Accommodations

Most travelers automatically think of hostels when they think of budget accommodations. Hostels usually are the cheapest and best way to go if you’re on a tight budget, but there are exceptions, especially if you are traveling in a couple or a group. Two or more people can often find a room in a hotel or pension for about the same price as an equivalent number of hostel beds, and often with much better amenities. So, especially if you are in a group, don’t simply march to the nearest hostel and ignore all other possibilities. Shopping around can save you time, keep you away from packed and noisy dorms, and maybe even save you money. This is where Commandments One, Two, and Three rear their happy heads in triplicate.

If you are traveling light, it’s much easier to spend some time going around to several places before choosing one. u you’ve arrived early, you have more options than someone who shows up as night is falling. And if you’ve planned ahead, you have a reservation somewhere, so you’re not searching out of desperation.After sleeping everywhere from plush resorts to rooftops, I can SaY that there is often no correlation between the quality of the experience you have in a place you stay and the price you pay to ray there. I have slept in very cheap places that were spacious,nght, and immaculately clean, and I have stayed in hotels that cost Ur times as much and were shabby, dark, and depressing. In the words of an old German traveler I met in Italy: “What 1 look for are clean bathrooms and friendly people. With those two, everything else I can live with.”

One handy tip, which I will try and repeat elsewhere: Europeans like to travel too. Since they can get to major tourist attractions and major cities on weekends, they do this a lot. (At Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria, the most touristy of places, at least two-thirds of the crowd on the day I went chose the tour given in German.) Try and time your arrival at major cities, and your visits to major attractions, for days other than Friday, Saturday, and holidays.

In general, the price of accommodations declines as you move south and east. Don’t go only to hostels in Portugal, Spain, Greece, and especially in Eastern Europe. In Scandinavia, on the other hand, hostels and camping are usually the only accommodations that are reasonably affordable, especially for solo travelers. In other countries, the size of the city may make the difference. For example, a hostel in a village in England 1 once went to charged -£^\ 2 for breakfast and a bed in a very large, but very clean, dorm. In the same town, a beautiful little bed and breakfast charged £13 for a single room that looked like something out of House and Garden. The sweet old woman who owned the place made me sandwiches when I showed up after the local pub had closed, and proudly showed me pictures of her son, the Police Constable. It was worth the extra “quid,” believe me.