Traveling in southern France in septemner

September is pretty busy in the South. Pre-booking would be my preference as I am just not that adventurous and I don't like having my day cut short by having to hunt for a place to stay, and risk the chance of not finding anything. Keep in mind that while France does have chain hotels (Ibis, for example), they are few and far between except in larger towns/cities and along the Autoroute, so you aren't going to find easily to spot motels with vacancy signs. B&B's (chambre d'hote) are also hard to spot, though they generally have signs, many are tucked away off the main roads. I also find it is nice to have a set driving goal for the day.

If you want to stay inside the walls of Carcassonne, reserve lodging now. There aren’t too many places for choices. We arrived in late afternoon when the crowds were leaving and enjoyed our overnight having dinner and walking around the walls, etc.

In Toulouse you should be fine. I haven’t been to Sarlat.

Most places, if you are not fussy, you can do OK calling ahead morning of.

Constrained places, such as inside the walls Carcasonne, or if you specifically want to stay in the great hotel you heard about, you should reserve ASAP.

I like traveling as I go if there is slack in the itinerary, but if you know for sure when you will be where, reserving in advance just frees you up when you are on the road.

We are also traveling in the south of France in September. We pre-booked in Sarlat & Carcassonne so we didn't have to waste any of our travel time looking for lodging (we are doing AirB&B in Sarlat & VRBO in Carcassonne but there are several hotels to choose from in each). I'd say book early & enjoy your trip!

thanks everyone! We will probably try to book, I love to stay in B n B's, or out of the way places so you can really enjoy the culture. So now to start looking!

These days it is a little easier to travel on the fly - if you have an ipad or smartphone and aren't fussy about where you stay, and have a car that can get you to a spot that is a little more out of the way - it's easy to go on to expedia or booking.com the night before or morning of and see what is out there. We did this on our visit to California - I like to book way ahead, but we had one night on our trip that I didn't know where we would be, so the night before, we looked at where we were and how far we thought we'd get that day, went on expedia and booked a room in that town.

No need to show up at tourist info centers to find a spot.

On the flip side - if you want to stay in a particular spot (someone mentioned inside the walls of Carcassonne) then you def want to book ahead. And with more people travelling these days, rooms may be in shorter supply.

It used to be easier BEFORE the internet as one could arrive in a town and head for the tourist office and find a place. It doesn't work that way anymore and if you do want to do this without pre-reserving the best strategy is to identify a few places in each area and then reserve a day ahead on the road. I have had that fail totally once and we thought we would be sleeping in the car, but most of the time it has gotten us a decent enough place. One of the glories of the French countryside is that even crappy hotels by American standards often have very good restaurants. I have stayed in places that looked like summer camp cabin rooms with elegant 3 course menus prepared by an actual chef. September is very busy in this part of France as it is a very nice time weatherwise for this region. My husband needed to find a local hotel room when I was hospitalized in Menton in late September and it was difficult. He finally paid way too much (for our budget) for a tiny and fairly awful room.

I'm just thinking back to when we travelled before cell phones and ipads and cheap long distance - trying to find motels in the Boston area back in 2001 and the absolute dump we ended up in because we were getting desperate and it was getting dark. We even tried calling some from a payphone only to find they were booked. (Which is why we ended up in the sh1!hole). Or trips in the decade before that when you'd stop at a hotel and just hope it was within your price range (which for us in the 90s was not high).

Comparing that to my experience in 2013 in California where I was just able to go on the ipad and expedia and book a place in 10 min the night before. Same trip when our airbnb double booked and I found out 2 days before arriving in San Diego and was able to easily go on to expedia and book a hotel for one night.

I think more people on this site pre-book their lodging. I'd only prebook if you are going to somewhere particularly crowded. I didn't find Toulouse, Carcasonne area very crowded last June but there may be a specific festival that causes things to book up. The other reason to prebook is if you want to stay in one particular lodging. If you are happy with anything clean and comfortable, there are always places available.