is going to continue to help you build that skill.

I look forward to seeing any comments or discussions that you may have about the primary purpose of your trip and how that can fit with your accommodations choice. Good luck.