The quick backstory

Code-named “CheapoSearch” when we first took it live five years ago, our hotel search engine lets readers quickly see room rates for all of the hotels we recommend on EuroCheapo (as long as they have online booking – which some of them don’t). Easy-to-use filters let you narrow down your results by location, user rating, price and accommodation type. In our results we display room rates from a range of hotel booking websites, showing you the lowest rate out there.

This new upgrade

Lately we’ve been dreaming up a bunch of new features that we think will make hotel research more efficient. This new upgrade centers on trying to make EuroCheapo as easy to use as possible. These new features include:

More hostel inventory: We expanded the volume of hostels in our search results to include those we feel are a cut above the rest.

Display both dorm and private room prices: Rather than making dorm rates hard to find, we now show them alongside private room rates for hostel results.

Show room type information: To minimize the amount of back-and-forth clicking within our search results, we now display room type info (with rates) directly within search results. Now you can quickly find the specific room type you’re looking for — for example, two twin beds rather than one queen.

Highlight our hotel reviews: The heart and soul of EuroCheapo are the hotels we visit, recommend and review. In order to feature these hotels (and our reviews) more clearly, we simplified the design to make our “Editor’s Picks” stand out more.

Give it a whirl

But enough of the descriptions. The best way for you to experience the new CheapoSearch is to go ahead and search away. You can test it on this page by using the big blue hotel search box in the top right corner or by doing a search on our homepage.

Go on – kick the tires a bit. Try Paris. Or Rome. Maybe Amsterdam? But compare some dates, use the filters and see what gorgeous (and cheapo) hotels we have in store. Also, we love getting your feedback and suggestions on what you think should be improved or added. Please send an email our way to let us know what you think.

And remember, next time you’re looking to book a hotel in Europe, CheapoSearch is ready to help out!

The post CheapoNews: Announcing a big upgrade to our hotel search engine! appeared first on EuroCheapo's Budget Travel Blog.

This is the largest redesign in our 11 year history and it affects most of the site. If you’ve visited EuroCheapo during the past few days, you’ve likely noticed a big change to the layout and overall look of the site. Perhaps you’ve thought, “Where the heck am I and where did EuroCheapo go?” We’re here, Cheapos! We just got a facelift!

A new look

It’s been five years since our last design overhaul and we decided it was time for something with a little more sparkle. Specifically, we wanted the site to be easier and more intuitive to use. Make it fast. Make it pretty. Make it fun. But mostly, make it useful.

The new Paris home page

Our new site gives more prominence and visibility to the 1,200 budget hotels we review, including much larger hotel photos taken by our editors and newly expanded hotel reviews. In doing so, we feel we’re getting closer and closer to our goal of being the most helpful site for researching and booking the best budget hotels in Europe.

Here’s a list of a few of the new features we think you’re going to enjoy on our new site:

New Design

We redesigned every page of EuroCheapo to make it easier to read, navigate and help research budget hotels. We introduced some nifty photo carousels to make it easy to quickly flip from one hotel to the next, increased the size of photos across the board and expanded the page width for readers who access the site on large monitors.

Never to be at a loss for puns, we also added a pithy new tagline: “Stay cheap.”

Hotel search improvements

We improved the maps we use in our hotel search engine, CheapoSearch, to make them easier to use and more functional for our readers. Know exactly where you want to stay during your next visit? Do a search and give our maps and filters a test – we think you’ll love ’em.

We also made a dramatic improvement to the hotel search results layout and the algorithm we use to rank hotels. Yes, we know “algorithm” = “snoozeville,” but trust us. Do a search and see what you think.

The hotel reviews sport a new look

TripAdvisor Partnership

To help make it easier to research hotels we’ve partnered with TripAdvisor to show their most recent traveler reviews on our hotel pages. No need to read our review and also open new tabs in your browser to validate them on TripAdvisor—we now combine them all into the same page.

And we’re still including the verified user review scores from our reservation agency partners, as well, to provide the most well rounded review perspective you can ask for. EuroCheapo’s experts + TripAdvisor + verified customer ratings. Now that’s a winner!

