Coming to a Dead End With Trip Planning

I go to Copenhagen as often as I can for the jazz festival in July .
Curious for the name of the small town you're researching and also how far from Copenhagen by train.

Oh, absolutely! Sometimes I get a random idea stuck in my head - and it just won’t work well. More often it’s that I find a cool place - but I can’t make the transportation work out.

I know it’s frustrating to have spent all that time and not have found what you want, though. Hopefully what you find next will be better! It is all like a moving jigsaw puzzle - the pieces all HAVE to fit.

Yes, this happened to me a week ago!
I wasted an entire day trying to find a decent/nice place to stay in Carmel, Ca, for my birthday in Oct and found nothing. Even the worst, dirtiest, most run down places to stay were $350 per night. There’s no way i’m paying that price for garbage, so i sadly just gave up. At least for you, being in Europe, you’ll hopefully find another charming town. But i definitely hear you Kim, very frustrating. So smart of you to look before buying train tickets. Best of luck!

Travel requires nothing so much as flexibility. Every Plan A requires a B,C,D and perhaps E.

Maybe "Charming" is just a code word for shabby. We often looked for 2 star places which just means there is no ensuite bath. Often it was just across the hall or off the stair landing...we were the only ones using it. A couple of times it was just recently remodeled and immaculately clean with a "real" bathtub. We have stayed in a lovely suite that was above the mews (garage); we did have to get there by a spiral staircase. We looked for farmhouses because they often will offer breakfast and dinner. Stay in the countryside, just outside villages, and you will find charming sheep for your view. I suppose you can take an "Uber" from the train station.

Timing conflicts have usually causes detours, before ever reaching planning dead ends. Finding out that a special festival is just a week before, or after we were planning on being somewhere, or that a ferry schedule isn’t happening when we want it to, or a desired sight is closing earlier that would allow seeming it the way we’d want, has necessitated changes in plans.

Kim, have you also checked www.Vrbo.com? We’ve used Vrbo more than Airbnb.

And, unless revealing the town you had on your radar would create a conflict, could you please name it? We’re looking at a Scandinavia trip for next year. Copenhagen is probably going to be part of that, and your description makes that mystery destination sound like something fabulous - maybe we’d spring for the extra $$$. No way 8 rooms sharing a bathroom would work, though, at any price!

Best of luck finding an acceptable location, at an acceptable price!

My standards for lodging being far lower than the average on this forum, I've never had to dump a town because of lodging-quality issues. On a very few occasions I have bumped up against a special event in which I had no interest, or just plain high-demand, and had to twist my route around a bit or skip a non-critical destination because there was nothing available at all or the rates were way out of my comfort zone. A more common problem has been really small places with no public transportation--or such infrequent public transportation--that they were impractical to visit without a car. Skipping those places leaves me with a feeling of disappointment; they're like the fish that got away.

However, there are lots of other fish in the sea.

I have never had a situation where I had to change a destination because there was no suitable accommodation, but I don’t travel in the peak school holiday season of late July and I always hire a car, so have some flexibility. Also, I usually have accommodation booked in December/January for travel in May/June.

I use Booking.com, VRBO, Trip Advisor rentals and local tourist boards for accommodation. I don’t use Airbnb these days as their fees are more expensive than other platforms.

Good luck with your search.

Which direction were you looking? I took a look at Køge along the coast and on a train line and they had a few hotels with late July rooms available. We watched the Danish series Seaside Hotel last year and loved it! One hotel in this town fits my bill with white rooms and views of the sea. Dream on…

And yes I know this doesn't matter a hill of beans!!! And indeed flexibility is key.

Thanks for letting me vent to my fellow travel-lovers !

And, as Jennifer pointed out, I am looking for the last weekend in July. But not at the beach ! And even when I just Google to see what lodging there is — not restricted to what's available — it shows my the same options. So everything mostly seems to have availability. And I don’t mind a shared bath, but one toilet and one shower for EIGHT bedrooms does seem a little much to me.

So is the mystery town to remain a mystery? Why does need to be a secret...still curious.

I just don't feel like getting into a debate about any particular place and having people tell me why it's so wonderful and i'm a fool to miss it, or why it's so boring and why I’m a fool for ever having thought of going there. It's just not the conversation i am interested in today. I was interested more in others' experiences of pivoting.

