Hi!

I am going to be traveling to Europe in April 2006 and was starting to look into accomodation options. I will be traveling with three other friends to the UK, France, Spain, Italy and Greece. I was wondering what are the best places to search for accomodation choices and if I should be reserving accomodation ahead of time. Also, We are going to be in Seville, Spain during the April festival and am i wondering if anyone had any ideas for budget accomodation options or if anyone has been in Seville during the festival, and what they did for places to stay.
Any feedback would be very helpful.

Thank you!

Posting a thread with a specific area(s) in the title will get you lots suggestions for places to stay. In your posts actually include your nightly $/£/€ budget to help folks know what sorts of places you are looking for. Just "budget accomodations" means many things to many people so help us with some numbers.

Just a general question - you say you are going in April. How long are you planning for this trip - just a couple of weeks in April -- or several weeks starting in April? The reason I ask is you have listed 5 countries spread over a huge area and it really isn't possible/practical to see much in all of them w/o at least 5 or 6 weeks travel time.

www.venere.com

Travel in Europe is said to peak in August. All tourist lodging gets tight around August. In April there should be rooms available.

Whether or not you need reservations is is a personal/ travel group decision.

Since you mentioned a specific festival in Seville, you might want reservations there. (So that you know that you have convenient accomodations that fit your budget.)

People looking for budget accomodations often look at websites from Lonely Planet, Ruff Guide, hostel groups, etc.

I stayed at the Hostal Lis II when I was in Seville for the Feria. The room was small and basic and I had to share a bathroom, but it was relatively inexpensive. Because of the demand for rooms at that time be sure to make your reservations at least 3 months in advance or you will NOT find anything affordable later on. And be advised that during the Feria room rates are sometimes twice the normal rate. The locals know what they have and are not shy about taking advantage of the situation. The cheap hotels are called Hostales, not to be confused with "Hostels."

Conduct your search using Google.com for the most complete results

Thanks for the suggestions. We're actually going to London and Paris for a few days at the beginning of our trip before going to Spain, italy and Greece for 5 weeks. I will definately look into lonely planet sites, etc.

www.lonelyplanet.com

The BB similar style to this one is called "The Thorn Tree". There's something like 250,000 registered posters on that board.

For Spain I highly recommend the Paradores--www.parador.es. Also check out bancotel.com and petrabax.com.

We were in Seville during Santa Semana and you will need reservations far in advance and everything will cost more.

here are a few links that may be of help to you we stayed in an ibis hotel in northern italy last year basic but cheap for a stop over have them in few countries u mentioned

http://www.ibishotel.com/ibis/index.html

in UK try -
http://www.travelodge.co.uk

or try some of the hostel websites like -http://www.yha.org.uk/Stay_at_YHA/Groups/Adult_and_Social_Group_Zone.html

http://www.hostelworld.com

hope these help

Jo