Thank you

We received a lot of helpful feedback from EuroCheapo readers who volunteered to look at design mockups and answer questions throughout our redesign process. We thank you so much for all of your help and taking the time to help make the site what it is today. It’s vastly better because of your help.

And while we’re very happy with the new djddz.com, we’re only getting started. We’re developing many new features that we’re eager to introduce to you soon.

Come have a look and poke around for a bit. Tell us what you like, what you don’t like and what else you’d like to see. Leave a comment below or email us directly. And, as always, thank you for using djddz.com.

The post Unveiling the new djddz.com appeared first on EuroCheapo's Budget Travel Blog.

This weekend’s New York Times features an excellent round-up of last-minute advice for would-be Olympic attendees, including some thoughts on hotels provided by EuroCheapo! The piece, part of the Practical Traveler series written by Michelle Higgins, includes advice covering all aspects of visiting the world’s largest sporting event. It includes:

Hotels

EuroCheapo’s editor Tom Meyers explains that it’s not hard to find a hotel in London during the Games, “it’s just hard to find a deal.” ‘Tis true — most hotel rates double during the Games.

However, cheaper options exist, including hostels, apartments and even camping.

Flights

Direct flights into London are still available, although expensive, running about 13% above last year. Fly.com suggests flying into another hub from the States, such as Berlin, and then catching a flight on a budget airline from there.

Tickets to the Games

A limited number of tickets are still available for certain events (including volleyball and gymnastics). However, budget travelers should consider the “freebies,” such as the marathon, which will pass through central London. Without tickets, you can still attend free screenings throughout town.

Read more in the New York Time’s article, “Last-Minute Tips for Traveling to London for the Olympics.”

The post Extra! Extra! EuroCheapo in the New York Times discussing hotels for the Olympics appeared first on EuroCheapo's Budget Travel Blog.

Ten years ago this week, we launched EuroCheapo from my apartment in Berlin with a guide to 25 budget hotels in Paris. On June 14, 2001, with three friends huddled around my desk, I clicked “upload,” refreshed the browser, and watched djddz.com come to life.

True to “cheapo form,” we clinked glasses of inexpensive sparkling wine and went off for a Vietnamese dinner in Prenzlauer Berg.

The "Original Cheapos": Gianni, me and my old red bike reunited in Berlin in 2008.

2001: A Web Odyssey

Remember early 2001? George Bush was sworn into his first term in January. The US economy was rolling along and airline security less restrictive. European travel was different: You shopped with francs in France, Deutsche Marks in Germany and (lots and lots) of lira in Italy.

I had been dreaming of writing a guide that would promote the idea that European travel could be affordable for everyone. As I’m particularly fond of small, interesting hotels, I decided to focus on them. Guidebooks covered some of these, it was true. But I thought we could find an audience by only writing about cheap hotels, showing photos, and putting it all on the Web for free.

To start the site, I flew to London in January 2001 and tried to sleuth out cheap sleeps in the Bloomsbury neighborhood. That first day I knocked on the doors of B&B’s along Gower Street.

But there was a problem: The city was flooded with B&B’s. There were dozens of them lining Gower Street alone, and they all looked about the same from the outside. How was this ever going to work?

Kari and Alex working in my apartment, summer of 2005.

Saved, by Cheapo standards

I panicked… and headed to Rome, where my friend Gianni Bettucci helped me get my–and the site’s–act together. At the tourist information office by Termini Station they handed over a thick directory of every hotel and alberghi in the city.

On the back of a place mat at a nearby Chinese restaurant we listed out what we called our “EuroCheapo Standards.” To even be visited and “inspected,” the hotels had to be centrally located and cheap. To be chosen as an editor’s pick, they had to be clean and, ideally, smaller, non-chain properties. Bonus points would be awarded for personality.

I'm failing to impress the receptionist at the Winston Hotel in Amsterdam in 2005.

