Where to Stay
FINDING ACCOMMODATIONS
Looking to stay in a specific neighborhood, island, or area? Booking.com and Google Maps are both great ways to search options by geographic location using the maps feature.
Looking for a hotel that is as interesting as the destination? The List at Aeri Mare Tera is highly exclusive and carefully curated. We research those very special places that are unique to their location or part of the history of the region because your home base while traveling should be every bit as memorable as the destination itself. Hotels cannot buy their way onto The List.
TOP 5 WEBSITES FOR PRE-VETTED HOTEL RECOMMENDATIONS
Aeri Mare Tera - The List: Ok so maybe we are partial. The List here at AMT curates hand-selected, team-vetted, very unique, memorable stays featuring more boutique than chain-owned hotels.
Small Luxury Hotels of the World: Highlights small hotels and local businesses. Excellent selection of boutique stays.
Condé Nast Johansens: An excellent resource for hotel lists particularly highlighting more exclusive properties and luxury stays.
Condé Nast Traveler. Good for nicely curated lists of typically 4 and 5 star stays, available for many regions and cities. The selection is a bit stereotypical but very useful.
Mr & Ms Smith: Offers a list that can be searched by map and rating. A good range of locations are represented. Do your digging as this is a pay-to-play resource but a good one.
BOOKING ACCOMMODATIONS
So our go-to, one-stop, fully rounded resource for booking your travel stay would be Booking.com.
Why? Booking.com will allow you to book both hotels AND private home/vacation apartment rentals with all the details centralized through their site and app. Booking has a rewards program that will pay off if you travel frequently, they will swing you some discounts on taxis (do still check the price against local rates) and they have a great customer service line. Good customer service is one of those things you will be extremely grateful for if you ever find yourself in the unfortunate position of needing it while traveling. In the cases that I have had to coordinate with Booking customer service to resolve an issue, they have been quick to solve, compensate, and rebook me. This goes in stark contrast to issues I have had using AirB&B where it took far too long to make contact with a human being and they gave me the run around until the issue times out and stuck me with the full loss of the bad booking, not to mention the added stress and cost of finding an alternative while traveling.
TIPS FOR BOOKING YOUR HOTEL
1: Don’t exclusively use booking sites to shop rates. Always check on the hotel’s own website, hotels frequently have exclusive rates or current discounts running that you won’t see on booking engines.
2: Don’t exclusively use booking sites to select your hotel. Your hotel search will be guided by their algorithms and pay to play leveraging, leaving out some of great options. If the quality of the stay is important to you, first check out our top 5 websites for pre-vetted stays. Find what you want and then compare prices and then book.
3: Read the reviews and compare. Google, TripAdvisor, and Booking.com will all have reviews and it can be useful to read and compare them, especially for a stay where you are hoping for a wonderful experience. No matter how nice the photos are or how fancy the website appears; read the reviews!