{"id":33842,"date":"2018-10-29T20:12:31","date_gmt":"2018-10-30T00:12:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.therockysafari.com\/?p=33842"},"modified":"2023-10-07T09:47:37","modified_gmt":"2023-10-07T13:47:37","slug":"staying-in-madrid-for-free","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.therockysafari.com\/2018\/10\/29\/staying-in-madrid-for-free\/","title":{"rendered":"Staying In Madrid Can Be Expensive Except For When It Is Free"},"content":{"rendered":"

Madrid is expensive. Spain is one of the hottest and most sought-after tourist destinations in the entire world and the heightened cost of living there certainly reflects it. Booking accommodations in the capital can be pricey and a decent room during the peak tourist season usually doesn’t come cheap. With Madrid’s housing prices being as costly as they are, Jorge and I aimed to book a budget-friendly room on AirBnB. We found a mildly-expensive-but-doable room to stay in at the CENTER of Madrid for just under a week. I couldn’t imagine being in a better location! Let me show you where we stayed on a map of Madrid- I’ve circled it in red.<\/p>\n

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Sol is at the center of Madrid and it’s a HIGHLY desirable part of the city to be in. For us, the cost to stay there was about the equivalent of what we would have paid in a hostel so we opted to do this instead. Even with the fantastic location, it was still one of the least expensive rooms available on the website. I think that is because even though we had a private room, it was in a shared building with other rooms being rented out to other guests. Our room had only had the bare essentials.<\/p>\n

If you haven’t tried using AirBnB before and you’re interested in checking it out you can sign up here and receive a $40 promotional discounted credited to your first stay<\/strong>!<\/p>\n

(Update: Sorry, Airbnb ended their referral program for travel bloggers so my links no longer work)<\/p>\n

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In terms of the location, it really felt like we were conveniently positioned near everything: cafes, stores, supermarkets, places to shop, restaurants, public parks, famous landmarks, you name it. I couldn’t be in Madrid without revisiting the incredible\u00a0Chocolater\u00eda San Gin\u00e9s<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>for some churros con chocolate. It was only a short walk away so let’s just say we went back more than once!\u00a0Staying in the heart of the city center of Madrid was an experience, unlike anything I could have ever imagined!<\/p>\n

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We didn’t need to rely on public transportation<\/strong> all that much since we could easily walk to most of the places we needed to go. That is one thing I really love about Spain and Europe as a whole. Something I found really lovely about Madrid was that they have left behind the LGBT-friendly pedestrian crossing signals<\/strong> following World Pride in 2017. I love that they still shine every day. I wish New York City had something like that!<\/p>\n

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In regards to our AirBnB, when we first arrived at it, I immediately began to scope it out for any potential teaching spaces. There was this odd flower-arrangement hanging from the wall that I locked my eyes on.<\/strong> It was literally a square strip of turf hanging from a hook with flowers and leaves sticking off of it. I decided to try teaching in front of the faux-greenery thinking some grass and nature would help bring a bit of life into my classroom. I think it actually just looked like I was creepily hiding in the bushes in the woods.<\/p>\n

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Later in the week, Jorge was feeling curious and tried removing the random hanging garden from its hinge to peak behind it.<\/strong> As he took it off the wall, we both stared in surprise at what we saw growing behind it. While the fake garden always felt extraordinarily out of place and random, we were even more surprised when we realized it was nothing more than a cover-up for a moldy wall.<\/strong><\/p>\n