We got to work inspecting bedrooms, taking notes, and snapping photos of beds, showers and breakfast rooms. All the while we were explaining a site that didn’t exist to somewhat skeptical proprietors. In a few cases, we even had to explain the concept of the Internet. (“Is it like the fax?” asked one B&B owner in Rome. “Kind of.”)

Throughout the spring of 2001, we also visited hotels in Amsterdam, Florence, Paris and Prague. And yes, I revisited and re-tackled London.

Throughout the first month in the new office we didn't have an Internet connection. We tried to find one wherever we could.

Finally, we set up our apartment (with office) in Berlin’s Friedrichshain neighborhood. I spent a couple of months composing the hotel reviews and designing the site at the Staatsbibliothek near Potsdamer Platz.

How was the site going to make any money? Easy–banner ads! I proudly coded one into the top of the home page. There were also some ads to Amazon.com that could pay a small commission if somebody bought a guidebook. These would pay the rent, right?

Finally, on that balmy June night, we clinked our glasses and celebrated the launch of our new guide. And then we waited for Yahoo! to notice. We’d be waiting for a while. (As for that other, newer search engine with the stripped-down design–we didn’t pay it much attention.)

Dash forward

Growth was slow for the first couple of years. I moved back to New York in 2002, although I headed back to Europe many times a year to add new cities and revisit the old ones. The site started to take off in 2004, which allowed me to hire Kari Hoerchler, followed by Alex Robertson Textor and Vivien Kim Thorp the following year.

The night got late early for Pete and me at Wake Up London in 2005. (The hostel--and dance club--no longer exist.)

At about this time we lost the lease on our sublet office space in SoHo, and the office memorably moved into my apartment in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. There the expanded crew (plus interns!) sweat out the summer of 2005. We moved back into New York’s historic Cable Building at Broadway and Houston several months later, where we remain today.

In 2006, my brother Pete and sister-in-law Meredith became my business partners, and helped take the site to another level professionally. Pete’s business and marketing skills immediately served us well, as did Mere’s editorial experiences. During the following two years we invested heavily in the site’s technology, building a hotel and flights search engine.

Ten years after launching, we’re still hunting down cheap sleeps and taking photos of bathrooms. The “EuroCheapo family” has grown with new hires, correspondents, tech wizards and interns. Like any Web site, we’ve gone through redesigns, logo antics, bug testing (and more bug testing), site crashes, and incredible new launches that leave us proud.

The site has expanded from reviews of 25 hotels in Paris to include hotel recommendations in 28 European cities, a guide to New York, and a blog that publishes dispatches from correspondents around Europe. And we’ve got some new cities ready to launch this summer. (Stay tuned!)

Vivien, Kari, Meredith and Pete in London in 2005

Cheapos I have known…

The site would not exist today without the contributions of the many talented people who have joined the team along the way. We feel fortunate to have found so many others who have agreed with our site’s mission to “help make European travel affordable to everyone.”

Presenting some Very Important Cheapos:

Pete Meyers and Meredith Franco Meyers: Pete and I are brothers, born 15 months apart. We’ve worked summer jobs together and run businesses together (including a wildly–some might say “weirdly”–popular shaved ice stand in Lakeside, Ohio). Therefore, it wasn’t a big surprise to those who know us when Pete and his wife Meredith joined the company in 2006 and became my business partners.

Pete and Meredith officially become my business partners -- and our mother signs as a witness.

It’s hard to imagine what the site would be today without them. The Web site with a funny name suddenly became a “family business,” and I had partners who were deeply invested in and passionate about the business. Pete came from a strong interactive advertising background and took over the business and marketing efforts. Meredith had spent years writing and editing for women’s magazines and gave those skills a “Cheapo” twist.

Kari Hoerchler: Back in New York in 2004, Kari was EuroCheapo’s first hire. During our initial meeting (at the “Big Cup” coffee shop on 8th Avenue in Chelsea), we filled a legal pad with the projects that she’d be tackling during her two days a week. Clearly, she needed to work more days–and I needed to learn how to prioritize projects.

Kari poses as Sarah lines up a shot in 2010.

