Lodging in Germany

Hi Carolyn, My suggestion would be to figure out the towns/villages you may be staying in or near, check the local town website and make a short list of a couple places that look good to you just in case. Paul

Someone (Churchill, Twain, Franklin, ?) once said, "Failing to plan is planning to fail". Before you spend all of the money and time getting to Europe, figure out where you want to go and what you want to see. Then when you have the itinerary laid out to do all of that, look at train schedules and accommodations. Use town websites (www.town_name.de) to find accommodations. Remember, other people are planning ahead and looking for reservations. If you wait until you are there, you'll get what they didn't want. Would you spend money for a tour that said, "We'll go someplace, stay somewhere, see something"?

"Planning" and "stuck to a schedule" are two different things. You can make a plan, but then adapt it on the fly. As long as you haven't made a non-refundable prepayment for accommodations, you can change them. It does help to have a cell phone that will work in Germany to make calls to hotels - either to book them while traveling, or to cancel prior reservations in a timely manner. You'll also probably want a car, to make it easier to drive to the next town if there's no room at your first one. I agree with Lee that just "showing up and winging it" for the whole trip is probably not a good idea. But not everyone likes his recommended degree of planning (I do, however - very much. I plan as much as he does). He is right that the best values in each category tend to go first. In a busy place and/or at a busy time, that's a problem; outside of that, it can be fine, as long as you're not too picky. If you do have special needs/wants, you had better research and reserve in advance. If you can be flexible, you don't have to. You should know that this question comes up often, here and on other travel boards. Some people are planners, and some aren't. Both can have good trips - as long as expectations are adjusted. For instance, some are bothered by the idea of "wasting time" on vacation looking for hotels, and others counter that it doesn't take much time or effort for them. To each their own. No matter what, you want your first and last night's accommodation nailed down before you leave. Since your flights can't be changed (unless you're dripping with dough), you know where you need to be, and there's no advantage to not having these reserved.

if you are traveling by car, I wouldn't worry about winging it. If you are going by train, I would try to make reservations. Looking for some ideas ahead of time is a good idea. Unless you are a very fussy traveler, I don't think you will have any problem finding suitable places

To find out about places to stay, go to the various town websites - usually www.(town name).de Even if the site has an English version, with rare exceptions (such as Rothenburg), I find more information on accommodations on the German version.

Even if the website is in German only, and I find many towns, even small ones with English on their websites, there are usually only a few words needed get to the accommodation listing. For example, Tourismus is tourism, Hotel is hotel, Unterkunft is accommodations, Übernachten is overnight, Zimmer is room. Often the list will give you URLs and when you get to the website, it will have an English option, even if the town's website doesn't.

Why avoid the big cities? Berlin and Munich are great.

As someone in the midst of planning a trip 2 and 1/2 week trip in Sept-Oct to Germany/Austria - I've been researching/making reservations. And I've noticed a few things - of course it all depends on your budget and where you're going. It's Oktoberfest starting 9/22, so if you're planning on going to the Munich area - reserve now - we are staying in the area for 5 days, daytripping to various locations. we're staying about 30 miles out of Munich, and when we go into Munich, we're going by train. Munich and surrounding areas are booking up fast - unless you're okay with paying >$200/night. Cologne is having a mega worldwide imaging convention mid-Sept - prices are up and availability is low, at least in the old town and around convention center.
Rothenburg was filling up,also on the dates I was looking at - at least at the properties I wanted!. But we found a cool Castle Hotel, in Colmberg 15 minutes away. What we are doing is mostly staying in the general vicinity of what activities we want to do, and then daytripping around with a car- I hate to pack/repack and move, so that's working for us. It might give you the flexibility of not-planning, and the peace of mind of reservations at the same time.

The advice you've been given here is good. Finding vacancies in most places during that time is fine (except in Munich during Oktoberfest) but you may want to consider that you do lose valuable vacation time searching for lodging upon arrival somewhere. You also are often going to pay more than you would booking in advance, because the places that offer the best value and are popular are still likely to book up first. If you're cool with that though, and have a car, go for it.