Accommodation on the go

I just returned from 10 weeks in Europe, without booking any accommodation in advance. Well...I lied, only the first couple of days were booked because only these I knew for sure. On my first big trip to Europe 5 years ago, I found out how easy it is to travel without pre-booking.

Not every place was available, but 9 out of 10 places I tried were available.

I travelled without pre-booking from late June to early September, the height of the season.

Lorenzo,

"considering the time of the year I'm traveling (tail end of the shoulder season)."

The first two weeks of May is actually getting into the peak of the spring shoulder season. It wasn't clear from your post whether you'd be departing April into mid-May or whether that was the duration of your trip?

Travelling spontaneously, you may be able to find lodgings without too much trouble, but I suspect this will depend on location. Some cities will be "busy" at that time of year.

I tend to pre-book accommodations, as that gives me a choice of both the price range and the location of each city that I want to stay. You indicated that you were planning on staying in Hostels, so you might consider a Membership in HI Hostels, as members get preferred booking.

As this is your first trip to Europe, I'd highly recommend reading the Guidebook Europe Through The Back Door. Pay careful attention to the "Rail Skills" chapter.

Happy travels!

Back in our before-kids days, we never made reservations except for our first night and any big cities we were staying in. The only time we ran into a problem was when there was a holiday weekend. We got the very last room in town.

So I'd check and make sure there's no holidays where you're going to be -- the holiday we ran into trouble with was Christihimmelfahrt in Germany in May, it fell on a Thursday, so people took it as a whole weekend.

As far as B&B's and hostels needing notice, I don't think that's true. If you know where you're going a day before you leave, I'd check online and see what you find. And have a good guidebook with some recommendations in it so you know where to look.

I prefer to travel shoulder season without reservations. I prefer to keep as much flexibility in my itinerary as possible, to take advantage of serendipitous opportunities (a wedding invitation, a community festival, etc).

I book my first night on the ground and my last night before flying home. I make a list, using guidebooks and tripadvisor, of potential places to stay along the way. I call ahead around 10 am. I tell them what I need/prefer and ask what they have ("I need a room for two nights for my wife and I. A bathroom down the hall is fine for us.") Occasionally I'll have to call two or three places from my list before I get a room.

There are times when it pays to book ahead.

I've only been worried about being homeless once, opening day of Oktoberfest. I called my list and found no vacancies. I thought I could go by the Tourist Information office at the train station and get a place. The TI looked like the trading floor at the Chicago Mercantile, however, so I found a phone and made more calls. I ended up finding a very nice pension at the normal price (50 Marks back then).

Now, if I know I'm going to a particularly crowded place, I'll book ahead.

One of my favorite places to stay is Burg Stahleck on the Rhine. It's a castle turned into a hostile above Bacharach. It's really well run. After missing it because it is always booked, I started reserving there too when I go that way.

Lorenzo: "I'm sure that B&Bs/Hostels require some sort of notice ahead of time."

Definitely not! I've traveled all over Europe, staying in B&Bs and hostels, with no reservations. We just appeared at their door and 90% of the time they had plenty of room for us.

As mentioned above, the only problem might be if there's a big festival in town at the time.

Thanks for all the replies. I'm actually really happy with what i'm hearing so far.

I have been reading Rick Steves' Europe Through the Back Door and it has really helped me A LOT in my planning.

So I guess my next question is where would I get like a list of B&Bs/hostels that don't require booking in advance(or is there a place at rail stations i can find this out?) or is that something i have to research prior to when i leave home?

TI's often have accommodation services, though you may have to pay a small fee for it. You can also go online at an Internet cafe or a wifi hotspot and check once you get to town.

You may not get your first choice, but you'll certainly find something open.

We always just found a place once we got there. Sometimes there's a list at the train station, sometimes we just walked the streets a bit till we found a place we liked the look of.

The problem with selecting a place in advance is that you end up passing by lots of places that are perfectly fine while you spend time looking for a particular address.

But of course, if you get a recommendation that's easy to get to, easy to find, and just great, then it's worth knowing about, and can end up saving you a little time vs. having to look around once you get there.

There's really no easy answer to this one, but that's because any solution ends up working out pretty well...most of the time.

"The problem with selecting a place in advance is that you end up passing by lots of places that are perfectly fine while you spend time looking for a particular address."

I can't speak for all countries in Europe, but in the countries with which I have experience (Germany, Austria), that's not true. Virtually every town has a website with a list of accommodation, which I have found to be very complete (particularly compared to sites like booking.com or Tripadvisor). I find it far easier scour these lists for just the right combination of facilities, location, and price, than to use the TI office or walk around aimlessly.

A few years ago, I experimented with the "no reservations" idea. In one town, TI got me a very nice hotel within short walking distance of the TI office at a reasonable, but possibly not optimised, price. I would have preferred a Privatzimmer, but they said that was what was available.