Since then, Kari has visited hundreds of hotels in Europe (this year, in Seville)–and she currently serves as the listings manager for our hotel search engine. The site would be skimpier without Kari–and the office much less fun.

Suzanne Russo: A master of all editorial trades, Suzanne first interned for EuroCheapo in 2007. We assigned her to fact-check our city guide articles during the day, while she worked on her Masters of English at New York University at night. Sure, she could understand Joyce, but could she make heads or tails of Venice’s vaporetto pass? (Yes, she could.) Suzanne now serves as our listings editor, editing hotel reviews from our correspondents around Europe.

Michael Cargian and James Ellis: Since 2007, Mike and James have been writing and bug-testing the code that makes EuroCheapo work. Mike is on the line daily from San Francisco, and James works his magic from Sydney, Australia. Together, the duo have created a hotel price-comparison search engine, a budget flights search, built a blog, and dealt with many other “Cheapo-” prefixed projects. Without them, the site would be… well, it wouldn’t be.

Meredith, Suzanne and I plotting cities out on a map of Europe in 2011.

Our correspondents: As the site expanded, we needed to find hotel reviewers who could add new cities and revisit the existing listings. Finding the right reviewers can be tricky, as you need someone who shares a sense of value and keeps an eye out for charming touches, quirky details and that certain “je ne sais quoi.”

Additionally, the site sprung to life in 2007 with the launch of the EuroCheapo blog. Suddenly we were publishing daily dispatches about cheap and free things to do in a couple dozen cities. The blog continues to be an extremely important part of the site.

Thus, many, many thanks to the fine writers who have hunted down hotels and penned blog dispatches over the years. And many thanks to our current group of Europe-based writers: Audrey, Bryan, Chaney, Cynthia, Jacy, Jessica, Joann, Laura, Marc, Monica, Nicky, Nicole, Nina, Regina, Susanne and Theadora.

Alex, Vivien, Tom and Pete celebrating the redesign of EuroCheapo in December 2008.

Alex Robertson Textor: Alex joined EuroCheapo in 2005, and quickly attacked our city guides and transportation sections with a sharp eye and budget sensibility. Alex has reviewed hundreds of hotels for us all over Europe, this year in Dublin and London. Alex also served as the EuroCheapo blog editor for its first two years. Today, he also writes for Gadling.com, maintains his own blog, Spendthrift Shoestring, and contributes to numerous publications. Importantly, Alex also introduced our office to the magic of the Eurovision Song Contest.

Vivien and Kari planning their hotel visits while staying at the Hotel Garth in London, 2005.

Vivien Kim Thorp: As Vivien assumed her position as hotel listings editor in 2005, armed with a red pen, she asked, “Which style guide do you follow? AP or Chicago?” I had no idea what she was talking about, no doubt clarifying the scope of the project before her. During her three years at EuroCheapo, Vivien reviewed hotels in several cities, cracked an editorial whip, and greatly elevated the quality of the writing on the site. Today she lives in San Francisco, where she’s finishing off a Masters in journalism.

Sarah Silbert: Originally brought on as a summer intern, Sarah “graduated” into an editorial position at EuroCheapo, where she fact-checked, copy-edited and blogged from 2008-2010. She was also in the cheap hotel trenches, inspecting hotels in Copenhagen and Helsinki for the site. Today Sarah is an associate editor at Laptop Magazine in New York.

Tom, TJ, Laura, Viv, Annie, Alex, Pete

Annie Shapero: For several years, Annie served as our Italy-based correspondent. From her home in Rome, she reviewed hotels in the Eternal City, as well as Florence, Venice and Milan. When Vivien and I first interviewed Annie for the job at a cafe in Rome in 2006 (see photo, below), we immediately knew that we had found a Cheapo-in-spirit (which is evidently why I felt compelled to photograph the event). Today Annie lives in New York where she runs DiVino Wine Events, and she still reviews hotels for us in Italy (this summer updating our Milan guide).

