Choosing the perfect hotel is one of the most important things to consider when planning a trip. Along with flights, accommodation is what will influence the travel budget the most.
In addition to the economic issue, there are several points that we have to take a good look at in order to choose the perfect accommodation for each one.
Over the years we’ve been traveling together, we’ve stayed in quite a few hotels, some nice, some not so nice, and we’ve learned that hotels can greatly influence our experience, though not always in a good way.
The first thing you have to do is define what exactly you are looking for .
Some things to take into account are the budget , the number of days that you are going to stay or the area in which you want to stay. In addition, you must also take into account the public transport available or the possibility of having a car at your disposal.
To begin with, we must remember that cheap is usually expensive. We try not to book the cheapest accommodation we can find, although sometimes, due to traveling on a very tight budget, we had to do so.
If this is your case, and you need to book a hotel with the cheapest possible price, you have to take into account that you will have to give up some amenities .
The ubication
Location is very important when choosing accommodation.
The first thing you have to look at is how long it takes to walk or take public transport from the accommodation to the main tourist spots. It is also good to check the timetables of the metro or buses and the price of the ticket .
Normally the cheapest hotels are located further away from the city center or tourist attractions. In towns or small cities this is not a problem, but in big cities you will surely have to take public transport and thus waste time and money .
If what you are going to pay for public transport to get from the accommodation to the city center multiplied by the number of days you are going to stay adds up to more than the difference between a somewhat remote accommodation and an accommodation in the center, it is not worth it !
If you find very cheap accommodation on the outskirts of a city and have enough time, it may be worth taking public transport as long as the tickets are cheap.
The score and comments of customers who have already stayed at the hotel
We almost always book through Booking , but in any hotel search engine you can see the score that customers assign to the hotel, the comments and opinions of those who have already stayed there.
In Booking, next to any of the hotels offered, the overall score appears, which is usually between 6 and 9.5. This score is based on the notes that customers have given to various aspects of the accommodation such as location , cleanliness , staff , comfort , value for money , Wi-Fi , facilities and services .
Each of these aspects is important. As we have mentioned in the previous point, the location is essential.
Cleanliness is also very important, because we all like to stay in neat and clean places. There are countries where cleanliness does not have the same levels as in Europe, but we already know that in advance.
For the rest we try to be guided by the comments. We give less importance to the other aspects. But this also depends on each one.
We never book an accommodation that has no comments and we always try to book those with a score of more than 7 . This of course is personal preference.
This does not mean that hotels with a score of less than 6 are bad, but that surely some of the comforts have to be given up.
Breakfast
Having breakfast included in the price is very important!
In addition to being the most important meal of the day, having breakfast included in the hotel price is great when traveling on a low budget .
There are times when we have a big breakfast at the hotel and at lunchtime we just have a snack. In this way we save one meal a day.
Now it also depends on how the breakfast is. There are hotels that serve you breakfasts worthy of kings and others that serve you very little food and sometimes of poor quality.
Wi-Fi
If you are going on vacation somewhere and your intention is to disconnect from your mobile or upload a couple of stories to Instagram, the speed of the connection may not be important to you.
But if instead you are a digital nomad or need to work online while staying in a hotel, the best thing would be to look at the score that other travelers have given to Wi-fi and also look through the comments, because people often comment on the speed of the connection
Photographs
Finally, and this as a personal preference, after having found several accommodations in the area in which we are interested, with prices and characteristics that we are looking for, what we usually do is look at all the photos to see which one we think is the most beautiful .
Since there are usually several similar options, why not choose the most beautiful one and feel comfortable ?
These are our tips to keep in mind when booking a hotel and we hope they will help you. And remember, never book the first hotel you see.
Finding the perfect accommodation requires a bit of time and reading a lot of reviews . At the end of the day we need to be comfortable in a place to be able to rest well.
When you use our links to organize your trips, you get the best price and sometimes even discounts, and we receive a small commission that helps us maintain this blog and keep publishing articles to help you organize your trips.
