Each kind of accommodation is really selling something different

The dimensions that actually differ

It is tempting to line accommodation up from cheapest to most expensive and treat everything else as a consequence of price. That is misleading, because the types differ along several independent axes: how much staffed service there is, how much private space, how much self-catering capacity, how much social contact, and how much of your time the place absorbs.

A hotel and a rented flat at the same nightly price buy almost opposite things. One provides daily service, a reception desk, breakfast and no responsibilities; the other provides space, a kitchen, laundry and a set of small chores. Neither is better in the abstract.

This is why the question is not what is good value but what a particular trip needs. A trip of one-night stops has different requirements from a fortnight in one town, and the accommodation that suits one is often actively wrong for the other.

What a staffed desk is worth is invisible until you need it

The reception desk is the least glamorous thing a hotel sells and frequently the most valuable. Somebody is there when a flight arrives at two in the morning, when a booking goes wrong, when the heating fails, when luggage needs holding after checkout, and when you need something explained by a person who lives in the city.

Self-check-in arrangements have removed a great deal of that in exchange for lower prices and more flexible arrival, which is a genuine trade rather than a straight loss. It works well when everything works and badly at exactly the moment something does not.

Small family-run guesthouses often provide more of this than large hotels do, because the person on the desk is the owner and knows the town rather than following a script. That is the specific thing that category is good at, and it does not correlate with price or star rating.

Hostels are selling company and space, in that order

A dormitory bed is priced low because the room is shared, but the actual product for most people who use them is the common room, the kitchen and the ease of talking to other travellers. Someone travelling alone can meet more people in an evening in a hostel than in a week of hotels.

The trade is sleep and privacy, and it is a real one. Shared rooms mean other people arriving late, alarms at odd hours and no control over the environment, which some travellers handle easily and others do not. Private rooms in hostels split the difference by keeping the social space and removing the dormitory.

The category has also broadened a long way, and hostels now range from very basic to hotels in everything but name. Age profiles, atmosphere and whether groups are accepted vary enormously between properties in the same town, which is why reviews are more useful here than in most categories.

A rented flat buys a kitchen and costs you a service

The clear advantages of a whole apartment are space, a kitchen, laundry, and a residential rather than commercial setting, all of which matter more the longer you stay and matter enormously to families. Cooking a few meals also changes the economics of a long trip considerably.

The costs are less obvious. There is no desk, no daily cleaning, no help when something breaks, and check-in and check-out arrangements can be inflexible in ways that break a travel day. Cleaning fees also mean the effective nightly price falls sharply with length of stay, which makes short bookings poor value.

The wider effects of short-term rentals on housing in busy cities are a live and genuinely contested public argument, and many places now regulate or restrict them. Whatever position you take on it, checking the local rules matters practically, since unlicensed listings do get cancelled and enforcement has become more common.

Matching the type to the shape of the trip

For a single night in transit, the things that matter are proximity to the station or airport, a late arrival that is actually possible, and getting out early without ceremony. Almost nothing else registers, which is why paying for character on a transit night is money spent on a room you will see for six hours.

For a long stay, the calculation inverts and the kitchen, the laundry, the desk and the daylight matter far more than the location does, since you will establish a routine and the neighbourhood becomes your city. A slightly less central flat with a proper kitchen usually beats a central room without one.

For everything in between, the honest answer is that mixing types within a trip works better than committing to one. A couple of hostel nights for company, a good hotel where you need to sleep properly, and a flat for the week in the middle is not indecision. It is matching the tool to the day.