Gianni Bettucci: After helping me out that first year, Gianni launched a career stage managing and producing theater in Berlin. He now runs the incredible Familie Flõz troupe of masked performers and still lives in Berlin’s Prenzlauer Berg.

Finally, my family has been involved in the business from the very beginning. Of special mention:

Vivien and I met with Annie Shapero in April 2006 in Rome. We hired her on the spot.

“Grandma Miller,” over the course of a Fourth of July family game in 2000, came up with the site’s original name, AntsyPants.com. I registered it the next week and was approached immediately by another company to buy it. (Those were the days…) I sold it, and this provided much of the site’s start-up capital. (“EuroCheapo” was a back-up name. Read more about this on Budget Travel’s Web site.)

Aunt Jeanie and Uncle Mel made an additional family investment (along with cousins Drew and Dave) that funded much of that first year in Berlin. We still hold annual meetings.

My mother and father: My dad, a lawyer, incorporated the business in 2001 and tended to the banking when I was traveling those first years, while my mother has been a constant source of support and encouragement through every entrepreneurial endeavor. Traveling with them in Europe is always a blast.

"Travel Gram" on a trip with me in Salzburg, 2004.

Eileen Detlefsen, a.k.a. “Grandma Det,” a newspaper woman since the 1930’s, continues to serve as a source of inspiration and occasional columnist, as “Travel Gram.” Eileen founded and operated her own newspaper in the 1950’s and 1960’s with my grandfather, and my mother and aunts were teen columnists. She still has the best copy-editing skills I know. (Read more about “Travel Gram.”)

Ben and Elizabeth: My two other siblings, both of whom have worked as editors, have offered thoughtful advice, editing help, and introduced us to interns. I ran the site for six months from my sister and (now) brother-in-law Matt’s home in upstate New York after returning from Berlin in 2002.

Guillaume: My partner and sounding board for business (and non-business) matters. During the past five years, he’s participated in thousands of hours of business discussions–and changed my mind about many things.

Louie, one of our early interns.

Looking forward

The Web is constantly evolving and user expectations have shifted dramatically since we launched the site ten years ago. This can be a daunting challenge.

I believe, however, that there will always be a demand for expert budget travel advice. I look forward to the next ten years, and am hopeful that, blessed with the talents of this group and the Cheapos yet to come, we will continue to provide a service that is helpful and relevant.

A meaningful travel experience in Europe doesn’t need to be expensive. We’ll do our best to promote ways to keep it affordable–and accessible–for as many readers as possible. We hope you’ll join us.

The post EuroCheapo Turns 10: Cheapos who made it possible appeared first on EuroCheapo's Budget Travel Blog.

No formal RSVP is required, just show up and bring your travel friends. Here are the details:

When: Thursday, Feb 3, 2011 from 6 – 9 p.m.

Where: The Loft at Professor Thom’s. 219 2nd Avenue (between 13th and 14th Streets), 2nd floor, in the East Village.

We’ll be handing out some freebies to those arriving early, but we’ll look forward to seeing you regardless of what time you arrive.

If you’re interested in a few photo outtakes from our previous shindig, click here.

See you soon!

The post You’re Invited: A very Cheapo happy hour this Thursday appeared first on EuroCheapo's Budget Travel Blog.

But sort of like moving out of your first cramped apartment with no windows and poor ventilation into a house with non-clogging toilets, we can’t help but get sentimental about the change. After all, we love our blog, even on its bad hair days, and the many posts and comments that have been written since it first launched in January of 2007.

So please join us as we recap some of the hits (and misses) produced over the past few years, or at least a handful of posts that we think are funny.

The Vitals

• Our first post was written on January 30, 2007 and featured our then-Venice correspondent (and now-NYC neighbor) Annie Shapiro. The subject? Annie’s hunt for new hotels in Venice to add to our Editor’s Picks.

• We’ve published 1,485 posts so far and have received 2,854 comments.

• 66 writers have contributed to our blog since it launched.

• 77,173 “spams” have been caught by the WordPress anti-spam plugin Akismet. Thank you, whomever developed this plugin.

