You have worked your socks off, and it’s time you took some well-deserved rest by travelling somewhere new.
Once you choose the destination, the search for the perfect hotel can begin. But where should you start and how can you choose? There are so many choices available, and it can feel like a big time investment to browse through most of them.
Well, as an ambitious perfectionist, I can tell you that I’ve wasted plenty of time choosing the perfect one. However, in the last few years, it has become a much simpler, stress-free task, and I’ll be sharing some of our tips with you in this article so you can save your time and use it to have a fun evening instead!
Before jumping into our guide, let’s backtrack a little. What’s attractive about staying in hotels? Yes, hotels can be quite expensive if you look at the options like staying in a hostel or couch surfing. However, they can give you the sense of calm and security when you are using it as your base for a few days. Personally, I love pretending I’m living in that new city for a few days, and staying at the hotel is the next best thing to an Airbnb.
How to have a delightful stay at a hotel without breaking your back
1. Pay close attention to the location
The location of your hotel matters for a handful of reasons. First, it will have an impact on how long you have to travel between the hotel and the sightseeing locations. The further away you are, the earlier you will probably need to make your way back.
Secondly, you want to know what area you are staying in. There’s no fun in staying in a hotel next to two completely abandoned buildings and an open field which also requires you to either walk through China town or take a long train journey to get to the city centre (as we found out when we got disappointed in Milan).
And lastly, being in close proximity of what you value will make your journey more pleasant. Prefer to stay as close to the city because you can walk everywhere? Or, do you prefer to avoid the buzz and enjoy the green areas? Let’s find out.
2. Know how you like to travel
This one is quite an important step. Do you travel to relax and let others take care of you? Or do you want to be challenged, learn new facts and dive into a completely different culture?
Knowing how you like to travel can tell you a lot about what kind of hotel you’d enjoy most. If you don’t care that much for breakfast, don’t upgrade your room. If you will be mostly outdoors, you don’t need a fancy room. And finally, if your aim is to travel on a tight budget, only spend money on experiences you know you will enjoy (for example, your bucket list items).
If you don’t figure this out, you find yourself feeling quite unsatisfied — either with your hotel choice or that you spent way too much money and it wasn’t worth it in the end.
3. Create a list of your must-haves and nice-to-haves
Over the last four years that Oskar and I have been travelling, we have realised that we have a list of must-haves and nice-to-haves when it comes to choosing the hotel. Here is what we care for (feel free to use this for inspiration when narrowing your hotel list down):
Must-haves for hotels
- Good location with no more than a 30-minute walk between the hotel and the main sightseeing activities. If you are planning a short stay (<4 days), every hour counts, so wasting it on sitting in traffic doesn’t sound like a good idea, especially after having spent that much money on aeroplane tickets, transfers and the lot.
- Clean, well-sized room with a slightly modern interior. After Milan and a few experiences after, we realised that we don’t enjoy overly modern interiors with weird shapes and colours. When we get to our hotel room, we want to rest up and get ready for the next day of exploration, so we tend to choose very light interior when possible.
- Good breakfast options: included or great options nearby. Hotel breakfasts may seem a bit boring, especially compared to the next up-and-coming cafe on the corner, but it can take a lot of time to find great places to eat spontaneously. We used to skip the breakfast options at hotels and choose to look for something in the morning which almost always left me hungry for most of the first part of the day. It’s fine when you are lounging in the car, but it’s not as great when you want to spend an active day outdoors.
Don’t let the breakfast options be a deal-breaker though. It may be not the healthiest option, but having some freshly baked cafe with good coffee beats regular breakfast.
Nice-to-haves for hotels
- Bath. Staying at a hotel is a chance to relax, so a bath is definitely on the nice-to-have list. It’s almost on the must-have, to be honest, but we have had great breaks in hotel rooms with a shower only, and the former can be quite expensive.
Having a long bath after a full day of exploration without a worry in your mind is a brilliant way of reliving the moments from the day and charging up for your next adventure.
- Nice view. It’s tough to get a great room on a budget with beautiful views, but it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try. If you are flying on your birthday, anniversary or any other joyous occasion, don’t forget to mention when making your booking. You may just be in for a little treat.
- Gym or Swimming Pool. This is something I’ve been trying to get into but have only succeeded once so far, and it’s exercising while travelling. All that glorious food and cocktails can accumulate quite fast so, in the version of my dream life, I travel and exercise in the mornings.
4. Use a reputable website to choose a hotel and compare prices
You can use individual hotel websites to make your booking, but before you do, you may want to compare the prices in the area to get the best value for your money. You may be surprised at how the prices in specific hotels can differ by date due to availability and events in the area.
One of the best places to look is booking.com* — you can compare prices based on date, location and plenty of hotel features like the WiFi, parking, amenities, and of course, guest rating and stars. I used to compare multiple sites like this, but booking.com has won me over with their simple user interface and the extra mile they go to make sure your trip is more enjoyable. For example, you automatically receive a trip guide to the city you are travelling to, with discounts for popular attractions as well as guidance on experiences and food destinations.
