University housing—Reliving your college years
When the students are away, the tourists will play. During the summer school break, many European universities and colleges help pad that endowment by renting out all that unused dorm space.
From sometime in late May or early June, when students head home for the summer, through the end of August and even into September, universities in London and other European cities open their dorms up to travelers. In some cases, you can get even rooms during school breaks and weekends as well—and, if enrollment is down, they'll rent empty dorms out year-round.
Rates vary, from around $22 per person in a dorm to $45 to $110 for a private double—but can also run as little as $140 per week. What's more, folks under 26 often pay even less—presumedly because young 'uns will just blend in, so the administrators don't have to bother explaining what a bunch of old fogies are doing living on campus).
So brush up your partying skills, dust off those dim memories of the lyrics to Louie Louie, and get ready to share the bathrooms—it's time to go back to college.
Resources to help find University dorms in Europe
IN THE UK
- Budgetstayuk (www.budgetstayuk.com) - A consortium of 70 academic insitutions across the U.K.—33 places in London alone, not to mention three in Edinburgh, two in Cardiff, five in Durham (including the 11th century Durham Castle), and still more in Caterbury, Oxford, York, Plymouth, Birgmingham, Leeds, Swansea, Exeter, Stoke-on-Trent, Coventry, Leicester, Loughborough, Nottingham, Norwich, and Wolverhampton. (The site is an offshoot of VenueMasters, a free venue–finding service for meetings and groups.)
- University Rooms (www.universityrooms.co.uk) - Around 3,000 acommodations available across the UK in the summer season. The site was started in 2007 by an Oxford grad who dreamed it up while still in school.
- Visit Britain (www.visitbritain.us) - You can search the accommodations database for "Budget and Student" and will get results mixing hostels and campus housing. For some direct links to London college and university dorms, read on.
IN LONDON
- Univeristy of Westminster (www.wmin.ac.uk/comserv) - Near Victoria
- Queen Mary and Westfield College (www.admin.qmw.ac.uk/ccrs/conference) - East End
- London Metropolitan University: Arcade Halls (www.londonmet.ac.uk/accommodation/summer-accommodation) - Holloway Road
- London School of Economics (www.lse.ac.uk/vacations) - Holborn, Bloomsbury, Bankside, Butler's Wharf, Clerkenwell
- University College London (www.ucl.ac.uk/residences) - Bloomsbury (just north of the British Museum)
- International Students House (www.ish.org.uk) - Great Portland Street
- King’s College (www.kcl.ac.uk/kcvb) - The Strand (Covent Garden)
- City University London: Walter Sickert Hall (www.city.ac.uk/ems) - Clerkenwell, Islington
IN ITALY
- Sadly, there's no Website, buy you can get a list of student housing in dozens of Ialian cities—including biggies like Rome, Florence, Venice, Milan, and Palermo—by sending a letter asking for the "Guide for Foreign Students" to:
The Italian Ministry of Education
Viale Trastevere
00153 Rome, Italy
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This article was last updated in January 2008 . All information was accurate at the time.
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