The Greatest Hits

• The most commented post (109 comments) is about cheap rail fares across Europe.

• The most popular post in 2010 is about using an American iPhone in Europe without going broke.

• The most popular post that has yet to receive a comment is about 5 free things to do in Venice.

• The most popular post about hotels is this year’s Cheapo 100.

• The most popular post for our most popular city is about finding cheap tickets for concerts and operas in Paris.

Not Popular, But Worth Mentioning

• The most random contest we’ve held involved naming a celebrity being painted onto the wall of a building next door.

• The post we probably laughed at the most while putting together is about hotel ghosts we’ve photographed.

• The shortest post we’ve written is about an attempted elf robbery in Belfast.

Thanks, Cheapos.

We enjoy writing our blog, working with our (fab) writers, and receiving comments from our readers. Thanks to all of you who’ve contributed to the blog to date and please keep sending your helpful comments and feedback our way!

The post EuroCheapo’s Greatest Blog Hits: 2007-2010 appeared first on EuroCheapo's Budget Travel Blog.

Here’s a sampling of what’s new:

1. Enhanced city pages

Our new city pages (for example: Paris, London, Amsterdam…) now include neighborhood maps, dynamic hotel listings, aggregated (and verified) guest ratings, and easy access to other city guides. We also included links to EuroCheapo’s Twitter and Facebook pages, along with an archive of previous blog posts. Want to see it in action? Have a look!

2. Smarter hotel listings

In addition to reading our hotel reviews, Cheapos can now view guest ratings from our reservation partners and read reviews written by verified hotel guests. Furthermore, you can see the hotel’s location on an interactive map and view other hotel picks located nearby. We’ll also show you nearby landmarks, and provide you with more real-time information in the pricing module. Sound tempting? Try it out!

3. Helpful hotel filters and sorting tools

We’ve included all “sorts” of new filtering and sorting tools to help you find the perfect budget sleep. You can now sort by “most viewed hotel,” “user rating,” and more.

For example, say you’re looking for a hotel in Paris’ Latin Quarter that costs less than $100. Now you can quickly sort our hotels by neighborhood, by price range, by property type (hotel, hostel, pension, B&B and more), by average guest rating, or by properties that are frequently viewed by other Cheapos. And just to help out a little more, we display all of this information on a big Google Map that displays proximity to public transportation and other points of interest. Want to see it in action? Here you go!

But wait, there’s more!

These are just a few ways our new “fancy pants” will help budget travelers plan smarter and travel cheaper. We’d love to hear your feedback–what do you think, and how can we do better? Tell us below!

Special thanks to the EuroCheapo Insiders who provided all sorts of helpful feedback and, of course, to our tech superstars, Mike and James.

The post EC Design Update: We’ve put on our fancy pants appeared first on EuroCheapo's Budget Travel Blog.

Our new search engine includes all the Cheapo “bells and whistles” we could dream up to help budget travelers find the best hotel. Here’s a short list of what’s in store:

More Cheapo-Filters
We’ve added all sorts of nifty filtering technology to help travelers easily narrow down search results. Now you can filter by proximity to popular landmarks, user ratings, neighborhood, room rate and property type.

Looking for a three-star hotel this summer in Paris, near Notre Dame with at least a 7.5 user rating for less than $200? We have several suggestions!

Trusted Travel Advice
Can’t decide where to stay? Our editors have inspected thousands of European hotels and provide recommendations in 28 popular cities. Read editor reviews and check out our candid hotel photos. Need help choosing the right neighborhood? Roll over neighborhood names to read detailed descriptions.

What’s Your “CheapoFactor?”
Our search results rank budget hotels by their “CheapoFactor,” the site’s super top-secret algorithm that pushes the most interesting, central, highest rated, and lowest priced hotels to the top. Check out the creme de la (cheapo) crème!

Handpicked Hotel Listings
Our editors select every hotel that shows up in our search results. To be included, hotels must be central, have satisfactory user reviews, and always have budget-friendly prices. We don’t let just any hotel show up!