In the next town, I arrived a day early, and instead of calling ahead to the Pension where I had a reservation for the following night, I just arrived, went to the TI office, and got a recommendation. The hotel was a little more expensive and a little farther away than where I stayed the next night.

This was in March. For my last two trips, in November 08 and last August, in a least one town each trip, I had to write half a dozen emails, at least, before I found a vacancy, and this was a month or two in advance.

So, in my experience, if you wing it, you will probably find something. It just might not be what you might have wanted had you had everything to select from in advance.

For some people, accommodation is really important. And for others not quite so. For me, the place needs to me clean, safe and cheap. I don't need to have a bathroom in the room, a television, or even a mint on my pillow.

In fact, I have stayed in some real dumps over the years. And while I complained at the time, it now makes an amusing story.

How much you pre-book might also depend on how long your trip is. If your trips are longer than three weeks to a month, pre-booking everything might actually be too difficult. But two weeks on a tight itinerary would make pre-booking more necessary.

Warning: travelling in the UK, customs needs an address when you fill in the landing card. I had trouble just leaving Heathrow on a layover last March. I had 7 hours between flights so I thought I would race into London and do some quick photographing with my new camera. I had no London address and the customs offical demanded an address, all I could show him was my onward flight ticket and that got me through customs. Another time, I had the address I was staying in London buried in my knapsack, I put the name of the hostel on the landing card, but that wasn't good enough. They wanted the full address, postal code and phone number of the place. To shorten the story, you will need an address if you arrive in London. And this from me, born in London but I now travel on a Canadian passport. "I am one of you blokes", isn't good enough. Travelling into the Schengen zone I have never had a problem.

I love the flexibility of traveling without booking in advance. I know though that if I have a particular place I want to be then I try to book in advance. I find that traveling as a single can be problematic at times. Even when I've been willing to pay a bit more it just bothers some of those frugal Scottish B&Bers who just won't put one person in a twin or a double. I do always book my first night and try to book my last night as well. That gives me lots of flexibility. Sometimes I get places that aren't the ultimate B&B , but I'm usually only there for one or two nights. I've had a couple times where I've actually moved upon seeing the location. I've been out my deposit, but that I was a choice I made to not sleep oer the beer garden. ; ) Pam

I'm definitely in the "I need to have every night pre-booked school." I'm sure it has something to do with age, but also with some experiences. For example, one year we needed to spend a night in Nice, where we were picking up a car after leaving Italy. When I started looking for reservations months ahead, I discovered that our night fell during the Cannes Film Festival. There was nothing to be had that was remotely within our budget. My advice, if you want to wing it, is try to scope out out the holidays and festivals. Here are some for the time of your trip: the aforementioned film festival, Ascension Day (various countries), April 25 (Liberation Day, Italy), May 1 (most of Europe). It is common, if the holiday falls on a Tuesday or Thursday, to "bridge the gap" and make it a 4 day weekend. Also, British schools have a half-term week off sometime in May, which means British families flood various holiday venues. There are numerous music festivals happening all over. Check with TI for the places you're going. So, you are not going off-season, but at a time of much tourism.

Lorenzo, we traveled to Ireland the first weeks of June and had a reservation for the last night only. There wasn't any trouble fimding a place to stay except in one town when they were having the schoolkids hurling finals. Then we had to go to two B&Bs to find a room. It seemed like every other house in Ireland is a B&B. Have fun!

Wow guys! Thanks for all the info. You've given me lots to think about.

Don't know where you'll be on May 1 (Labor Day), but since it falls on a Saturday, you can rest assured (at least in France) that it will encompass probably all of Friday, Sat, Sun and possibly Monday. They take that holiday very seriously for time off for themselves.

Thanks for the heads up, Janis.

We were in Europe, several countries, last summer in July for 3 weeks with our son. We had no advance reservations except for the first and last nights.

We used laterooms.com the entire time. We found out about that website on this forum. Our best "find" was a 2 bedroom apartment, full kitchen, washer/dryer, right in the middle of the Royal Mile in Edinburgh for $88US/night for 4 nights.

Once we knew when we would be moving on we booked out next stop. We had no problems finding a place.

When we travel especially in the UK we only make reservations for the first and last night. We have been there during low season, high season and shoulder season and have never had trouble finding some place. 95% of the time the first B&B we stop at has a room. I agree with Pamela about the flexibility of not having everything booked ahead.

My daughter and I just came back lack night from a month of traveling across Europe. In Italy, Ireland and Scotland we just walked into pubs and B&Bs without issues. If a place was booked, they called to their friends to find us another room. One gent even hopped into his car and led us across Galway to a wonderful B&B about 2 miles away off the beaten track. We never had to try more than twice to find a room.

Of course, October is off-season, but we never had any problems...