For the "fly by the seat of your pants" people:

Since it was probably my post that raised the question: For me, Europe is the easy, no-brainer, spur-of-the moment, let's go-somewhere, no-forethought trip. We tend to do it three times a year and stay about a month at a time. Half the time, we change our minds about where to go somewhere over the ocean, and, often as not, change our minds again when we start the car. We skip whole countries that were probably in the initial two 'plans'. We stay until we're ready to come home and then leave. With that kind of goofey arrangement, there's no way we can make reservations. I can recall making them once in the last ten years and that was because we wanted to stay with the rest of the mob for a wedding. We look for a place to stay when we're done with the day - - probably somewhere between three and six. It's never taken us thirty minutes to find a place. The only guidebooks we pack are the Micheline Greens, and they don't have much listed in the way of accommodations. I don't know what other people pay, probably a lot more than we do. We stay in perfectly acceptable, clean hotels, inns, zimmers, chambres, b&b's, etc. We guess that we'll average seventy-five bucks a night if the route includes major cities, but we've never averaged that high (except for Scandanavia). Over-all we figure about two hundred bucks a day - - which always includes a car and associated expenses, and some pretty good grub at supper. Again, except for Scandanavia, we've never popped that number - - come close a couple of times, but never busted it.

Robyn, I used to always travel without reservations, even in high season. It doesn't always work out as well, but if you have an adventurous spirit, it can be rewarding. When are you planning to travel? Do some research to see if the places you might be interested in staying at (specific hotels or B&Bs) are open all year, or just seasonally. It's more of an adventure now that the room-finding services that used to be in most train stations have closed. I like to start out with a reservation in my arrival city and end with a reservation in my departure city. If you are traveling at peak or even semi-peak times, realize that looking for a hotel room can eat up a good part of an afternoon. You may have trouble finding something in your preferred price range and end up spending more than you had anticipated. I've stayed in places with the manager/owner off premises, they usually are available via cell phone if you need anything.

We've made a couple of trips when we didn't have everything reserved ahead. It depends on whether you're traveling in a busy time of year. When we go without reservations, I generally have a short list of vetted possibilities in each town. Several times we have asked our current innkeeper to call the next place, and this has worked well. Once we went to my chosen place in a town and it was full so we asked that innkeeper to recommend a place, which turned out to be great. We have not had a problem with going over budget. A cell phone helps with contacting a non-resident landlord. The primary reason I usually make advance reservations is that once I've researched the possibilities and found what looks like a really neat place to stay I don't want to be disappointed if I get there and it's not available. So I guess it also depends on how picky you are!

I make reservations about 20% of the time and usually only if I am going to a big city and won't have a car. I don't spend a ton of time looking up hotels and restaurants ahead of time... it gives me a headache. I usually let the trip unfold, and, like Ed, I have skipped whole countries I intended to see because something else peaked my interest... I drive around aimlessly lots of times and find hotels that look interesting. A number of the places I have researched did not end up being what I really thought...besides I don't spend much time in the room. My budget is usually in the low middle...and there have only been a few time where I was tired and had to drive further than I wanted to find a room. If you don't need to stay in certain locations in big cities, and have a sense of adventure...go for it. But, trust me...it is not for the extreme planners...I do not enjoy planning every detail of my trip...I just want to pack and go and have a general idea of the itinerary (always subject to change) I always try to travel with the idea of 'what's the worst thing that can happen?' and if its not life threatening its probably okay.

I will be going to Italy in October of '12, probably from Oct 2 to Oct 18. I just edited my question to reflect that, as I thought I'd put it in before! Woopsie. Now I'll read the replies.... =-)

Pre internet, laptop, cell phone, iPad, etc rarely booked reservations in advance. I was also younger. Last time I did it was a trip was Ireland in October 97. Simply went to the TI at the airport and got a fabulous room at a Dublin B&B where I stayed for two days. Lovely host. Then solo in a car around the entire island making certain I pulled into a town or village between 4and 5pm, before sunset. Would simply look for all the brown signs noting B&B's. Would drive until one met my fancy, park the car, get out, knock on the door and ask for a room. Never turned away. All places were clean, comfortable, with great hosts. Now I'm older and it's so much easier to book in advance. Normally, I reserve a place for my first few nights, then with advantage of the internet book as I go via email. Recent trip to London (pre and post the RS tour of Istanbul) I used Priceline Europe for the first time as well as the airbnb website to secure accommodations. Worked out great. Stayed in London numerous times and so knew the neighborhoods where I wanted to stay and found spots that fit my budget. On an Italy trip I stayed in apartments and B & B's, all booked in advance because I was traveling by train, not car and knowing where I was going in each city seemed prudent.

