Is it neccessary to plan to the point of making reservations in each city in advance or can we just show up and find something? I wouldn't be happy to wind up in a dive, but am not looking for anything fancy either. Just a clean room with a bed and bathroom. Thoughts?

Depends on when you are traveling and where you are going. We travel like this a lot but with kids, it can be dicey. If you are flexible and are happy with a private room, you should be fine. If you want a hotel on the coast in Croatia in July, you may have a probem.
Cheers,
Jan

Krowden,
We always plan hotels in each of the city's we travel to in advance. We search in travel books and online for rates and most times we ask here if anyone has stayed at the hotel we are considering. Almost always someone on fodors has stayed there and can give us their opinion.
It is a great feeling to know that we have a clean room with a bed waiting for us in a strange city, rather than fumbling around looking for a room once we get there.
It's worth the effort.
Happy Travels!

This is what I have noticed. I started making my reservations for my late Dec./early Jan. trip to Italy in September. At the time I started looking, I had a fair number of budget choices. I'm pretty happy with what I've selected, but I still keep an eye on things in case some spectacular deal appears. So as I've continued looking, I've discovered that most of the low-budget deals I saw in September are no longer available. This is particularly true for Venice and Florence.

I think if you want to stick to a low budget and you also want an optimal location and you also want a place with good reviews, the safest thing is to book in advance. Some people are quite happy just showing up at the city tourist office and finding something, and apparently there are often good deals to be had that way. Short of a scientifically conducted survey, I'm not sure how to find out what works out best overall. But I feel safer if I book a place knowing that the reviews I have found indicate that the place is reasonable.

Hi krowden,

If you know where you will be on a given night, it is much better to make reservations in advance, especially if you are going in season.

If you are just going to wing it, a lot of time will be spent looking for a room.

I think the decision of whether to make advance reservations has a lot to do with three factors: Is the hotel an important aspect of the travel experience? Is the security of knowing a bed for the night has been arranged especially comforting? Is the security of knowing the lodging expenses in advance important?

For us, the answer is usually "no" to all three questions. The most important exception is that when we go on hiking trips and stay in one location for a week, we like to rent an apartment so we can easily relax in the evenings and so we can prepare lunches for hiking and cook the evening meal.

Depending on the type of vacation, whether it is the busy season, and location of the vacation, we make reservations ahead of time or not. Sometimes we make reservations for parts of our vacation and not for other parts.

If we're lucky enough to be settled in for a week in one place, we'll do the research to reserve a place that best meets our needs. If we're moving around a lot, we might prefer the flexibility of being able to alter our itinerary and not being bound to reservations made in advance.

If we're going to large cities, we tend to make reservations ahead of time. That ensures that we stay in the locale of our choice and eliminates the time and hassle spent navigating a city while also trying to find a hotel in the right price range, etc. That's especially true if our first night is in a large city that we fly to; we would often be without a car in that circumstance on our first day.

Naturally, if it is a really popular location at the busy season, we would make reservations in advance to ensure we have a place to sleep. Guide books and the nice people who participate in these forums give a reliable idea about whether reservations in advance are really necessary.

One general rule is that the less populated the area, the less we tend to make reservations in advance. As an example, we traveled through New Zealand for two weeks without reservations, except we made them a couple days ahead of time once we realized we would be spending the holiday weekend in a national park.