There are other websites for browsing hotels though, like Trivago, and I know that Momondo is getting into this as well. What’s important is that you look at the prices, decide on the price range you are comfortable with and start building your list.
With your location and must-haves in mind, you can start narrowing down your list. It will take you some time at the start, but don’t worry as it’s a simple task and it will get faster each time you take this approach.
Once you have set your eyes on a particular hotel for your city break, I’d recommend making a quick check on the hotel’s website, just in case they have a deal for the same room, or you can get some extras for free.
* That’s an affiliate link for booking.com but hey — we both win! If you end up booking your stay after clicking this link, you’ll get 10% off your trip and I’ll get £20 I can spend on my next hotel It’s a win-win. 😉
5. Narrow your choice down based on your preferences and reviews
Alright, but what if you have a list of hotels that look alright but you are not sure which one to go for? Use these three steps to pick the winner.
Compare by what’s important to you (location, hotel features, and of course, price).
Sort the tabs of your semi-finalists/quarter-finalists and compare them even more based on the money you are paying and what you are getting in return. We mostly look at the breakfast photos, if the hotel has any of our nice-to-haves (since we would have sorted the must-haves already).
Double check the hotel against the fresh/new reviews
Some hotels had excellent service in the past and have seen a steep decline. There’s nothing quite like entering your hotel room and realising that the photos you saw were probably taken more than 10 years ago.
Also, pay close attention to the photos, when do you think these were taken? — customer reviews are usually the best as they are timestamped, and you can actually see how rooms and the public areas of the hotel look without professional lighting and HDR toning.
Tripple check the reviews on other websites
Check not only on the website you are booking your room on but also Google Reviews and TripAdvisor. Street viewing the property helped us to narrow down our lists too on some occasions! 😉
6. Enjoy it when you get there
Be friendly and kind to hotel staff
This may sound like a given, but sometimes it can really make all the difference in the world to be nice to the staff.
We got quite lucky with our three day trip to Prague recently — the hotel where we were meant to be staying had an “incident”, so our room was no longer available like many others at the hotel. We could have fallen into distress but instead reacted kindly. The lovely ladies at reception directed us to the sister hotel just across the street which they assured us, would be a great substitute. Instead, it was a fantastic upgrade to a one bedroom apartment costing almost double the price!
Skip the minibar – go shopping at the supermarket
Going shopping where the locals do must have been the best travel hack of 2017 for us. Why overspend on eating out when you are not feeling like it? Instead, pop by a local supermarket, stock up on ready-made local food like cooked meats or salad greens, some fresh fruit and the drinks of your choice.
Going shopping like this has saved us quite a bit of money, and it’s actually quite romantic if you come to think of it. It’s just the two of you enjoying each other’s company and tasting different flavours together. The money you save on that odd meal at the room can be better spent on an activity, a tour or even a more luxurious dinner at a restaurant.
Same applies to cocktails by the way — if you like your G&T, why not enjoy that in the comfort of your hotel with a movie. By the way, here’s a little hack. If you travel with your laptop and your hotel room has a big TV, bring an HDMI cable with you so you can connect the former to the TV and enjoy a great movie with that cocktail.
Over to you
And that wraps it up! You should now be fully suited to choose the best hotel for you online without having to worry too much about making the wrong choice. If there’s anything else that you’d love to add to these tips or simply tell us about your experience of booking online, please let us know in the comments!
By the way, we usually book the flights and the hotel separately which gives us more control over our holiday, but I’m sure we may give that a spin at some point in our future travels! So if you have any experience with the latter, do tell us.
10 comments
I would say that location and food are really important.
You are quite right! We love great food and location is super important. Thanks so much for leaving a comment! 🙂
There really are several things to look for when you’re choosing a hotel and I definitely agree with a lot of the points you’ve made about what a person needs. After all, you will definitely want to make sure that the hotel you’ve chosen is in a good location. Ideally, you’ll want it close enough to get to the main attractions of where you’re vacationing, but far enough away that you can still relax.
Hey Duncan! How have you been? Happy New Year! We’ve been a bit off the grid. 😅
Thanks so much for taking the time to read our blog and leaving a comment. Couldn’t agree with you more about getting a hotel that’s in close proximity to main attractions but far enough so you can still relax. Thanks again! Hope to see you on our blog again. 😊
I wanted to thank you for this advice for finding a good hotel. I’m glad that you mentioned that you should try to think about what’s important to you and pay attention to those features when looking at hotels. This sounds really important especially if those features can really impact how your trip will go.
Hey Taylor – thanks SO much for taking the time to leave a comment on our blog. Really glad we could be of service! 😊 Happy travels!
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Really nice article Veronika. Completely agree with you. When choosing a hotel, location is one of the most important things. Close to sightseeing destinations, but away from traffic. Also, look for events that might be taking place nearby. Such events can disturb your stay.
That’s such great advice, Richard! Thanks so much for reading and commenting on our blog. 😊