Europe hotels that are good for families

Hi tcbhouse -
France, Germany and Italy are COUNTRIES that encompass very large areas and many, many cities and towns. You are going to have to provide information such as exactly where in those countries you will be staying and your per-night budget before people can make any sort of useful recommendations. One person's "best" may also not be someone else's. :O)

(Edited for some re-wording)

Hi, tcbhouse,

This sounds like an exciting trip! You may want to start your hotel search on booking.com for the towns you are visiting, and specify for 4 beds. Then follow up with the hotels themselves to get more details. Hopefully this will uncover some lodgings with local character that can meet your needs, rather than just the chain hotels.

You are probably already aware that hotel rooms with 4 beds (or 2 adjoining rooms with 2 beds each) are not as common in the countries you mention, at least in my experience in France. Maybe the situation is easier in Germany.

Airbnb can also be a good resource for apartments that offer more space and convenience than hotel rooms.

Once you have an itinerary roughed out, you may want to post in the separate Destination Q & A forums for the places you are visiting, to get more location-specific recommendations. Forum members seem to check the Destination sections more frequently and I’m sure you’ll get some great suggestions.

We stayed at a Best Western Plus near Orly airport that had two queens and the room was similar in size to those in the US (236 sq ft) - palatial compared to most European rooms. Pay attention to room sizes.

We found that quad rooms were very hard to find, and often the “double” beds were US full size beds, smaller than queens. This was the case for hotels and apartments. Two twin beds pushed together are much bigger than one full bed. Keep this in mind if you look at apartments. It’s worth asking if the “double” beds are two twins. If so, they can most likely be separated.

That said, my teen is 6’1 and often had his feet hanging off the bed, or had to sleep curled up because of a footboard. Just made him appreciate his bed at home more!

If this is your first trip to Europe, know that hotel rooms are often much smaller than in the US. So if you do find a room with two full (or larger) beds, you may have very little space for your belongings. This is one advantage of apartments - you can spread out more.

Read apartment descriptions very carefully and look at all the photos. I casually looked at some Airbnb listings in Paris a few years ago and was shocked at how often the only bed in an apartment was a fold-out couch or futon. I'm sure a lot of larger apartments use those options to beef up the bed count.

In Germany you can usually find "family rooms" with one double bed and two twin beds.

If you stay for 3 nights in a town in Germany, consider staying in a ferienwohnung ( apartment ). Probably about half the cost of a hotel. Lists can be found on towns’ websites - usually www.TOWN NAME.de