I'm asking this in general, but specifically I am planning to travel to Colombia. The maximum period I can stay there is 6 months, and I will probably stay for the most of it.
I'm looking at this from mainly an economic sense, I don't need to stay in hostels/dorm rooms, but I can't afford to stay in a nice hotel the whole period either. But I would also like the convenience of not having to worry about utilities, internet, etc either. Taking Airbnb as an example, I'm assuming the prices are generally higher than what locals could get for similar places, and a lot of hosts have restrictions and rules on how long you can stay that would not apply if you were renting your own place.
So I guess the crux of my question is, is it better to independently find your own place to rent, or rather to use services like Airbnb or a cheap hotel?