I am not one of those people and here's why.... I don't like spending a half a day trying to find a place to sleep. I go with a packed agenda and don't have time to waste. I usually find pretty good hotel deals on expedia.com and booking.com where I can read the reviews prior to making my decision. I don't like showing up to a place not knowing what to expect. I prefer to take the public transportation everywhere (cheaper for solo travelers) and knowing where I will stay beforehand saves time and money because I get directions before I go. In order to save a few bucks I go during low season. I also prefer the cooler weather (late March - early April, mid September to late October) and the smaller crowds. I do not always stay in the heart of the city. A 5-10 minute subway/tram ride to the center is acceptable if it saves me 50%. Having a plan gives me a peace of mind and prevents potential pitfalls.

Years ago we used to NEVER make advance reservations, similar to some of the posters who like their flexibility to drive/see until ready to stop. Over the years, we may have had to endure some strange decor, shared baths, or even a smelly smoking room. But, then there was the "trip from hell" through the California vineyards, Columbus Day weekend, 1996. The tension grew as the hours marched on....no vacancy, no vacancy, no vacancy..............instead of staying in the hills, we found ourselves driving all the way back to our starting point of San Francisco, no vacancy, no vacancy, etc. until we finally found the last room at the Holiday Inn at the Wharf. That hotel still holds a special place in my heart, just because it meant we would not have to sleep in the rental car. Never again, I pledged. Now, unless it's a quick stay like the night before an early-morning fly home (in which case a Hampton or equivalent works great), I comb internet reviews to find charming, nicely-rated places which will be part of our total travel experience. Where we stay is as important to our experience as what we see/do/eat/people we meet, etc. I'm far from a hotel snob, but waking up with a wonderful view or some other great feature is part of the memory. .........but, it never used to be that way.............that preference has evolved from the experience of a few disappointments (or near disappointments) and to the lasting joy/wonderful memories of carefully selected, charming lodging that was booked in advance. Neither approach is right nor wrong, just a matter of what works at your stage of life, and what is more important.....more flexibility or more certainty............both have different advantages.

My ideal travel is to have some itineraries in the planning stage then jump when I see a great deal on a flight. I like traveling in May or September (or a little further outside high season when going to southern climes). You can save a little money and avoid the drastic crowds. I like to have a reservation for the first night arriving in Europe, primarily because I'll be tired and jet lagged and don't want to worry about calling around. I also get a reservation for my last night before flying home. Since the flight home is fixed, it's the only time I actually need to be somewhere. Between those two nights, I prefer to go without reservations. I have a good idea where I'll visit (not quite as seat of the pants as Ed) and bring a list of potential lodging. When I'm headed toward the next place (usually around 10 am), I'll call ahead for a place. It's not unusual for me to call two or three places before I find a place to book. I've never gone homeless. One time I thought I might, opening day of Oktoberfest in Munich; I ended up finding a nice Pension at a normal price - but not before calling all my list, trying the TI (looked like a commodities trading pit of people trying to find lodging), then calling more places (I think from Lonely Planet or Rough Guide) that hadn't made my short list. I'm convinced I get better prices than booking ahead because the rooms will go empty if they don't rent them to me. I also often end up with three night stays in apartments that require a one-week stay for pre-booking.

We have traveled both ways, with and without reservations made. We managed very well without reservations during our Eastern Europe month long visit last year in early October. On the flip side, we just came back from 3 weeks in London/Paris/nRiviera/York and had pre-planned reservations for all locations. I was glad we did, particularly for London and Paris, far too busy and widespread to be wandering around looking for a room. We had one experience a few years ago in Vienna that found us wandering the streets for quite a while trying to get a room, other than that we have been fortunate, but we always travel either shoulder season or off-season.

I am amazed that people don't do a bit of planning to insure their trips and their time is well spent. Just as an example, what if you were in the CT or Bangkok during their recent flooding and you didn't have a hotel? You suddenly become "homeless". What is your plan B? If you have a hotel booked and it is still in business you have a place to sleep and hopefully the management will help with food and water. I know this may seem far fetched but disasters have a way of happening and you never know where or when. A similar situation is the passengers on Jet Blue flying from Florida to Newark and ending up in Hartford CT (BDL) on the runway for 7 hours...your are in an aluminum tube and dealing with the weather..do not expect perfect results. Take snacks with you when you travel..plan ahead. The weather cannot be controlled and flying is always a crap game. Take water, snacks and medication or stay in the comfort
of your home.

