Does anyone know if there is a book or list of guesthouses in Germany, Austria and Prague that we can take with us when we travel to this area in early Sept.? We would like to be able to call ahead to a guesthouse in the next town as we travel and not be tied down to hotel reservations. Thank you.
Posted by
Danville, VT
12040 posts
For the type of travel it seems like you want to do, go with Lonely Planet. Although some of their recommendations are not up to the standards of Rick Steves, their books are far more comprehensive. I was actually looking for a similar source several years ago and couldn't find anything.
Posted by
Paradise
7072 posts
Most German towns' tourist office websites have webpages with COMPLETE listings of all types. Print them out before you go.
Here's an example of St. Goar's:
Posted by
Lakewood, Colorado
19274 posts
I'm sure most people know by now that the weakness of the Rick Steves' guidebooks is their lack of variety. (I have to be careful here, because in my early day of European travel, Rick was certainly my mentor and his philosophy encouraged me to "find my own backdoors".) But really, Germany is more than the Mosel, Rhein, Rothenburg, the Romantic Road, and Reutte (ops, Austria). You have to find your own back doors. If you want to expand your horizons beyond the confines of his books, you have to look a little farther. Every town in German (almost, anyways) has a website at www.townname.de. There you can find accommodations, although not always in English.
Not planning your trip well, and not having reservations is a recipe for disaster. Someone wrote, "Failing to plan is planning to fail." Why spent a thousand $$ or more per person for airfare and then say, "what should we see". Plan your time wisely.
If you think just rolling into town and finding an accommodation is a good idea, remember, there are lots of people out there planning their trips in detail, and they reserve ahead. If you wait, what you get is going to be what they rejected.
That said, I would suggest a good univeral guidebook, like Fodor's or Lonely Planet. Better yet, find these local websites and find the real treasures.
Posted by
OP
Lansdale, PA, USA
40 posts
Thank you all for responding. When we traveled to Ireland, we had a book of guesthouses and called ahead about every one to two days and had a wonderful trip,met wonderful people and had a great time. Never having been to Germany before, we had thought maybe we could have a similar experience. You never know until you ask. We will take your advice and print out guesthouse listing from towns we believe we will visit. Plus we will reserve rooms or apartments in the towns we know we will spending more than one or two nights.
Posted by
Myrtle Beach, USA
12314 posts
Rick has pretty good, if limited, suggestions. Lonely Planet and Rough Guide include a lot more options.
My technique is to use all those books to get a large list of potential places. From the large list, I use tripadvisor to help me thin it out. I travel with the thinned out list and call the morning before I arrive to find a place.
Since I travel shoulder season, I usually have pretty good luck. Sometimes I have to call a second or third option to find a room but I've never gone homeless.
The scariest was in Munich on opening day of Oktoberfest. I arrived about 9am and decided to go through the TI (since I expected it to be crowded). The TI looked like the trading floor of the Chicago Mercantile, so I went to a phone booth and started calling from my list. I found a great pension, at a normal rate, on about my fifth call.