As I'll be living traveling to France alone, safety and affordability were huge factors for me. Also, because I'd be staying for eighteen nights, I wanted a place that I felt comfortable in. I also wanted a place close to the metro line to make my commute easier. The search was not easy: I browsed dozens of sites and read hundreds of reviews. In the end, I booked my stay at a small hotel in the 15th arrondissement for $50/night.
Originally, I planned to stay in a hostel because they're inexpensive and relatively secure. I preferred to use hostelworld.com for my search because it's easy to adjust the search filters and view room availability. I found majority of the Parisian hostels are located in the northeast corner of the city, far from my university. Also, I feared that 18 nights with minimal privacy would be draining. I sought a hostel that provided lockers, all-female dorms, and positive reviews (an impossible combination). After two weeks, it appeared that my needs wouldn't be met in a hostel, so I began to look at other forms of residence.
I also looked into renting a room in a Parisian residence. There are many websites (like www.paristay.com) and even a Craigslist page dedicated to this. I had many of the same concerns as I did with hostels. In the end, I decided that as a young, female foreigner, renting a room wasn't as secure as I wanted: what if the people I was renting from were slobs, thiefs, or creeps? Plus, living as a guest in a home can be awkward, particularly if there is a large age difference or cultural barriers. If I was more fluent in French, this option would have probably worked out just fine, but as a first time resident in France, I wanted a little more structure during my stay.
Hotels in Paris are not like hotels in America, though. Many of the budget hotels don't have ensuite bathrooms and some don't even provide linens. Also, single rooms can be pretty pricey, ranging from $50-175 a night. Trip Advisor, Orbitz, Expedia, and Hotwire and Hostelworld are all good search engines for English speakers. I prefered Trip Advisor and Hostelworld because they provided more budget hotel results. In general, most hotels listed on the major search engines appear to be quite nice until you read the traveler reviews. I found out that a really cute hotel in the 10th only had one shower for all six floors. At another hotel, the management gave everyone the same code, so you could freely enter any room. The worst review wrote of a concierge drunkenly attempting to enter a woman's room during the night with the master key.
In the end, I'm staying in a hotel that accommodates to longer stays. Originally, my mom found it on Trip Advisor at a listed price of $70/night for a single sofabed room. That was a little higher than I had budgeted, particularly for a sofabed, but the hotel many amenities. It included a shower, WC, kitchenette and linens in the room. I pulled up the website for the hotel and was pleased to find they offered discounted rates for extended stays. By booking the room for more than 15 days, I got a 30% off the listed price! At $50 a night, my parents and I decided that I probably wouldn't find anything better and I booked it right away. I'll write more about it once I arrive, but until then, it's such a relief to have found a place to live!
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