How to go about...
 

Hey all.
I'm a high school senior planning my first trip to europe (with a friend) this summer before I head off to college.
And I have a question about hostels.
But first, where we're going:
London, Brussels, Paris, Amsterdam (also geneva, but we're camping).

We want to fly by the seat of our pants as much as humanly possible for this trip, meaning NO RESERVATIONS!
With hostels, is it possible to walk up the DAY OF and expect to get a place to sleep for 2 or 3 days?

please dont laugh hahaha.

Thanks in advance!

Hi F/Newbie,

Your title is way too vague. Be more specific, and you'll receive a lot more responses.

haha alright sounds good. thanks.

haha???

just laughing at myself.
i feel naive that's all.

With hostels, just like hotels, there are good and bad; good location and poor location, clean and unkempt, friendly and rude, a bargain and a bad deal.

Considering how many students are ttravleing each summer (the vast majority of them european with an in on choices) what do you think you'll end up with if you wait until the day you get there.

(A friend of mine once arrived in Berlin without a hotel reservatin in May. She wanted a hotel - and was willing to pay $150 per night. All she could get was a not very clean 4th floor walk-up with shared bath in a pension above a Live Sex Club.)

At a minimum do all the research befoerhand and see if any decent places have room a couple of weeks before you leave. If not - reserve ASAP.

Or, if they do, reserve the next city the day before you leave the present one.

Any time other than the summer, and you could probably do it (ie, just walk up to a hostel and get a dorm or a room). You could either check a site like www.hostelworld.com and find rooms there; rely on something like the YHA (youth hostelling association) to have computers within the hostels which will help you make reservations at other hostels in your next destination (you need to look for a YHA sign, and usually will need a membership to get a bed for the night); or opt for a Euro-rail pass, and plan your long journeys at night, so you're travelling from, say, Geneva to Brussels and are able to sleep in the train car.

Be warned that if you don't book something even in smaller towns, you'll probably end up sleeping on mats in front of train stations or the like, and not only is it dangerous, but you could possibly be arrested, depending on the city ordinances.

To give you an example of what you'd be facing if you didn't book: two friends and I did a seat-of-our-pants driving tour of Wales. We hadn't booked anything because we didn't know where we were going to wind up, and we were going to be travelling south for most of a given day. We wound up in Aberystwyth, a west coast student town, at 6 o'clock at night. Three mobile phones on the go, phoning every B&B, hostel or hotel listed in the three tourist guides we had between us. Not a single room available. Either they were fully booked, or they weren't operating yet: it was only mid-March.

We got a room at 11:15 at night. We hadn't eaten since breakfast.

<smile> Hell with it, Finan. Ignore the prudent naysayers. Just do it. Parts of the trip might be next to disasterous, but it'll be an experience - both the good and bad of it - that you'll treasure for the rest of your days. Been there, done that, and wishing I'd done it some more.

nytraveler--do you have the name and address of that hotel above the Live Sex Club?