Reserve accommodations or fly by the seat of your pants?

There are no real advantages of not booking a reservation. There are, however, many disadvantages of not!

Just reserve and if your plans change, cancel within the acceptable cancellation timeframe. Be aware of all policies of the Hotel at the time of booking and make note of them.

You never know when an area will sell out and you could be scrambling to find accomodation last minute. I ran a Hotel Front Office of a major Chain for a number of years and often had to help find last minute accomadation for stranded travellers.

You don't need the added stress of wondering where you will lay your head that night. And travelling with 5 Adults I'm sure you will want at least two, possibly three rooms. Booking last minute or as a walk-in you may get the last few rooms and they may not be located close together.

Even if you plan to stay outside of major cities, it's still a very good plan to book ahead. the concept of "finding as you go" is not the way to go, IME

I have done it both ways. These days, when I travel, I book in advance. It's one thing to be Rick Steves going thru Europe as a youth, willing to sleep anywhere (including a park, if it comes to that). See his "Postcards From Europe" book for entertaining descriptions. But as an adult, I want a bed and a shower. You can find them most places w/o reservations. But it takes time. And I realized as a traveler time is a precious commodity. If you spend an hour or two searching every time you change locations, it adds up to lost days. So I book in advance when I can; or at least have one hotel call ones in the next city. Many have directories (for example, hotels in Italy have lists because I've used them) and they're happy to call ahead for you.

If you are flexible, you can reserve as you go. That means you don't really care where you stay, as long as it is clean and near the sights. With five people, it might also mean not always staying in the same place.

One obvious advantage to traveling this way is that you can revise as you go, though with five people you may find that's hard to do. In which case, if you are going to follow an itinerary come what may, why not reserve everything in advance?

I'd certainly reserve your first stop, any small towns you want to stay in together, and anyplace that would ruin your trip if you can's stay there.

I also think that ten destinations in a month is a lot, and a lot of trips for five people to make together. You might have a better trip, and see more, by trying to see less.

We always reserve the first and last nights only. We always rent a car when traveling in Europe and have never had a problem finding a place as we go along, however, one reason may be because we always make a point of looking for a place (usually a B&B in England, Ireland), Zimmerfrei (Germany and Austria) or one of the chain hotels in France (Campanille, etc.), etc. no later than 3:00 in the afternoon. That way you beat the rush of people looking for last minute accommodations and and can relax and continue looking around without the worry of where to stay that night. After 4:00 it starts to get iffy because everyone is looking. We don't book all our places to stay in advance because we don't necessarily stick to a fixed itinerary and this gives us flexability. Just my five cents worth. Have a great trip. Happy travels.

For good rates on European hotels check with www.hrs.com, www.hotel.de and www.ehotel.de. The European football championship starts on June 7th so that Switzerland and Austria (as well as border regions in Germany) will be pretty well booked. Prebooking might make sense. Make sure your rental car is a Diesel. They get much, much better milage and a gallon of diesel is "only" $7.50 in Germany as compared to $8.50 of regular gas. When in the Austrian border region make sure you fill up on the Austrian side as gas/diesel there is much cheaper than in Germany or Switzerland or Italy. When in the Weimar region make sure you visit the old town of Erfurt with its "Old London Bridge" like Krämer bridge and Wartburg castle in Eisenach!

I always reserve to save time looking. I agree that time on vacation is too sparse already to waste. Also I worry that finding room for 5 may be more difficult than room for say 2.

IMO, you should scrap England. Even without it, you have more than enough to fill 4 weeks. Moving from place to place eats up time and money, especially with gasoline prices at $6-8/gal. Also, the $US/pound is even worse than $US/euro. Look for places to stay that have apartments, as do many agriturismos in Italy and similar establishments in France. I'm sure the same is true in the other countries. Two sources are www.specialplacestostay.com and www.karenbrown.com. Also check Gites de France. Google for website. Look carefully at descriptions because many places that are listed as B&B's also have some apartments. With that kind of lodging you can cook some meals or bring in some of the fabulous prepared foods. Much cheaper than restaurants. Here's just one example: in June we stayed at a place near the Italian lakes. 80 euros/night for a large bdr with a double & twin, complete kit., lr w. sofabed, breakfast incl, even had a pool. E-mail me if you want more info.

Couple of points that I normally consider:

Season - high or off season. Since you are going early, you could probably wing it - just do some research and make sure school is not out (where you are going)which will change things significantly

Not booking ahead means that you get to see the place before committing to it.

My dad and his wife never book more then first and last nights. They rent( actually they lease, since it is cheaper then renting) a car and just stay where ever they land. They do start looking by mid afternoon though, as another poster said, don't wait till 4 or 5.. My dad is in his seventies so he doesn't mind stopping early in day anyways.
I have travelled a bit with my father, we went from Paris to Zermatt , stopping somewhere inbetween for a night, some chain motel on side of highway outside any city.. it was clean, but boring and ugly with NOTHING to do in area,, but as we were in transit it wasn't too big of a deal.

The only issue I see is finding TWO rooms last minute will be trickier then finding one.

I too would skip England, unless you fly into it, do not rent car there, just visit, then rent car on mainland Europe, remember any car you rent in England has left hand drive, not so fun on autobahn,.. LOL

We've traveled with groups of five on several occasions and had no problem finding rooms. It's basically comes down to the time of day you start looking for a place to stay. We found if you stop around 3 p.m. and locate a spot, you beat the rush and have time to see more without the worry.