I don't re-confirm unless it's been months since I made the booking. I do take the printed confirmation with me though.

Melnq8 has basically said what I was planning to write when I saw the title of your post. It is really important to take booking confirm with you, as we discovered when finding our booking had not actually been made although we had confirmation!! Once upon a time we also used to confirm our flights but it doesn't seem to be necessary now.

Marsh,

I may do a bit of overkill, but this method has served me well:

I send an email a few days before arrival to let the place know that we're coming, where we'll be driving from (location and name of hotel/B&B), and the expected time of arrival. I also bring a printed confirmation for all the places where we have reservations (or if we make them on the fly, I have the confirmation email on my computer).

Since many of the places we stay are small and/or operator-owned, this has always been appreciated by them. In addition, on our recent trip to the South Island of NZ, the road to our next B&B was closed due to flooding and the owners called the B&B where we were the night before to let us know.

I like a lot of transparency, and think this helps all 'round. It takes very little effort, and pays off.

Happy travels,

LisaG

After I posted this question, I went ahead and sent e-mails to my reserved hotels. Most of them responded and a few said they would pick us up at our arrival point! That is a big help!