Want to go to the Olympics?

The Turin tour agency Somewhere is handling apartment rentals (and B&Bs) in the city. Their rates are pretty steep: from $130 per person per night, plus they impose a five-night minimum. However, they can put you up in downtown Turin, which is well worth any price.

Tourist offices of the mountain communities where the bulk of the Games will take place have banded together to form Montagnedoc, which is handling 8,000 private homes and apartments and more than 32,000 non-hotel beds throughout the area. For now, its apartments are only available for those staying the full 17 nights of the Olympics; only in the last few weeks prior to the Games will they open the field to shorter stays of just a few nights. For that 17-night stay, most apartments range from roughly $3,500 to $6,000 ($206 to $353 per night)—though keep in mind that apartments usually have multiple bedrooms, so they can be a downright bargain if a family or small group splits the cost.

In addition to apartments, Montagnedoc also represents B&Bs, agriturismi, vacation homes, and affittacamere (the opportunity to lodge with a private family) for as little as $60 per night for a double room, though $120 to $170 or so is more common. And, unlike apartments, you can book most for just three or four nights if you want.

Those aren't the only non-hotel lodging options, nor do you have to go through one of those agencies set up specifically for the Games. There are also such alternative accommodations as villa rentals, hospitality networks, and Alpine huts—and there are scores of other resources to help track down those as well as agriturismi, rental rooms, B&Bs, and hotels. There's no room to list them all here, but oddball lodging options have always been a personal favorite of mine, and I have an entire Web site devoted to them: BeyondHotels.net. (The site, which includes dozens more links and leads to help find lodging, is in no way connected to MSNBC.com.)

4) Trust in the gods of underbooking

By no means do I recommend that you wing it, but the fact remains that most recent Olympics were underbooked. All available hotel rooms in Turin may technically have been reserved, but between overly optimistic tour agencies that book early and outright cancellations, there just may be empty beds available.

The strategy here is to book your airfare and buy tickets to your favorite Olympic events and then, as game time approaches, start bugging the tourism office and booking agencies mentioned throughout this article (as well as hotels directly) to see if any vacancies open up. The scuttlebutt from past Olympic attendees is that plenty of fans showed up in Salt Lake City the day before an event with nothing but that coveted figure skating ticket in hand and were still able to find a room for the night.

Still, I wouldn't recommend it.

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