We left a couple of days on our Portugal itinerary in September 2008, and got a room in Nazare for 35 Euros per night same hotel listed as 80 Euros in Rick's book, right across from the beach. That's the last time I tried it, and generally I would not advise it. In France in 2003 we left five nights open in the middle, traveling with a car. We scored good to great rooms in Normandy and Dordogne, also Carcassone but they were not at bargain prices. We traveled for six nights of our 2002 Ireland trip without reservations, and we would show up as late at 7pm in towns and get a reasonable B&B room but again not bargains, just a fair price (thought Ireland was a great bargain at the market rate). Ireland outside of Dublin is one place wjere I think you can do this. But generally things have gotten tighter in Europe and if you want a good location, acceptable quality, without paying too much you are better off with reservations in my opinion. It's a lot harder to find a room with all of these attributes than it used to be, and you are competing with others for the best rooms. It's been said here before, if you do not make a reservation you will end up with a room no one else wanted. (Plus in our family, when my wife is tired she it likely to say yes to any price.) Rick's position seems to have grown more and more in favor of reservations over the years. There are some exceptions, in Prague he does say you can save by showing up without a reservation and taking your chances. I would say if your motivation for not wanting reservations is to save money, chances are just as good that it could work against you. Another thing to consider is that there may be festivals/conventions or other short term things that will mean low availability and high prices.

'Grab your butt and a clean pair of socks and haul tail people'

While I would never try to convince those that plan every minute of a trip and lock into a schedule months in advance to change their ways, I do encourage those that want to "wing it" so to speak. I think though it is important to counter some myths that are often mentioned in opposition to the open appoach to travel: No reservations equates to no planning: False; I spends months and hours planning, researching, reading, and looking at guidebooks. For each possible destination, I have a good list of hotels, restaurants, and info on transport. I also usually have a good comprehensive guidebook like Lonely Planet or Lets Go along to cover areas I stumble upon enroute. You will spend half your day looking for a room, taking valuable time away from your jam packed sightseeing itinerary: False, I can usually walk to an area I have staked out, usually a cluster of likely hotels, and have a room and be on my second beer while someone who booked a room several months ago is still using their crappy map to locate that room. For experienced travellers: How many times in getting to your hotel have you passed numerous hotels that would have done just as well? Regarding your jam packed schedule, if you cannot afford but a minute to get to your room, you probably have waaaay too much on your agenda. If you wait, all the good places will be gone! False, Good is relative and subjective. If you make a reservation, you are basing your decision on faith in a website, Tripadvisor reviews, a guidebook, or other information that may or may not meet your standard of accuracy. Actually seeing the room, catching the ambiance of the neighborhood, maybe haggling a bit is more likely to yield a satisfactory room. I also find that even to this day, many smaller places and certainly private rooms do not have web presence. Even in the CT, some of the best rooms can only be found by showing up.

My take on travelling without reservations is this: it makes your life falsely easier, unless you really don't mind sleeping a night in a car or in a dumpster-esque hotel. With Internet reservations for lodging now ubiquitous in Europe, there is a way to travel with more flexibility without putting yourself into uncomfortable situations. This is how I think such trips can be organized: (1) take a car, so transportation is always guaranteed (2) at home before departing, while waiting the laundry or something, make a tedious process of reserving every single night of your trip on one-night-only sequence of reservations, even if at the same hotels. Always, ever reserve your first and last night anyway. Select hotels that allow you to cancel up to 24h before check-in or in the day of arrival before 4-6pm (more common in big cities) (3) once you get a car and the basic itinerary, you can always adjust your trip as wished. The only trick is to adjusting 2 days beforehand, not the day before departure. That way, you can cancel any reservation, and find new ones over the Internet. Always make sure you have a place to sleep when you are departing (4) make a tablet/smartphone with data plan your best friend: reservation sites all have apps, and more and more hotels and the likes are online now. So you can always search for options seated in a cafe and pushing the buttons :p

