To Reserve or Not to Reserve

The whole of Europe will be on holiday and visiting each other's countries as well as their own. Add to that visitors from the rest of the world and you will have some competition for decent places to stay.

The cities will be quieter, relatively, than the coast and countryside/mountains and the hotels can be cheaper. That is not to say that you won't find some sort of accomodation but do you want a vacation staying in make do places?

I have done several trips in July and never reserve more than a day in advance, except for the 1st night since I am too tired from the plane ride. HOWEVER I am not picky or a neat freak, and I have slept in several train stations. If you can be really loose about things, you don't need reservation, but if the idea of sleeping in a train station makes you nervous, then I would at least reserve your 1st few nights. You can also reserve a few days ahead of time as you go instead of nailing down an entire trip ahead of time. really consider using hostels, esp in the Rhine area they are just as nice as hotels.

We always reserve. My husband is not only a neat freak, but a bit of a control freak as well. He wants to KNOW where he will be staying! I know that for London, Amsterdam and Munich/Salzburg you will probably want to go ahead and make reservations- IF you know when you will be in those places. FYI- we like to stay at the Victoria Thistle (I think they may have changed the name to the Grosovenor) at Victoria Station in London. In Salzburg- if you want to splurge, I'd suggest the Goldener Hirsch. It is right in the heart of Old Town and has been a hotel for more than 400 years! The rooms are large- esp. for Europe and beautifully furnished.

One problem with reserving too far in advance is that you become locked into a schedule that you may not want to keep. With a good guidebook and/or some internet research you should be able to come up with a list of desireable hotels in the places you expect to be visiting and then reserve a few days in advance as you go.

Gena, keep in mind that with a lot of hotels you can cancel within a few days or even up to the day of arrival if your plans change. I generally book all our accomodations in advance with booking.com with the idea that the reservation can be changed if necessary (make sure your reservations are not the pre paid non changeable non refundable kind) I don't like sleeping in train staions or airports; on the other hand I don't make changes willy nilly because that isn't fair to the hotel, but occasionally things happen that are beyond your control. If your itinerary is fairly firm then you can reserve your major stops ahead of time and still leave a little elbow room for flexibility.

I think this is a matter of personality. Do you like to be spontaneous or do you prefer to have everything all planned out. I'm definitely in the second camp, although I try to be flexible about what I do during the day. I always reserve every night before I leave. Once when we went to Scotland, I left two nights open. I hated it because as soon as we got to the towns where we had no reservations, we had to waste time walking around with luggage trying to find a place. It looks to me like you have a lot of places to visit in your trip, so probably won't have much time to spare. I would reserve in advance. But if you are the spontaneous type, don't do it. A compromise might be to have a list of places and phone numbers so you can phone a couple of days ahead to reserve.

No question to me , reserve ahead. It is peak season! You will waste alot of time looking for lodging if you don't. If you know ahead say 48 hrs you could perhaps cancel some while you are there. Also some chain hotels have more flexibility in there reservations/cancellations. ie Travelodge UK

Thanks for the advice. I think we are going to reserve pretty much every night. Not only will it be comfort to know I have a bed when tired rather than a fight with my husband : ) I think it will also help us budget better.

The trouble with traveling in August is everyone is on vacation, which pretty much means either reserve or hope to get lucky.

I think you could probably still be okay (not homeless), calling a few places then, if that fails, getting a room through TIs. It wouldn't be inexpensive and you may end up in rooms that are empty for a reason.

Traveling in Aug. is turning into a pain in the rear. But it is really the only time we could go - I am sitting for the Ohio bar in July and I was not waiting for my post bar vacation : )

I think we have now beat out a schedule that is good enouogh that we know what general area we want to be in so I can reserve rooms and still change my schedule because we are near a lot of day trip possibilities.

I have never liked the idea of being on a schedule, but having made reservations ahead on the last few trips abroad I doubt I will do it differently in the future. My experience has been that having researched and planned a trip carefully I never felt like I wished I could go somewhere else once there, or drop a few days from one destination or another. And the relief from worrying about "where will we stay tomorrow night?" was fantastic. You can really enjoy where you are without worrying about where you are going. And, the tons of time you save dragging around looking for new accomodations can be spent in much better ways. It came as a surprise to me, but the advantages of planning and reserving in advance far outweighed the freedom factor once we were there. PS Good luck with your exam!

Ive done it both ways and while I like the idea of having flexibilty I find that when i reserve ahead I save time, but even more important get better places at a better price.