If you’re going to Europe as part of a tour group, hotels and accommodations are provided for you. But what if you’re doing it all on your own? How do you find the right place for you and your family in places as different as London, England and Quedlinburg, Germany?
Know where you’re going
I’m not one to take a chance on hotels by waiting until I’m in a town and spontaneously deciding that I am going to stay the night, especially with a family in tow. When we were in Europe, we made advanced reservations for each night. The first step of course was deciding where we wanted to be and when.
There’s no right or wrong answer when you’re deciding where you want to go. We knew we wanted to visit London and have an extended period of time in Germany; we originally thought about Paris, but then realized that three countries in three weeks would be pushing it a little, especially since we wanted to see different areas of Germany. So we created an itinerary that would work for us, then started looking at available properties.
One night vs many
One key to our search was the number of nights we were staying. When we left London, we flew out of Stansted Airport. Getting from Queensbay (the area of London where we stayed) to the airport in time for our very early morning flight would have been crazy. So our last night in England was at a Hampton Inn within walking distance of the airport. It wasn’t roomy, it wasn’t great, but it worked for what we needed.
However, our other six nights in London were in a lovely 2bedroom/2bath flat. We had plenty of room to stretch out, a full kitchen, and were close to two different Tube stations and three grocery stores (plus restaurants and parks).
Who ya gonna call?
Yeah, it’s not 1984. Everyone books online. So who you gonna book with? We used both Airbnb and Booking.com for the majority of nights, but visited the Hampton and Holiday Inn sites directly when we overnighted in those hotels. For the extended stays in London, Berlin, and Munich, we used Airbnb to reserve two-bedroom flats with full kitchens so we could eat meals there when we needed a break from the masses and save a little money. Two of the apartments had outside decks which were great for starting the day with a cup of coffee or just to sit and relax.
For our week-long drive through Germany, where we were staying one night and then moving on, we used Booking.com and found several Bed and Breakfasts in historic buildings.
Where is the best location?
Location depends on your priorities. City centers are convenient but noisy, and the suburbs are quieter but further away. We used online maps to determine the sites we were most interested in and how long it would take the metro to get us there from various points in the cities. We didn’t want the noise of being right downtown, but also didn’t want to spend an eternity on the subway. In each city, we found a spot no more than 15 minutes away from the key areas of town. The metro station was within five minutes of each of our apartments, and only in Berlin was the walk to the grocery store as much as 10 minutes.
If you want to be at bars until 3am, a downtown location (or one over a bar) would work for you. If you have kids who might be too noisy for close in living, a house or duplex could be the answer.
What is your ideal?
Do you need lots of space with a kitchen or just a bunk in a hostel? With four of us traveling, we wanted a two-bedroom apartment with at least one full and one half-bathroom, a full kitchen, and a den/common area. We managed to meet these requirements at all but one of the apartments. In Berlin, we had only one bathroom. But the flat was huge and in a good location, and the kitchen was well-stocked.
This changed for our one-night stays as we traveled around Germany. Having breakfast included was mandatory, since we didn’t want to find a new restaurant each morning. Although separate bedrooms were nice, we also were fine in the tiny hotel rooms near Stansted Airport and in Stuttgart.
Meet some interesting people
One of the best experiences of our trip was meeting the owners of these inns. In Fussen, we learned that the husband and wife had moved from Romania and restored a 700-year-old building. It was beautiful and she was a joy to talk to. She offered a take-along lunch for us when we visited the castles the next day and gave us directions on where to park.
Differences between US and Europe
Finding an apartment with more than one bathroom is like finding a car with an automatic transmission. They are available but they will be more expensive.
Also, floors are counted differently in Europe. In Berlin we were on the 3rd floor but in the US it would have been the 4th. Most historic buildings in Europe do not have elevators. This only caused a headache when we were taking our luggage up after having taken the train from the Berlin airport. It was unseasonably hot and we were still in our warmer clothes from London. But it was great being on the top floor.
Read reviews
Booking and Airbnb both have areas where you can review the accommodation after you’ve stayed there. Read what others have said, as many as you feel necessary. We found a place in Munich that was perfect until we read that the grocery store next door received deliveries at 6am. We learned that the hotel in Bamberg was unstaffed and required you to enter a code to enter. They were supposed to send you this code. We never received it but lucked into arriving as another couple was checking in.
With Airbnb especially, look for times the host has canceled the reservation with little or no warning. A few places we considered had several instances where this had happened. I didn’t want to get to London to learn that my Airbnb in Munich was suddenly not available.
And like everything else in Europe, be flexible. Our place in Quedlinburg turned out to be two completely separate apartments. It worked great and we had two bathrooms and four beds. We stayed in the same room until it was time to sleep, then met up again for breakfast.
There’s something to be said for going with a tour group. But our family enjoyed researching the towns and cities and finding places to stay, and we met some truly memorable people. The freedom of selecting our accommodations was well worth the time we put into finding them.
Photo by Marley