The comments are interesting, but won't make me change the way I do things. In the past five minutes, I've arbitrarily checked three places I've stayed in the past year and in which I'd stay again (a hotel in Paris, a hotel in London, and a hostel in Trefin) that have web sites. All had availability tonignt. I did not check a second place in any of the three spots to see if I could find something cheaper. The prices (rounded high with mental conversion to USD were, respectively: 65, 75, and 25 - - or an average of fifty-five bucks per night. I also checked hotels at both Paris aiports that I routinely use when faced with an early departure, both had rooms for tonight. They averaged seventy dollars. I've never slept in a dumpster, or a car. If the math in my first posting on this thread holds true, that's something like nine hundred nights in Europe in the past ten years. We had reservations for well less than twenty-five of those nights. Reservations or not (can't remember which) we found two rooms objectionable in hotles in which we'd stayed previously and subsequently (for cigarette smell) and one where we'll never stay again that was a pig stye when viewed in daylight.

Of course it's largely a matter of travel style. There have been mentions here of saving big $ on last minute hotel deals. But that presupposes that you would normally choose mid-upper class hotels. We don't. We wouldn't save any money this way. We might score nicer digs, but that's not a big enough motivation for the inconvenience. It also depends on season. Pretty easy to find a room in November. Not so much in July. We always travel in summer. It depends on the make-up of your group. Single or couple? Why not wing it if you're a little adventurous. Larger group or family with children like us? NO WAY! If you have spent 900 days in Europe in the last ten years you have a wealth of previous experiences with lodgings to draw upon. We have not yet visited the same place twice. If you like to use rentals for 3-7 nights at a time like we do, you need to find them months in advance. Finally, it's a matter of the best use of time. An hour spent dealing with the question of lodging on the go is an hour wasted. We do that work at home, on the weekends, when we have a little spare time on the computer. It's sort of fun, too, since it allows you a little preview of your upcoming trip.

Definitely a matter or travel style... there is no right or wrong answer.... while having a plan gives some people peace of mind, it just gives me a restrictive agenda that I do not wish to follow... Ed... can't we think up a better name for ourselves than 'fly by the seat of your pants people'?
I think something a little more poetic... especially since we are outnumbered here.

We have done it both ways and it has worked out ok. Our last trip in 2009 was all planned out with reservations and was a relatively short trip (12 nights). In 2007 on a 3 week trip the first two weeks were with reservations and the final week was spur of the moment stops and I have to admit that last week was the most enjoyable because we changed our mind on where we were going and decided to stay in one area 2 nights longer than our original tentative plans called for. On trips previous to those two we very seldom had reservations and never had a problem finding a nice inexpensive room at the last minute. A couple of those trips were in June and one time we waited until after 8 p m before deciding to stop for the night. First place we stopped we found a nice room. Another time fwas even later and we found a room first stop. We did have a car so I was not worried about finding a room. Maybe a little naive but it worked out. I really prefer going by the seat of the pants sometimes especially when away from the bigger cities when driving. In the larger cities such as Paris I would rather have the reservations beforehand. I do like Ed's style of traveling and one day I would like to give it a try. That style works better with a car which is my preference except when in large cities.

Terry Kathryn, For a new travel-type name, maybe: "Go with the Flow, Flexible Souls"

@Margaret...love it.

"ad - hoc" "freewheelers" "dynamic reallocators of travel time and facilities" "free spirits" ??

Thanks so much for all the great replies, for and against! I really appreciate it. It gives something to think about. And I appreciate the sense of humor as well in nixing my impromptu name for a more apropos name for those of you who like "no reservations"!
=-)

I always make reservations in advance, but sometimes even the best-laid plans can go wrong. After an eight hour delay leaving O'Hare, I arrived at my final destination of Munich at 8pm. Had I arrived in the morning as scheduled, I was to travel on the Austria by train and bus, but this was not possible so late in the day, and the upshot was that I had no place to stay in Munich since some big convention was in town and there were no rooms available. I was exhausted and desprate, and my only plan was to go on to Salzburg and hope to find a room near the station, which I really didn't want to do so late. But a very nice gentleman on the platform at Munich-Ost helped me out by suggesting I go to Rosenheim, a lovely little city mid-way between Munich and Salzburg, where he lived, and he went with me, and found me a lovely little hotel right by the station where I was able to get the last available room. Rosenheim really was a neat little city, which I wouldn't have seen otherwise, and I'd like to suggest it as an alternative to both Salzburg or Munich as a stop-over point. Quiet, relaxed, lots of inexpensive places to stay, restaurants, and it's on the main line between Salzburg and Munich, so it's very convenient. I was very thankful for this mans kindness in helping me, and so Rosenheim will always have a special place in my heart.