Should We Reserve All of our Hotels in Peak Season?

Peak North American travel season is not necessarily peak occupancy season for European hotels, but anyway... You should be able to find a room. Just don't expect it to be your first, second, or even third choice.

How are you travelling? Train or car? Since you are visiting larger cities and if you want to stay in the city center, I would consider reserving ahead of time. Where are you going in Switzerland?

only you can really decide. Personally as a planner that sounds like a living nightmare to me :) but if you are more spontaneous people maybe you will be fine. I know that a few years ago when I traveled to most of those cities around that time, I booked several months in advance and still sometimes had to go with my 2nd or 3rd choice (mind you I always stay at small hotels and B&Bs often with 10 or fewer rooms, but still). I think it also 1) depends on how picky you are and 2) what your budget is.

We will be traveling by train. In Switzerland we will be staying a night in Bern and a couple nights in the Berner Oberland region. We would like to be able to wing it, but I am afraid we will spend more time than we want looking for and calling hotels while in Europe. However, having all 19 days and nights planned 6 weeks to a month ahead of time sounds too regimented. Please keep the advice coming. Thanks to all who have replied.

I would book ahead for Paris and Venice,, in Paris there will be rooms somewhere, its a huge city, but you will end up wasting time looking, and will waste time. In Venice you may end up having to stay off the island, then to me, its not really staying in Venice at all. Its small and there are only so many places..
Alot depends on your budget, but not booking train tickets in advance you will pay alot more,, walk up tickets from Amsterdam to brussels are going for 69 euros, but in August they are still selling some for 45 euros.. it will be the same for most train journeys. If budget is not a big concern then you don't have a problem. If you are not picky about where you stay or what you pay, no problem.

It's a trade off. How much do you care about where you stay? Is your room choice part of your experience, something that you look forward to and enjoy, or is it just a place to get some sleep? Do you want cute, old world charm or just someplace you can get through the night? On a tight budget or willing to spend more? If you want charm, someplace cute in the old center - someplace that's listed in Rick's book and/or others (and not spend top dollar), you better book very far in advance (or you better be very, very lucky). If all you care about is not getting robbed/bugs, and just need a mostly-clean place where you can get some sleep and you don't care if it's out of the way, charmless, or has some other potential shortcomings, then you will probably be OK winging it. If you're headed to someplace very popular (Paris) and are on a budget, you will need to work harder, settle for more compromises, or bend your standards more (or some combination of the above). The "best" rooms (however you define that - cute, cheap, great location, etc.) generally disappear far in advance.

Arriving in Amsterdam in the middle of the summer without hotel reservations is a bad plan. Not only will rooms be scarce but prices will be sky-high. In fact it may even be too late to get a good price in a central location.

I travel a lot without reservations....however, when I do that I typically have a car and it is usually in smaller villages. I can't imagine landing in all those big cities off the train with my stuff and no room. With all these destinations I fail to see the benefit of not making any reservations, unless you don't think you will be happy with what you choose on line. If you have a car and stay out of the city, then its more feasible, otherwise probably just a lot of extra work and stress. I think the fun of traveling spontaneously means just that.... but you have an agenda all laid out. I have stayed in all those locations without reservations, but usually with a car, and often times outside the city center, so would use a bus to get in. I tend to change my mind lots while I am traveling and because I do not have a lot of reservations I am able to do that. Why, exactly do you not want to reserve rooms ahead and will you have a car?

Jack, David provided a good analysis of the pros & cons of pre-booking vs. "winging it". I'm very much a "planner", so this is NOT something I would do, especially in peak travel season! I prefer to pre-book for a number of reasons: > I can choose which area I want to stay in (ie: in Rome I prefer the Termini area). > I can choose which Hotel I want to stay in, based on Guidebook listings and Trip Advisor reviews. > I can choose the "price and comfort level" of the Hotel according to my budget and preferences. > I DON'T want to step off the train in an unfamiliar city with a well loaded Backpack and then have to wander around looking for a place to sleep. That's a waste of my valuable travel time. > If I have to accept lodgings simply because they're "available", it's possible I'll be paying more than I budgeted for OR I may have to accept something in a "dodgy" part of town. I may also have to accept a Hotel that's some distance from the city centre, which means I'll be spending more time and money to get back and forth to the sightseeing locations I want to see. I've found in the past, that some of the Hotels I prefer to stay in have to be pre-booked about six months in advance, and even with that much "lead time" it can still be an effort to get a booking. You could be fortunate and find Hotels easily, but you'll lose some flexibility and choice if not pre-booking. Good luck and happy travels!

I have been to Amsterdam and Brussels in peak season and gotten rooms without reservations. It probably helped that I was travelling solo and was not fussy about what I got. In the case of Amsterdam I went to the Tourism Office and got a room through them. It was in a central area, but it did not have an ensuite bathroom. I don't remember much about the room but the location was great. When travelling without reservations I find that it helps to arrive at a city no later than early afternoon. This way you can get to hotels or hostels reasonably early. In the case of Amsterdam, my previous stop was Rotterdam so I got to Amsterdam in the morning.

This is the peak of travel season in many European countries as well. Bruxelles, München and particularly Basel, Zurich and Genève in Switzerland are actually LESS busy because many residents leave and business traffic dies down significantly. Venezia WILL be crowded. Reserve ASAP. Amsterdam and Paris are mixed bags: the locals flee the place but there will be strong tourist demand to counteract it. Expect cities even more swallowed by tourism than usual.

David and Ken summed it up perfectly. If you know when and where you will be, there really is no reason not to book ahead. You can often get discounts too. Then just focus on making the most of your time while you are there.

Just curious - what is the reason you would not want to reserve in advance? Are you not sure where you will be on each day? Otherwise, there's no advantage to "winging it" with rooms in those cities. You will, at best, be spending a lot of your travel time finding rooms instead of enjoying your destinations. At worst, you may have to spend more than you want, or accept a worse room than you want. The general principle is that the best values at each price range get booked up first. So, whether you're looking for a 50 euro room or a 500 euro room, you won't get as nice a one by waiting as you would by booking ahead. Of course, there are exceptions, but that's what they are - exceptions, not the general rule. Terry kathryn's post makes particular sense; the places where going without reservations is not stressful are places reached by car only, away from cities. If there's no room at such a place, you can drive 10 minutes to another room. Your itinerary doesn't include such places.

Jack. I remember the one time we went to Europe for a couple of weeks of train travel, with no hotels reserved, was very stressful. On arriving in a city we then had to walk around hauling our luggage looking for a place to stay and I probably don't have to tell you that the areas near railroad stations are not always the most salubrious. Sometimes we went to the Tourist Office and that worked unless we happened to land in a city when it was a national holiday and then there wasn't a room to be had anywhere. That happened in Brussels and it was the Feast of the Holy Blood or somesuch. A very nice lady rescued us because her B&B guests had not turned up and purely by chance she approached us as we sat outside the Tourist Office looking very sad indeed. We always ended up with a place to stay but it took time and effort and I admit with shame, made us quarrelsome.