How to find affordable extended-stay accommodation in Latin America

I'm asking this in general, but specifically I am planning to travel to Colombia. The maximum period I can stay there is 6 months, and I will probably stay for the most of it.

I'm looking at this from mainly an economic sense, I don't need to stay in hostels/dorm rooms, but I can't afford to stay in a nice hotel the whole period either. But I would also like the convenience of not having to worry about utilities, internet, etc either. Taking Airbnb as an example, I'm assuming the prices are generally higher than what locals could get for similar places, and a lot of hosts have restrictions and rules on how long you can stay that would not apply if you were renting your own place.

So I guess the crux of my question is, is it better to independently find your own place to rent, or rather to use services like Airbnb or a cheap hotel?

Best Answer

My suggestion is to book something for 1-2 weeks on airbnb, at a hotel or hostel, or something similar. Then, during your first couple of weeks there, make some connections and look for people renting a spare bedroom.

I've never been to Colombia, but I've done this in Mexico, Portugal and Cuba with good success.

How to find rooms for rent varies greatly by location, but in general, ask around. If you don't speak Spanish (you should consider learning at least the basics), you can likely find an expat community in any large city (try meetup.com and couchsurfing.org as examples). There, ask around--where are others staying? How do you find a place to live for 6 months?

With those connections, start making calls (by phone or in person) to see what's available, and find something you like.

You can start a lot of this before you arrive--at least the networking part with expats, so that you'll spend less time looking once you arrive.

In summary, there's no exact formula for this, but in general what I do:

Book reliable lodging for 1-2 weeks before arriving.
Network with people who know the area (expats and hospitable locals) to learn how to look for longer-term housing
Once you're there in person, start exploring the longer-term options you learned about during Step #2