‘Hotel Room at $1.40’: Travel Blogger Finds World's Cheapest Stay in Pakistan, Sparks Online Debate

While travelling one of the most common problems people encounter is finding a cheap and good stay. But a travel content creator from the Netherlands may have found the cheapest hotel room. Tom, who is known as @traveltomtom, was travelling through Pakistan’s Peshawar, where he got a hotel room for just 117 Indian National Rupees, or Pakistan’s 400, but for him it was just a dollar and a half. 

Tom has travelled across the globe, and according to his bio on Instagram, he has been to 159 countries and went to Peshawar recently. And there he encountered the room, and he later shared the video on his account. 

The video starts with Tom showing the room, which cuts, and shows him asking the owner, who was sitting beside a road on a chair, to have one register in front of him on a plastic table. He then asked for the price of the room, to which the owner replied 400. The hotel owner asked him about the accommodation of people, to which he replied, “For one person, it’s 400; for two people, it's 800.” 

While climbing up, he was not sure about the room, but he wanted to see a 1-dollar room, and he was totally amazed by the room. It has two beds and one TV, with one fan and a big window in the front. 

The video was shared a couple of months ago and has gotten more than 8 lakh views and 16,000 likes. He shared the video with a caption that read, “Is this the cheapest hotel in Pakistan? May be even in the world? Just 400 Prs for a bed; that is $1.4 USD only!”

Check out the viral video:

Later, he also wrote that he didn’t sleep in the room. He drafted his story and said, ”The story is that we met these super friendly people on the side of the street in Peshawar and had a chat with them, but we didn't get to see the room on our first meeting.

The next day we walked past again and we decided to check it out. Why not!? The people in Peshawar are super friendly and they don't care about cameras and filming, the opposite… they love it!”

Tom later said that he just wanted to see the room and moreover, the owner was happy to show them the room. Tom said, “So we asked if we could see the room and they were super proud and happy to show us.

Surprisingly, it wasn't as bad as I expected. Considering the price and being one of the cheapest hotels in the world... 

Honestly, the Pashto people here in Northwest Pakistan are so kind, easy-going and above all they are super happy to see tourists!”

User’s reaction to the post:

The comment section was flooded with people sharing their reactions to the video, and most of them were not very happy with it. 

“why do foreign people visit such poor side of pakistan and not the luxury ones and then they show the media that this is how pakistan looks where in reality it is so beautiful and luxurious but these foreigners are just so eager to show this side of pakistan on social media.”

“Why you want to visit such kind of hotels? Show some better side of country. It is not what actually you are potraying.”

“These are middle-class families starting small businesses on their land. These kinds of hotels are super affordable for labor workers who come from villages to find work in cities. I'm glad there is space for every class of people.”

“People travel to enjoy and you travel to suffer.”

“Dude when he goes back home needs to go see his primary care doctor asap and run bunch of lab work he’s been exposing himself to some nasty stuff I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t catch something by now.”