Now this morning I already found an alternative, and everything about it seems to slot in nicely with my plan.

Overall, I wouldn't decide to spend a week in Copenhagen. For my own druthers, since I live in a city, I prefer to spend vacation time in the countryside. But of course in order to see my brother, sister-in-law, and nieces, I am happily giving up what I would normally prefer in favor of sharing time with them. Most things in life involve a little give and take. I'm certainly not going to tell him sorry, you should have told me in December, lol

@acraven: I definitely identify with this!

A more common problem has been really small places with no public transportation--or such infrequent public transportation--that they were impractical to visit without a car. Skipping those places leaves me with a feeling of disappointment; they're like the fish that got away.

@jennifer:

. Also, I usually have accommodation booked in December/January for travel in May/June.

Yeah, that would be ideal, but since my brother just booked their tickets this past week and told me about this, this is where I am. It will be fine and will be so great to be together. It's hard living so far from family — and got harder during the pandemic. So it's worth it to me to make an effort.

acraven--I am like you and can handle some pretty odd lodging situations. We are headed to an area in a few weeks that has exploded with tourism. There are no festivals etc the weekend we are there, but all of the hotels in the area were booked solid, and all I could find were $500+ a night. Nope, not willing to pay that! So we ended up with a little cottage on Airbnb that has an outhouse and then an area to shower. The shower is in a big galvanized tub, lol. But thankfully my traveling companions for that trip didn't blink an eye at that and we will still have fun! Kind of funny though as we are going for a bridal shower, so will need to dress up a bit one day.

Not lodging, but rental cars in England. I land at Gatwick at about 9:30am on a Tuesday in September. I don't want to rent a car right away because I've been flying all night, but I also don't want to waste a day hanging around Gatwick to rent a car the next day. No problem I thought, I'd take the train to Brighton and spend the night and rent from there. But the problem is I fly out on a Sunday morning and the car rental places, even in a place like Brighton aren't open on Sunday and close at noon on Saturday, leaving me no time in my itinerary to get back to Brighton in time. Most places offered the option of dropping off at Gatwick, but with an extra fee. Normally, I'd be OK with that, but with the cost of rentals so ridiculously high right now, the extra fee makes it extra ridiculous.

Luckily, my persistence (stubbornness?) paid off and I found a small independent place in Lewes for 1/3 of the cost and told me that he'd be closed on Sunday but to drop the keys off in the mailbox.

I had this same issue 4 years ago. I was flying home on a Sunday but had no option but to drop off at Gatwick because rental car agencies elsewhere were closed.

Kim, it’s good that you’ve found a good alternative to your first consideration.

It’s too bad that we won’t learn what intriguing place(s) you’ve identified that might be worth considering for others. Anybody who’d criticize your personal choices as “foolish” is the fool. Oh, well, getting potential destination tips beyond Copenhagen has hit a dead end. Happy travels!

My dead ends have all revolved around lodging, but I’ve usually been too stubborn to back away BEFORE I learned the hard way. A couple of examples:

• found an amazing AirBnb for our last night of a 7-week trip. Fell in love with it, and ignored the fact that it was a 2-hour drive away from the Geneva airport where we had an early-morning flight and car drop off. Yup, missed the flight home and spent the next night at an airport hotel
• needed a specific location, so I ignored the fact that the AirBnB had exactly one noncommittal review and a statement “renters are responsible for cleaning pre-departure.” Yup, it was filthy so we promptly reported it, left for a hotel and then got into a multi-week wrangle with the host who tried to charge me back the full cost of the refund AirBnB issued by claiming we left the door unlocked when we left and it was unsecured for two nights (not)

I have realized that accommodation is my top criterion, so I am much more picky now and will definitely change my plans if the lodging doesn’t seem right. So Kim is smarter than I am 😜 and pivoted before making a mistake!

Awwww Nelly I am sorry for you for those two experiences -- you are sweet to post that to make me feel better!

Well, I always read as many recent reviews as possible, and if a place is newly listed with few reviews then I tend to not take the risk.

I'm looking for quiet, clean, and comfortable. Cost is a factor, too, but generally you get what you pay for. Is there AC in the summer? That can be a big deal sometimes. A fitful night of sleep in an un-airconditioned Paris hotel in August means being groggy the next day, and not much fun.