Airbnb vs Hotel vs VRBO
Depends on the length of your stay.
For short stays (usually less than a week) hotels are the way to go. Airbnb cleaning fees are cost-prohibitive for short stays, but the fee is the same no matter how long you stay (usually) so it gets a lot more reasonably-priced the longer the stay is.
For more than a week airbnb is usually the better option. A lot of stays offer a weekly discount, so if you stay 7 days you'll usually get one night free. This makes Airbnb a much more competitive option to hotels. You also get the whole place to yourself and can usually find free in-unit laundry. We typically alternate between hotels one week and airbnb one week so we can do our laundry every other week. When booking, you can check the price breakdown to see if you're getting a weekly discount.
VRBO - never again. In my experience you can only cancel up to 2 weeks in advance. We arrived at our place and it had some major noise problems both at night and during the day (loud banging from pipes at night, and jackhammers from 7am all day). The host refused to help us (even though they didn't disclose the construction at the time of booking). We contacted VRBO and they also refused to help us, saying the only way we could get even a partial refund would be if we were hospitalized. Due to the complete lack of help and support after arriving at our booking, I will avoid VRBO at all costs in the future. On Airbnb the cancellation policy is decided per-listing, so there are some booking options that let you cancel before the end of your stay and get a partial refund; especially necessary if you're booking a place for 2-3 weeks and find out there's construction on day 1.
Booking a good place
Read reviews. I can't stress this enough. Reviews will tell you the real story (mostly, there are fake 5-star reviews though). Given there are a lot of fake 5-star reviews, check the distribution. If there's a ton of 1-star reviews then most likely a lot of the 5-star reviews are fake and the place actually isn't good.
On Airbnb: trust Superhosts or places with a ton of reviews. New places or new hosts tend to be a lot more.... jerky. They want their 5-star review no matter what you thought of the place. And they want you to pay for the tiniest things. Superhosts are proven good and are usually pleasant to interact with. You follow their rules and leave the place in one piece, they are happy and don't bug you. New hosts want to charge you for everything they can, including those sheets you didn't throw away but they magically found in the trash can.... Places with few reviews (like less than 30-60, but ymmv) are usually super uptight if you leave them anything but the most glowing review. If you're going for a new place, check the host's profile. If they have other properties and a ton of reviews on their other places then they will probably be a fine host for this place. If they have bad reviews for their other places then they are probably unpleasant to interact with (and might have even removed and reposted their listing to escape bad past reviews!).
Generally I consider 4.8-stars and higher to be a pretty safe bet for airbnb (depending on how many reviews there are; 300+ reviews means maybe even a 4.7 or 4.6 place is fine. Definitely see what people complained about though!). For hotels I usually trust their reviews on Google (rather than the reviews on their own website which I assume they filter to make themself look better). On Google I try for 4.3-stars or better. Anything above 4.0-stars is usually good. Anything below 4.0-stars usually has at least one review saying there are bugs or the place wasn't cleaned.
Search reviews for these terms:
"bug" - if there are now or have been bed bugs you definitely want to know. There may be other bugs too, like cockroaches or carpet beetles. "Bug" will usually tell you enough, sometimes people mention bugs that aren't bed bugs and if you're looking at a place far out in the woods this is normal. Bed bugs and cockroaches are never "normal" no matter what a host or hotel says; avoid these places! For hotels you can also see how recent the review is, and even look at the reviewer's profile to make sure they are a real person and not a competitor's fake account trying to drive business away from this listing.
"but" - this is a great term to find people's complaints. In general people are nice and won't slam a host or hotel in a review. They'll say something nice, but then mention that one little thing that cooooould have been a bit better. See if that little thing bothers you.
"con" - a lot of people break down their reviews into good/bad or pro/con lists. This is a great search term to find these critical reviews fast and see a good overview of what you'll like and what you'll hate about the place.
"noise" - we've been burned by noise in the past so this is something we might be more sensitive to than you. It's great to know ahead of time if the walls are paper thin, or if you can hear everyone above you. Reviews will also mention traffic noise or nearby bars/restaurants with live music. If you go to bed early, you'll hate a place where you can hear loud music up to 1am. If reviews say the floor is paper thin, ask to be on the top floor when you check in. Maybe traffic doesn't bother you, that's fine but it's still nice to know about before you put money down! Also you might not have noticed that the Airbnb you're booking is a bottom unit. If noise is a problem then the reviews will alert you that you're looking at a basement or duplex listing.
