Moving abroad, renting apartments abroad

[Schwarz]

Good morning fellow Fastlaners and Warriors of the UNSCRIPTED dynasty,

Quick context
I am an EU-citizen (Belgian), 21 years old, I have saved enough money to move abroad (about 3 000 EURO's).
I have been looking to rent an apartment or studio (online) in Southern European countries such as France and Spain. But also even Montenegro. This is the first time I move anywhere so it kind of scares me to death, but it is also incredibly exciting. I am also working on a software (Fastlane) project in the meantime.

To the point
Which sites do you recommend for renting apartments in the EU? Are they trustworthy?
Any tips on what to look out for when renting apartments?
Are there other ways you would handle the situation?
All tips are welcome.

The posts do not have to be EU only though. As this might come in handy for other 'Fastlane Forum Wanderers' that do not live in the EU.

Also
I've been thinking, maybe I should just go to a city, live in a hotel there for a few days and then manually scout the place for apartments?

 

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[Johnny boy]

Airbnb. There's places in Spain renting for $280 a month. You can be in Barcelona for $500 a month. Tons of places to stay at. Get real crazy and stay in a small room in Ho Chi Minh City for $127 a month.

 

[lejus]

I don't know how much of your lifestyle do you need when moving. Are you moving on your own or with friend/family members?

I will try to give you perspective on how I moved from Central Europe to West Europe. When I was 23 I took £100 and flight ticket and backpack full of food and I moved. The hostel was supposed to be £10 per night so we figure out that we had enough money to survive 10 days (I went with a friend), find work in that time and from first pay find an apartment or go back crying. When we arrived hostel turn to be full and second one was £20 so quick maths we had enough money to last 5 days and be homeless past that point. We went to an internet cafe (we didn't new libraries had free internet) and found a campsite in the area and it was £4 per night which extended our ability to look for work significantly even with the price of buying cheapest tent we found. Long story short we found some hard work, paid daily, cash out for 2 weeks found a different one, and so on for 3 months till we booked a flight back with some money saved and the great experience. Do I recommend that? No, it was stressful, it was a tight plan which failed on start and made us work very hard to make it, and your finances are sufficient to do it the easier way, it just proves a point that you can do some crazy stuff if you set your mind to it.

The second time I decided to move about 1 year later from first student adventure I had already family and I had money to do it. Similar amount to yours. Having experience from the first time I decided to do things.... the same way. This time I improved few things, I arrived with the nice tent, nice sleeping bag and in a much nicer campsite (the other one was good, had shower kitchen and all but this one also had washing machines and much nicer kitchen and CCTV surveillance and so on, almost twice the price hahahha) . Straight away we started scanning gumtree and local ads for room to rent with two beds (I went with a friend again). We found room within 3 days, from having a room we found job within a week, 1 month later with a first pay and leftover money (you can imagine we didn't spend much for campsite and room) I moved to a flat and bought tickets for my wife and daughter. We stayed in UK ever since. If I move abroad with my family I would repeat this plan again (with campsite you have to move in summer, but it wasn't an issue for me), with small modification since there was no AirBnb back in the days I might consider that, but again depends on your budget, usually AirBNB is not much cheaper than hotel but a bit more comfortable and gives you a bit more local feeling. I found people camping very friendly and happy to have a conversation and helpful in recommending local ways of finding accommodation. I would say this is a massive advantage if you can talk to people intrigued by your accent and ask them about local customs, newspapers, and ways they would go about finding room/flat it is good, you will most likely pay cheaper and have a bigger choice. On the other hand, this was over 12 years ago, since this world is a global village most of this information you can find online easy and fast.

There is a blog called fluent in 3 months where the author goes from country to country to reach language fluency in 3 months, I believe he developed a technique where he finds someone local online before moving who helps him with finding room/flat at local prices and setup everything before he arrives. I read that information a long time ago and I vaguely remember it but this might be something worth considering.

Moving abroad is one of the biggest adventures you can have, especially if you do it with very little money, people who go for holidays have no idea how much more interesting it is to actually try to make it from 0 in a completely unfamiliar environment, I don't find holidays fun since this experience Whether it works out depends entirely on you, and I highly recommend you to do it. It might be one of the craziest and exciting memories you will ever have. When I met my friend that I took the first trip with, after almost 10 years of not seeing him all we could talk about is how could we ever make it work in the first place. Now I think that simply no one told us you can't go to UK with £100 in your pocket