In Part 1 of How to Find Great Kerala Accommodation I featured some useful websites for finding places to stay in Kerala, including i-escape for special and stylish hotel reviews, TripAdvisor for extensive hotel reviews and a number of forums where you can ask advice from experienced travellers. Here are some more helpful resources for finding your perfect place to stay in Kerala.
Mahindra Homestays
Mahindra Homestays is a booking service for homestays throughout India. It isn’t independent, but it is a useful way to find homestays, with plenty listed in Kerala. The photos and descriptions for each homestay are quite detailed and some have reviews by guests.
Each homestay is inspected to ensure that it complies with the high standards of Mahindra Homestays, including comfort, cleanliness, safety and originality. You can book your stay on the website or by phone.
Recommended for those looking for a homestay who would like the security of an advance booking.
Couchsurfing
This is an interesting and cheap option for adventurous travellers. Couchsurfing is a huge hospitality network where hosts from around the world allow travellers to stay on their couches or in their spare rooms for free.
There are hundreds of hosts registered in Kerala, and this is an amazing way to get to know local people and see the ‘real’ Kerala. Even if you don’t want to stay with the hosts you can arrange to meet them while you are in Kerala for a chance to meet locals and make new friends.
Many people are worried about the security of couchsurfing, but over 4 million positive experiences have been registered, which is an incredible 99.794% success rate. If you are still worried you can choose to only stay with hosts that have been verified and have positive references from other couchsurfers.
There are some amazing couchsurfing hosts in Kerala, including the chance to stay in an eco-friendly hut on a coffee plantation in Wayanad, or with an Ayurvedic doctor on the beach in Kannur.
Recommended for adventurous travellers and those on a budget looking for a unique Keralan experience.
Twitter is a social networking site where members post short (140 character) messages. There is a great travel community on Twitter who you can ask for hotel recommendations, or you can search to find out what people are saying about a particular hotel.
Almost Fearless has published a useful ebook called Twitter for Travellers which features great advice on using Twitter to find travel tips. There’s even a cheat sheet on how to set up a Twitter account for those just starting out.
I posted a question on Twitter asking how people found great accommodation. @Monica530 pointed me to her Travel Secrets article where she recommends not booking hotels in advance so that you can negotiate cheaper prices.
Recommended for travellers who already use Twitter, or those who’d like to learn.
Guidebook
The most traditional way to find accommodation is with a guidebook. You’ll have plenty of reliable listings in one portable package. The downside is that thousands of other travellers will be using the same guide, so these options can get crowded.
For pros and cons of each of the major Kerala and India guidebooks you can read my reviews of The Rough Guide to Kerala , Lonely Planet India and Lonely Planet South India.
Recommended for everyone (it’s always useful to have a guidebook on hand), especially travellers who won’t be booking in advance.
Tags: blogsherpa, India, Kerala, Kerala Accommodation, kerala homestay, Kerala India Travel
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