hotels & Prices

"I can't make a rigid schedule for the hotels as I know nothing about the countries." Are you not planning to read guidebooks/travel websites and look at maps before you leave, so you can learn about the countries and decide what you want to see, and determine driving distances from place to place? Or do you just prefer to leave it all to chance?

Of course you can. In the last ten or twelve years, I've spent a couple or three wandering around europe. I remember one reservation because of a wedding and a couple because we were meeting up with several others and wanted to all be in the same joint. That's it. This might not apply to the guidebook-touted places, but I never read up on those and have no idea if I've ever stayed in any. I get a chuckle when the high-panic questions pop up here about all of the RickSpots being full six months ahead of time and people seem to be afraid they'll have to sleep under a bridge. In my mind you're doing it the right way. Stop when you're done for the day and don't tie yourself to a schedule - - it's too darn constraining.

Thanks
We have checked a lot of books ,blogs, and maps. We have made several trips to France and 1 to Italy where we had all of the reservations nailed down and every day was on a schedule. Creates a lot of stress. I am trying to balance out which is the least stressful.

We have traveled using both methods: reservations every night, or totally winging it. We've had variable success either way. Having reservations can reduce your stress because you know you have a place no matter what, but it can also increase your stress if you feel pushed to arrive at a certain place at a certain time. Having no reservations can be freeing, but it can be stressful if you can't find anything when you are ready to stop. Once, we ended up in an area where they were having some type of big festival of which we had not been aware and there were no rooms available anywhere. We had to drive quite a distance to find something after we were quite tired, and we ended up with unsatisfactory accomodations. I would recommend that you at least map out your route and have a general idea of where you would stop each night. Then check to see what's going on in the area and perhaps have a list of possible accomodations in that area from which to choose.

The countries you'll be driving through are studded with small towns and villages off the beaten path and most of them have one or more places that offer overnight accommodations and most likely also good meals. It's not like in the US where your next town could be dozens of miles away or even hundreds.....Take a couple maps, GPS and go for it. I'd check with Triple A and see if they have reciprocity with some European automobile clubs, too. Also be aware that some of these countries have very strict drinking/driving laws.

Latching on to what D.D. said - what I do is plan my route ahead of time and then find accommodations on the web in a bunch of towns along the planned route. Make a list of name, address, phone number, prices. That way you can say "If I decide to stop for the night here, I can stay at this place. If I decide to go further, or stop earlier, I can stay at this place." It gives you flexibility without being nailed down.

Most trips I simply wing it, and have always found places that I was happy with. If its a big city... Rome, Paris, I will sometimes have a reservation. But, reserving ahead can be a lot of stress as others have mentioned... getting there on time as well as finding it. As long as I have a car I know I can just move on to the next town... stress, maybe... but so is planning out all the details at home. I don't mind figuring it out as I go along.... but it is certainly not for everyone, especially those who are big planners. I do some planning, but usually just a general idea, and of course I plan what I am going to wear!

The bad part about a walk-in is you do not get a discounted rate. You pay the rack rate, which can be really expensive. Example, Ibis-Heathrow. I paid 39 Pounds for a night. The walk-in rate is 129.00 Pounds. If you are doing hostels, then the rates are close to the same, either way, but hotels, gonna be expensive if not booked before you get there. You can book a day or two in advance and get a good rate using hotwire, expedia, laterooms.com, etc.

We usually do mostly "winging it" when we are touring th British countryside (small villages etc). I usually have a list of inns that sound interesting (I have a thing for coaching inns) and mark them on my map. So if we are getting toward the end of the day I see if i have any selections close by and aim at those. ( i do usually pre-book weekends when travelling in Summer0. If i were doing Europe I would do the same thing.

One specific warning if you are planning to sleep in Strasbourg: for one week a month the European Parliament has sessions there, and during that week it is very difficult to get accomodation. You can look up sittings on the parliament website nearer the time.