Need your tips and tricks for finding accomodations during peak travel time

Any respectable accommodations in Germany (i.e., anyone not trying to conceal their real price) will offer breakfast along with your room. So, what is a B&B? Anything other than a big hotel? Small Gästehäuser and Pensionen will serve you breakfast and have some of the intimacy we think of with a B&B. A room in a private home, called a Privatzimmer or just Zimmer is my idea of a B&B. A lot of people that offer a Privatzimmer won't speak English.

Hi there, If everything seems to be booked, you just need to keep searching until you find something... check the major hotel websites and look for local ones too. If you're OK with budget accomodations, check in with hostels to see if they have any availability with their private rooms. Search google for "Dresden bed breakfast". Or maybe find out what the German translation for B&B is and search for that. Hostel websites: www.hihostels.com www.hostelbookers.com If you're desperate, you can try the big corporate sites like... expedia.com
hotels.com Good luck!

I find that a town's own website ( http://www.dresden.de, click "English", than "Tourism") will have the best selection of accommodations at reasonable prices. You will often find places that you can't find any other way.

Network like a mad woman! Rotary, Lions, church, college etc.

Hi Jennifer, First of all, if you are going to be in Dresden at the same time of a large church conference, the one place I would think that would not booked up is the HI hostel on Maternisstraße, about 10 mins walk from the main train station (Dresden Hbf), a huge building, what they eine Mietskaserne. I stayed there a couple of nights in 2009, had a private EZ en suite with breakfast, very nice. Dinner was buffet between 5-6 Euro. This hostel is part of DJH. If you want to try outside of Dresden, the closest is Meißen, about 30 mins or so by S-Bahn from the Hbf. Depending on how long you want to take the train into Dresden each day and back, you might want to consider Leipzig or Berlin. Are you going to be there in the summer..."peak travel time?"

Are you there around June 1st? Then you are really in for a tough time looking for accommodation. The "Evangelischer Kirchentag" draws well over 100,000 people, triple or quadruple that number for opening and closing worships !!! I would also suggest to look for accommodation outside and commute in. Meissen is close but smaller. Leipzig is about an hour by train but quite a bit larger and has more options for accommodation. What is your budget like? These church events usually draw budget travellers, quite different from conventions for business people with expense accounts. If you are willing to splurge on this occasion it might be a bit easier to find luxury accommodation than trying to compete for hostel beds.

I just tried a few dates here for the beginning of June and there are some accommodations still available: http://www.dresden.de/dtg/en/index.php

Another option, if you can't find a place in Dresden, is going down the Elbe a bit into the Saxon Switzerland region. It's a national park area dotted with cute little villages. The closest (and one of the biggest) cities is Pirna. We stayed in Wehlen. Rathen and Königstein are other cities in the area. Edit: Forgot to add this before: these towns are on the S-bahn line from Dresden. Wehlen and Rathen are across the river from the train line, but there's a ferry that will take you across from the train station.

You could also try calling some places directly. Not all hotels participate in the major online hotel/travel directories, but may be advertised on the city's websites. Try calling directly and if they're full, ask if they know anywhere that may have a room.