Should you book long term accommodation before you arrive?

If you're planning to stay in one place for longer than a month and want slightly more salubrious surroundings than a hostel, it is often cost effective to stay in self-catering accommodation - especially if there's several of you.

This is even more important if you're a working vagabond who runs a business at the same time, like my husband and I do. One of the most difficult challenges we've found is deciding whether to book and pay for accommodation in advance or wait until we get there to do it.

The advantage with the first option is that you can (sort of) rest easy, knowing you won't have to go gallivanting around in your first few days trying to find somewhere to stay plus you can often negotiate a hefty discount for booking longer term, in advance; the disadvantages are obvious...can you really get an accurate impression of a place and an area from pictures on the internet?

After several less-than-ideal experiences booking in advance last year, we've now found a solution which seems to work well and covers all bases...

Firstly, draw up a short list of areas and ideally apartments to visit when you arrive - the ideal number is between 3-5; enough choice to get a good idea of what's on offer but not too much that you exhaust yourself looking.

Secondly, book short term accommodation (a hotel or hostel), as close as possible to the areas you plan to visit - or at least centrally-located if they're spread out - for the first 5 days, minimising the cost of short term accommodation but giving yourself enough time to get acclimatised and review your short list upon arrival.

In a worst case scenario, if the options on your short list don't measure up, then you should still have enough time to ask around on the ground and find somewhere that suits you.