Booking hotels in Germany, Austria, Czech Republic June 2020

I would advise against "booking on the fly" to give you flexibility. There are a lot of people out there booking in advance, particularly for June, and when they find the perfect spot, they don't say, "I like this place, but I'll leave it for someone booking on the fly". No, they book it, and you get what they didn't want. During a popular time, there could be nothing left where you want to go.

I tried on-the-fly once, deliberately leaving a few days open to see if I could book as I went. This was in March, a much less busy time than June. I already had a one night reservation for a small town in the northern Black Forest, but I arrived a day early. As it turned out, the place I already had reserved could have taken me that night, but instead I went to the tourist information office, and they got me a room. The room was fine, but it was farther from the center of town than my reservation and cost a little more. I realized then that the TI office has a rotating list of places available, I they just give you the next place on the list, regardless of its convenience or cost. If they always gave you the best, least expensive place, the others would complain.

So, the time to exercise flexibility is in the planning phase, when you have more choices available.

And, I would definitely advise you to stay in the smaller towns, at smaller establishments. I think this option will give you the best cultural experience as well as save you money. Don't rely on booking websites; I have found that they usually have a small percentage (less than half) of the available places, and mostly the more expensive places that can afford to pay their commission. I usually use the town website (www dot town name dot de) to find accommodations. It's worked well for me. You can also find a lot of places using Google Maps.

Lee - thanks for your advice!

I think it depends on how touristy the small towns are and how picky you are. We travelled through Germany, Austria, Slovenia and Italy in June/July 2018. I noticed plenty of hotels with rooms available everywhere we went. But I booked in advance because we are a family of 4 with pet allergies, desire ac, and have a budget.

You could always test availability by looking at sites like booking.com for one of the towns and see what is available tomorrow, or Christmas week (for higher demand time). If the options are acceptable, then you probably don’t need to pre-book. You can book online when you’re there.

I think the air conditioning situation is an important consideration. If you hit a hot spell--certainly possible in June in those places--you will probably want a/c, and by no means are all the moderately-priced lodgings going to have it. You may have considerable difficulty finding a well-located room with a/c at the last minute. Of course, if you book way in advance you may feel (as I do) that you should be prudent and book an air conditioned room just in case--which you may end up not needing. Oh, for a crystal ball.

Admittedly, I haven't traveed in Germany in June/July (most of my travel has been in Spring and Fall), but in over 150 nights in that area, there has been exactly one night when I needed A/C. And that night was because I was in Rothenburg odT, inside the walls on a vehicle accessible street, and car noise reverberated off of the building walls. Sleeping with the windows open was too noisy and sleeping with the windows closed was too hot.

In July 2015 I traveled to Erfurt, Quedlinburg, Schwerin, Berlin and Dresden over about 3 weeks. Only in Schwerin (quite far north for those who are not familiar with it) was the weather other than "hot" or "too hot". The air conditioning failed at my Dresden hotel, and I was a most unhappy person. July isn't June, but...

The temperature was in the 80s in Budapest during the second week of May last year.

In my younger days I headed to Europe right before Memorial Day, usually staying for 4 weeks. I used to worry (justifiably) about running into chilly, wet weather anytime I was north of the Alps. That's not something I think much about these days, except along the western coast of the continent, in mountainous regions, and way to the north. Now it's all about including some of those cool areas to balance my possibly-overheated time elsewhere.

If you think you might want a/c, consider booking rooms in some locations. My daughter and I were in Salzburg this past summer, in mid-June, when there was some very warm weather. We had first been in Verona and Venice, where it had been hot, and we'd fortunately had a/c in the hotel rooms. When I realized at the last minute that our Salzburg room did not have a/c, I cancelled it, and booked the last room at a different hotel, with a/c. We were also in Germany (Düsseldorf) and Paris, which were also unpleasantly warm for 'touristing'. We all have different tolerances for heat and cold, but I would never make a summer trip to Europe without a/c (although I guess the more northern locations would be okay). I live in a hot climate (routinely over 100 in the summer), but being a tourist in hot weather was a different thing entirely - it was tiring, and limited our sightseeing. So having that cool room, especially since many public places (i.e. restaurants, stores, etc.) are not air conditioned, was such a relief.

You can have flexibility while planning ahead -- just book cancellable hotels and keep an eye on cancellation deadlines. Yes, using booking sites (booking.com, hotels.com) probably somewhat more expensive than Lee's preferred method but it's worth it to me to KNOW there's an OK room waiting that I can cancel if I want to / need to revise my plans.
For the current French-strike situation, I dropped two destinations entirely and was able to cancel and rebook a few weeks before with no financial difficulties.