Hotel reservations in Great Britain

It is possible, but you need to be willing to be flexible.

I would suggest that you book in advance the hotel for your first stay as well as the hotel for your last stay. After your first stay, you can use the internet to find your hotel for the next night and book in the morning. That way you don't waste time driving around looking for a place.

With most people booking in advance these days, I find the best guarantee of a nice hotel in a good location with a good price to occur when you research well and book in advance. When you wait until the last minute, it could go either way. You might get a great room in a great location at a great price or you might get a not so great room in a not so great location at a not so great price.

Travelling without reservations is possible, though you really need to have your first night hotel reserved. The thing is, you must be willing to settle for what is available and that may take some time, wasted time. We have done what you want to do in the UK, looking for B&B signs as the day got later but that was a long time ago when there were many fewer visitors looking for a bed for the night. Bath is a tourist Mecca ... finding an acceptable place to stay on arrival for a day or two could be a fool's errand. If this is the way you really want to travel, lower your expectations and hope for the best.

My wife and I have done both ways in England, France, and Germany. I have found it is better to structure your trip so you spend what you think will be the proper amount of time in each place and have reservations ahead of time. The only times we were successful with no reservations were when we went back to familiar places and already had places to stay in mind. This was in the off season like along the Rhine River. We have also lost a lot of valuable time looking for a place at the last minute as we did in France one time. To get the best places now I always use TripAdvisor to get the best places.
Thanks - Bill

If you are going to popular tourist towns such as Bath, You will need to book ahead. If your are touring villages and you only need one room, then you may be OK in September to have no set reservations. I would at least make the reservations in the more tourist places and put together some sort of itinerary for the rest of your trip. You can still search B&B or Hotels for each area before you go so it gives you a better sense for what is available in that town/village and price range. I personally don't like to "wing" it everyday. Maybe I am getting older, but I really enjoy finding comfortable, unique, and reasonably priced places to stay for my trips and that takes research. This is a great forum for that. (I am from the UK and live in US and travel each summer and book 6-9 months ahead). Good places book up fast in Europe!

September is a popular time for travel in the UK, with people hoping for good weather, but without the high season prices. I would book busy places such as Bath, the Cotswolds and York now. The best hotel prices are booked online well in advance - use websites such as Trivago.

If you are travelling to smaller towns, you should be able to find rooms as you go, but they are only likely to offer cheaper deals for that night's accommodation. I find it easier in the USA to find rooms as you go, as the Chambers of Commerce are very helpful, but we don't have anything similar here.

Yes, it's ver,y, very doable. I would strongly recommend that you have reservations for your first and last night. That is how we travel every time we go to England, no matter what month it is. There are hundreds of hundreds B&Bs that do no advertise, they depend solely on their signs. Traveling like this makes it so you don't have to rush to your next reservation, you can take your time, if you come upon a quaint village you can stop and spend as much or as little time time as you want. I know a lot of people say it's a must to have reservations during the summer, not so, we never had trouble finding a room. Go and have a great trip.

Thank you all for your input. We will keep everything in mind when we finalize our plans. Happy travel to all 🤗

In the popular places, weekends will be tightest. For instance, on a late September Saturday, I had trouble finding a room around either Stratford (calling in the morning) or Blackpool (driving there in the evening). But the next night (Sunday) in the Lakes District (a bit off-season) was no problem. As others have implied, a flexible plan requires YOU to be flexible.

I wouldn't do it. Hotels have gotten so good with dynamic pricing that you could easily find yourself spending far more than you expected for a room of lesser quality just because it is available. Also, having a hotel booked leaves you free to spend your time touring and sightseeing, which is the reason you came anyway. At the very least, I'd book rooms that allowed for same day cancellation which will give you some flexibility even though you'd lose any pay in advance discount which can sometimes be substantial.

I wing all my trips except for first and last cities and the occasional long stay in a high-cost city like London, which I do pin down more than a few days ahead of time. I've learned (twice burned) not to arrive in town without a reservation since I use public transportation. Instead, I make sure my lodgings have Wi-Fi and I make a reservation for City #8 as early as I can during my stay in City #7 (or occasionally sooner when I'm confident about my schedule).

These situations increase your risk of a frustratingly slow search and/or a costly hotel stay:

• Not having a car (doesn't apply to you)
• Wanting to stay in lodgings with elevators/lifts
• Needing air conditioning during a heat wave
• Needing rooms for more than a night or two
• Being picky about location (wanting to be within walking distance of the historic center in a sizable town or city, or near the bus/train station)
• Wanting a place with some charm
• Price-sensitivity at a level that requires bargain-hunting
• Hitting a city/town during a major local festival

As already noted, in getaway spots, weekends can be especially problematic. On the other hand, in business cities you can sometimes find bargains for Friday-Sunday nights.