About
A small company in Austin, and an otter that checks.
Stay Otter exists because finding a place to stay had turned into a second job: a dozen tabs, prices that change when you look away, fees that appear at checkout, and a map pin that turns out to be a 25-minute walk from where you actually wanted to be.
The otter is the part of us that keeps checking. It dives, it comes back with the real total, and it shows its work.
From Derek
I left corporate America to travel, and have been doing it full-time for more than three years: a year in Mexico, an extended stay in Australia, and long stretches in Vietnam, the Balkans and Colombia.
The planning was the part I loved first and the part that wore out first. Every stop meant the same hours: which neighbourhood, what’s actually walkable from the front door, where the week’s real activity is, and whether the price on the listing is the price you pay. A dozen tabs, a map pin that turns out to be a 25-minute walk from where you wanted to be, fees that only show up at checkout.
So I wrote down the process I’d settled on and built it. Stay Otter asks what the trip is for, fetches what’s live for your dates, verifies each place against the map, and shows three with the receipts. Then it keeps checking the price so you don’t have to.
I still use it for my own trips. If a pick ever doesn’t match what you find on the booking site, I want to hear about it. — Derek
What we believe
Picks with receipts. A recommendation you can’t check is just an opinion. Every number on a pick shows where it came from and when it was observed.
Verify finalists, not candidates. We don’t pretend to have checked a thousand listings. We fetch what’s live for your dates, keep what fits, and verify the best of it properly.
The ranking is yours. Picks are ordered by your criteria. A commission never moves a stay up the list, and when the same place is cheaper on a site that doesn’t pay us, we say so.
Travel leaves a mark; we pay a little back. 1% of every Pro payment goes to permanent carbon removal through Stripe Climate, automatically, on every charge.
Say it like a friend would. No countdown timers, no “only two left”, no urgency we invented. If the otter is pacing itself, it tells you why and when it’s back.
Where we are
We’re a small, independent company based in Austin, Texas, building Stay Otter in the open. The product is young; the promises above aren’t. If something on a pick doesn’t match what you find on the booking site, that’s the message we most want to get.
Say hello
Questions, partnerships, press, or a city you wish we covered: the contact page reaches a person. The FAQ answers the usual ones, and How it works shows exactly what is real today and what is still to come.