"safe" - if you know you'll be out late, or you know that you are leaving most of your worldly-possessions in the car, you want to know what it's like outside the hotel too. "Safe" or "car" or "broken" are good trigger words to find out what people think of the parking lot and the general area. If you don't have a car or won't be walking after dark then this term might not matter to you.
Another great resource for knowing how safe an area is before you arrive is TravelSafe-Abroad. Their UI could be a lot friendlier, but once you get the hang of it you'll love this site. Click the state and then the city you're interested in. You'll get a whole breakdown of what's safe and what's not and even get some detail about what areas to avoid. They only have larger towns, so if you're truly going into the middle of nowhere you might not find your city here. A quick internet search for "[city] neighborhood safety ranking" or "[city] crime stats" will show you a lot more sites with info on the crime per area code.
Avoid hidden fees
Always look at the price breakdown before you hit that final "confirm booking." Airbnb and hotels can sneak a lot of hidden costs into your booking. For Airbnb always look for the cleaning fee, sometimes it's reasonable but sometimes a host lowered their nightly rate to get you to look at their listing and then they make up their costs through a ridiculously high cleaning fee. Definitely factor this in while you're narrowing down your options. For hotels look for a "resort fee" or other special tax, especially in places like Las Vegas or London. It's easy to find a hotel for $30 a night, but is that too good to be true? You bet. There's usually a resort fee that will bring this hotel up to a total of $100+ a night.
Other hidden fees are: parking costs, wifi costs, breakfast costs, and laundry costs.
If you don't have a car then you won't care about parking costs, but if you do have a car then definitely watch out for this! Parking fees could add as much as $40 a day to your stay. Also, if there are parking fees then your hotel likely requires you to valet park your car. Valet parking could cost you each time you use your car if they don't have in-and-out privileges. So that adds a valet fee and usually a tip each time you need to use your car in a day. A more expensive hotel with free self-parking could be cheaper in the long run in this case.
For wifi, if you're going to need better wifi each day of your stay then factor that into your costs. A more expensive hotel with free high speed wifi might end up cheaper than your cheap hotel with paid high speed wifi. Usually the slow free wifi is enough everywhere you go, but reviews will let you know.
Some hotels have a different price if you want breakfast "included" or not. If you wake up early and plan to eat there then great, otherwise when booking you can see if there's an option to book without breakfast and save $10-$15 per day. I've only seen this a handful of times (at Holiday Inn Express and ALoft) so don't worry too much if you don't see that option.
If you're doing laundry then this cost can add up. It's usually $1.50 - $3 per machine per load, so this won't add too much, but if you're going to wash often then it doesn't hurt to see what a local Airbnb with in-unit laundry costs.
Finding stuff to do
Atlas Obscura is a great resource. You'll find stuff you never even knew to look for! Not everything is worth seeing, but it's definitely a great place to start when you're in a new town (or driving on a long roadtrip but have time to make a few stops if there's something neat along your route).
TripAdvisor/YouTube/Pinterest Top 10 lists. Most cities have a Top 10 or Top 20 places to see or things to do list. This is a good way to figure out what the area is known for. If you're interested in doing the "local" thing, here's where you find out what the regional thing is. (Side note: the "local" thing isn't what the locals are doing, it's what the geographic area is known for. Locals typically avoid anything that you'll find on a Top 10 list 😉). For instance, you get lobster in Maine and see lighthouses. In Seattle you can coffee-shop hop and try every variety of coffee. In Vancouver you might want to try a cider flight whereas in Tennessee you have to try the whiskey.
Google Maps' "Latest in the area" is an awesome resource. You can find this in the Google Maps app on your phone. This will highlight places like museums and parks, as well as popular restaurants and some current events you might not know are going on.
Talk to a local, they know all the awesome stuff off the beaten path. But how to find one? Coffee shops have baristas you can chat with while they make your drink. You might even find some chatty regulars that are happy to talk to new people and tell you why they love their town. Bars are a great place too, but we aren't really bar people. So sit at a bar in a restaurant. You get food and it's a relaxed vibe, but it's also easy to talk to your neighbors and learn some things about the city you're in. We've had surprising good luck at the bar area in Olive Garden. Also a great idea if you don't want to wait an hour for a table when they are slammed!
Ask your family, if you dare. Chances are that someone in your family has wanted to go to that place you're going and they have a whole laundry list of stuff you can do there! In my experience, you're going to get way more options than you wanted. They will be awesome options you never considered though. Try to make sure your family knows you are looking for ideas and not a list of stuff you just "haaave to do!"
