Corporate Housing for Interns: How to Find a Temporary Home

Finding corporate housing for temporary work anywhere in the world is pretty straightforward nowadays. Companies such as thesqua.re are global marketplaces that exist solely to solve corporate travel needs.

That’s both in the short term but also for medium and even long term requirements.

Looking for a serviced apartment in a specific area with bespoke requirements? No problem, thesqua.re has accommodation in more than three hundred cities across the world.

Each apartment is thoroughly checked against a comprehensive list of over 150 items. Any apartment that fails this check list isn’t made available. This gives peace of mind that every available accommodation in every city meets the same standard.

However, the terms ‘corporate housing’, ‘accommodation’ and ‘serviced apartments’ may be reassuring, but they are hardly warm and comfy descriptions. Not the kind of words that one might use to describe a ‘home from home’.

And a ‘home from home’ is certainly what interns are looking for. After all, what’s the point of moving halfway across the world for a dream job, if coming home every evening to a place which feels like somewhere just to eat and sleep. 

For long term temporary accommodation, a home is what is required.

Thesqua.re provides the perfect base, it’s up to the individual to create a home!

Creating a home from home

Anyone relocating temporarily, even for long term periods, is bound to be travelling light. This does make it slightly more difficult to turn accommodation into a home but not impossible.

Also, another thing to bear in mind that is external to the home, is the acquisition of friends.

Existing friends and family may be many miles away but a new job in an exciting city brings forth lots of prospects for making new friends. The faster you do that the more at home an entire city feels, and the more at home your little bit of it feels too.

An apartment from thesqua.re comes with living and kitchen space too. Ideal spaces for entertaining. A happy home is a busy home.

Of course, meeting people in a new place takes time. So, here are some tips on how to get your serviced apartment feeling like a home from day one.

Unpack

Sounds obvious, but how many people go away on holiday and live out of a suitcase for a fortnight? How can that be comfortable? Being reminded that any day soon it’s time to go home.

Some people live out of a suitcase even if they are basing themselves somewhere in the long term.

Unpacking the suitcase on the day of arrival and packing all of the things from it into wardrobes, cupboards and drawers is an essential start to making a home you recognise.

When strolling about in the hired accommodation it’s a great feeling to see recognisable things dotted about the place. Finding things that come from home as you re-explore the apartment begins to change the ambiance for the better. Knowing where to go to find a favourite pair of shoes will help people to acclimatise to their new surroundings.

Buy things that aren’t available. If there’s little wardrobe space then buy a clothes rack. It’s easier to choose what to wear when clothes are on full view and again helps with recognisable things around the place.

Bring happy things and hobbies

The main difficulty when choosing what to bring on a relocation is space. Not necessarily space in the accommodation itself, compared to a hotel room a serviced apartment is a palace!

No, the issue is space available during transportation. If anybody is into pottery it’s probably not recommended to try and transport a potter’s wheel and kiln across half the world.

Things like a guitar or keyboard are fairly practical and bring happiness and familiarity to a home. Anybody who likes to practice yoga may not find it practical to bring a mat with them, but finding a new one in most places in the world is not difficult.

Add a touch of greenery

Yes, there are practical things to consider. Anybody who likes omelettes may think an omelette pan is a basic necessity. Anyone who requires a specially shaped pillow in order to sleep comfortably will certainly consider this a vital initial purchase.

By all means start by either bringing or buying the practical essentials that make home life easy, but after that consider things that really don’t have much practical value at all in an apartment, but certainly help with the feel of the place. Namely plants.

Decorating temporary, rented accommodation is out of the question so other things are needed in order to individualise it. In rented accommodation white is normally the go to shade, so anything that adds a bit of colour will instantly change things for the better. 

Having living things to take care of is also a welcome distraction during those difficult first few days and months of living in a strange city, all alone. And plants are easier and more practical than a pet. 

Finding an apartment that allows pets is unlikely, not to mention that the accommodation may be long term, but it is still temporary, rehoming a dog or a cat at the end of a stay isn’t practical!

When it comes to the end of a tenancy, plants needn’t be wasted, they make fantastic presents for the new friends that have been made.

Add noise

As already mentioned, the best noise to hear in a home is the sound of the laughter of friends. That will come. 

But how do you fill a quiet apartment with comforting sounds when only one person lives there? Music of course!

Music is an important part of most people’s lives. Signing up to Spotify or an equivalent provider will allow the creation of bespoke playlists of recognisable music. Music is timeless and the music played here will one day serve as a reminder of intern adventures in a far away city.

Most people have a laptop or a mobile phone and with these, along with a music streaming service, anyone can have endless music playing in their new home.

However, music played though a laptop or mobile isn’t coming through the best of speakers. It’s great just to have the sound at first but in order to fill the home with music you’re going to need something a little more powerful.

A lot of the apartments available through thesqua.re will come with music systems, systems which can link to a streaming device and play music on demand.

For apartments that don’t have this, the purchase of a Bluetooth speaker is a must. They are small, powerful and examples from companies like Bose and Sonos produce a sound that is equal to many a far more expensive stereo system.

The speaker can also be used for audio books, for audible recipes and even for watching favourite films and TV shows that have been downloaded onto laptops.

Decorations

As already mentioned, it’s not the done thing to rent out an apartment and start decorating it to your taste. It’s not exactly frowned upon as much as being completely outlawed!

So, if after arriving at a sparkly white walled apartment the thought arises that it might look better in a fashionable grey, suppress it immediately! 

The apartment will be well equipped, fantastically located but decorated in someone else’s style. That’s something that has to be lived with but something that can still be easily transformed.

Decorating needn’t mean a paint job or changing the lampshades. It could mean little temporary touches to try and make an apartment feel more like a home.

As long as they’re not permanently attached, it’s not impractical to take down a picture that may not be to taste and replace it with something that is a little bit more personal.

As long is the former is stored carefully and safely!

Pictures can also be added where there are no pictures. The easiest way is to purchase frames and have them standing up on cabinets and sideboards. But nowadays it’s also possible to secure pictures to walls using temporary tape which can be removed after use, without causing any lasting damage.

Rearranging the furniture is also not something that can’t be rectified before leaving. If that big sofa in front of the TV looks better up against the window, looking out at the cityscape then why not?

Candles are a great favourite of many people. Scented candles can now be luxury items, bought by people who like a certain scent to fill their home.

Moving abroad, alone, for a dream job is not so much of a big deal anymore. The world is a smaller place than it was a few years ago and modern transport means that wherever anyone finds themselves on the planet, they are likely to be within 24 hours travel of their loved ones.

Becoming an intern in a new city, no matter how temporary the role, is an adventure that shouldn’t be turned down.

But no matter what the new life someone has invented for themselves entails, how much out of their comfort zone it takes them and how much of a new life they want to experience, they will always still crave the comfort and familiarity of home.

Thesqua.re provides fabulous accommodation in cities across the world, all of which are waiting for the personal touch to transform them into a home.