Hotel Price Comparison
Our search engine compares hotel rates from multipile reservation websites, allowing travelers to easily find — and book — the lowest rate out there.

Tell Us What You Think!
We’re proud of our budget hotel search engine and always want it to be as helpful as possible. So try it out and tell us what you think. What are we missing? Leave a comment below and let us know your thoughts, Cheapos!

The post Flash: We’ve upgraded our budget hotel search! appeared first on EuroCheapo's Budget Travel Blog.

What’s with the redesign, you might ask?

Well, we loved the way the previous version looked, but we felt it didn’t feel particularly “alive.” Given we’re constantly updating hotel reviews, city guide articles, blog posts and other content, we wanted this constant activity to be reflected on our homepage as well.

Our new design allows us to showcase five featured hotels every day, highlight each day’s newest blog entry from our editors and writers, and promote a new featured article from our city guides. Every day you return back to EuroCheapo you’ll see a fresh batch of selected hotels, blog entries, articles and maybe – just maybe – a few more surprises we have up our sleaves here at EuroCheapo HQ.

Also, we’ve received lots of great feedback over the past year from fellow Cheapos who just discovered how helpful our search engine is in quickly finding budget hotels. Many of them, though, hadn’t previously completed a search on EuroCheapo out of concern that doing so would take them away from the site or not allow them to view our search results.

To address this, we also redesigned our search box and gave it a little more “front and center” prominence on the page, to help other Cheapos discover and experience its magical budget power!

Bug zapping

While we tried to catch each and every bug prior to launch, we’re sure we missed some. Heck, we just realized our blog entries aren’t formatted correctly (this will be taken care of shortly!) However, if you do come across anything that seems, well, weird, confusing or broken, please email us and let us know.

Special thanks

We’d like to say a special thank you to a few of the Cheapos who helped us with this big project. To our tech wizards, Mike and James, thanks so much and we’ll do our best to rid the world of Internet Explorer 6. And to the many EuroCheapo Insiders who provided so much feedback and comments throughout development, thanks for taking the time to help us out!

What do you think? We’d love to hear any additional comments and feedback about the new homepage design in the comments section below!

The post How Do You Like Our New Homepage? appeared first on EuroCheapo's Budget Travel Blog.

That’s right Cheapos:  sometimes we take pictures of budget hotel ghosts!

Think we’re kidding? Just have a look at the photos below and see if you notice anything peculiar… mwaaahaaahaaa!

#1.  Creepy toilet

This bathroom shot was taken on a sunny day, in a room filled with natural light. So why does this toilet give us the creeps? Because it’s haunted!

#2. Floating leg in shower!

Looks like a typical bathroom scene in a trendy London hotel, right? Everything looks up to snuff, until you notice the floating GHOST LEG in the shower!

3. Haunted London bedroom!

This was nearly a “hotel crush,” until we developed this shot and noticed the menacing ghost orb floating above the bed—and the greenish pillow stains of guests long gone… (Editor’s note:  This hotel did not make our final cut…)

4. Phantom in Brussels!

This photo was taken by Meredith while making her rounds in Brussels last spring. So who’s that man in the corner? A G-H-O-S-T!

5. Ghost orb in Dublin bathtub!

Another orb appears… this time in a Dublin bathtub. We shouldn’t have been surprised. ORBS TAKE BATHS!

6. Pioneer man in Paris pension!

We swear, we were alone in the room when snapping this shot in the Latin Quarter. Who gave him a key? GHOSTS DON’T NEED KEYS!

7. Maverick looking out the window!

Imagine our shock when we studied this shot of an un-named London youth hostel (located “steps from the British Museum”). How did she get there? No wait, she’s just a figment of our imagination, VANISHING BEFORE OUR EYES!

SEND US YOUR CREEPY SHOTS!

Have any spooks shown up unexpectedly in your photos? Email them, we’ll post ’em! Happy Halloween, Cheapos!

The post EuroCheapo’s Spookiest Hotel Ghosts (7 photos!) appeared first on EuroCheapo's Budget Travel Blog.