Why would he bring this up?

So my boyfriend is staying overseas this Christmas visiting old colleagues and friends where he used to work. He planned this trip before we got together, and has already been gone for a few weeks and has two weeks left. He was going to stay with an ex colleague and her family the entire time, but has expressed to me that he’s a bit unhappy staying with them. I guess staying with someone is rather different to working with them.

When we spoke on the phone the other day, he said to me that as he’s unhappy there, he would like to do something else for the rest of the stay. He then told me another female colleague has invited him to stay with her. I didn’t think more of this, but then he told me that she’s living by herself. That they were spending lots of time together in the past without her showing any romantic interest, but that he knows from experience that female friends are sometimes interested without him knowing. That it therefore could be a disaster to stay with her, should she be interested in him, which he didn’t know. But that he was considering staying with her, as he’s unhappy with the others. It’s not like he’s short of money, so I don’t know why he couldn’t just stay in a hotel whilst visiting everyone. Anyway, I felt really uncomfortable at this point, knowing he was considering staying in another woman’s house over New Year’s – a woman who might be interested in him. Finally I managed to express this to him. He could sense my uneasyness of expressing it, and said that he already knew what I was going to say. He said that he would definitely feel very jealous and unhappy if the roles were reversed. That if it made me uncomfortable he wouldn’t stay with her. I told him I appreciate this, but that in the end it was up to him and that I trust him.

I’ve been giving this a lot of thought after we spoke. Is this something that should be ok – to stay with friends of the opposite sex where it’s not clearly defined that the friendship is just a friendship? I wouldn’t do it myself, but I also don’t want to come off as overly jealous. Also, why would he bring up staying with her if he wouldn’t like it if I did the same? Was it just to test me? I would be interested to hear what others think of this.