Is anyone else making themselves crazy over chosing hotels? Once we found our budget range I'm obsessing at the exact right one. How important is the hotel to the whole Italian experience?

I always obsess about the hotels, but usually feels it pays off. Much of my research has to do with location -- knowing how close it is to where I really want to be to avoid lots of transportation. I will say a bad hotel can turn you sour on an entire area. And a really great hotel can make you love an area than normally might not have done so much for you. But the exact right one? Is there such a thing? I know many people say, "I wouldn't stay anywhere else." In fact, I've said that. But what it really means is that you've found a good place and rather than take a chance again, you'd stay there.

No, I worry about a lot of things, but not too much over hotels, and I rarely book hotels more than a month in advance, and usually do it quite a bit later than that. So long as my location is good, I'm usually satisfied. A hotel with interesting character and pleasant staff can add to the enjoyment of the trip, but not that much, if you're going to spend most of your time OUT of the hotel. If you're going to stay in a country villa or an agriturismo, the choice of a particular place may be more critical. But if you're staying in a hotel in town, I think the most important things are location and price.

I've made about a dozen or more trips to Italy and no, I've never obsessed over anything. If you are the obsessive type, I doubt you'll like Italy, as it is a definitely relaxed, non-obsessive type of environment.
Your screen name suggests you are Germanic. If so, please abandon those obsessive Germanic traits while in Italy and simply enjoy the far niente environment for a bit, including choosing hotels. Pick one, go there, and deal with it.

thorspecken - I feel you have a very legitimate concern. While, there is much more to it all than the place you are staying, I believe your accommodations can severely color your overall experience for better or worse. Not true for some, but very true for me and others. The benefit of location and the charm factor is worth the effort of research. With so many great resources, you shouldn't have to spend forever on this aspect, but it can be fun if that's your thing. You can likely narrow it down easily to at least three since you have the budget range, and won't go wrong with any of them. Each will have pros/cons so decide which aspect is most important to you. In some places, it may be better to lean toward the charm over location (or other such factors) and in others vice versa. When you get a few choices and can articulate what factors are important to you, let someone in the know advise you so you can make the best choice for you. You might be open to finding out which locations would be worth it to you (if any) to splurge a little more and why. There are many great Fodorite's here that would be great at helping you with that once you can give them some definition. Sorry, I don't have the experience to help you here, but there are wonderful people here who do!Once you decide, forget it and go with the flow as StCirq suggested, even if every detail doesn't line up once you get there. If you've done even adequate homework, you won't go wrong from what I gather! Good luck!

Hi there,

Yes I can get a bit manic over picking a place to stay but I always enjoy doing the investigation of great places with great deals, it's all part of the fun for me... And yes for me sometimes a place can really make or break my trip and i am not a whiner girl...

Take care, E

My experience is that a good, convenient location is the most important factor, once the basics have been met. I'd rather have a simple hotel at the center of things, rather than an opulent hotel stuck miles from the action.

Of course in lots of cases it's hard to tell what the best location actually is, with no travel experience in the region.

The answer depends on what you want to do during your travels. As far as I'm concerned, a hotel is somewhere to leave my bag, to wash and to sleep. I've stayed in hotels in dozens of towns all over Italy from Trieste to Palermo. I've never booked in advance and rarely had any trouble finding a room. In Venezia, I use the hotel booking office at the railway station, but elsewhere just look for one myself, and rarely waste more than a few minutes looking. If I find I really don't like a hotel, I can always go to another one in the morning.

I am!!!!!!!!!!!!!!I am planning a first time trip to London/Paris with about 3 weeks notice and have alot to learn about both cities. I am spending every spare moment I have doing my research. I have 2 hotel reservations in Paris because I am still unsure which hotel is better for us. Since I spend little time in my room when I travel to Europe,location is very important. A good location especially meaningful when I am unfamilar with the transportation system. However, I go overboard & try to find "the best" location so I can drive myself crazy! Also, I will spend the extra $ and stay in a nicer 3* hotel - just personal preference. This site & several travel books have been instrumental to me!

For me the hotel where I stay in my trips is very important so I do a research far in advance, sometimes book 2 or 3 hotels till I decide which is more convenient for me. Location first, then the rants and raves on the hotel and the hotel photos. I don't think I am obsessed over hotels but it is very confortable to stay in a nice room, with a good breakfast, even though I use the room only for sleeping. It can be a 3 star hotel but it has to have character even if I pay some more bucks. Staying in a nice hotel is a part of the wellbeing and joy I get in my trips. But that is me, most people don't agree, we all have our preferences

thorspecken-
www.italyby.com , florenceby.com, veniceby.com and tuscany.net all may be useful to you. They have the best and most extensive photos of places to stay and surroundings than any site I have seen. I was thrilled to find it. If anyone knows of another site with better photos, I would love to know about it.

A "p.s." to my previous comment: If the choice of hotel is especially important to you, and you have it narrowed down to two excellent ones, why not just pick one of the two at random and plan to stay at the other one when you return to the same city in a few years. All kinds of personality types enjoy Italy, and you probably will, too. Though I don't happen to plan or worry too much about my hotel choices, I know plenty of people who do. My own worry area is usually transportation. I'm afraid to drive in Italy, so I don't, but I therefore have to make sure I have other means of getting to other towns. There are people on this forum who insist that one cannot possibly enjoy Umbria or some other region without renting a car. But I always do!

cmt, I've had exactly the same worry - I don't want to drive in Italy (just thinking ahead at this stage). So what do you do to get around that problem?

You don't say what your age is. I think that is a big factor in hotel choice. When we were younger, we would just get in a car (Italy, etc.) and drive and find a hotel as we went along.
Some were prettttty bad... but produced lots of laughs (later.) Also found some lovely surprises. As we've aged, we gravitate to the estabished hotels just because we think its safer for older people with health problems that might blossom abroad. I feel sorry for young people who have to stay at "top" hotels all the way... they're depriving themselves of stories for years! -

Grandma, now I'm curious as to those funny stories. What were the three worst hotel experiences? It's great you have a sense of humor about them.

I realize the room isn't important to many people. Sometimes I want to scream when I hear "well, you're not going to spend much time there". I'm going to sleep there and that is important to me. Just like I care about what clothes I wear, I care about what my surroundings are like when I relax and when I sleep.

I often realize just how much effect the hotel has on both my husband and myself when I'll mention a certain town somewhere and he'll think for a minute and then say "was that the place with the bathroom we couldn't both fit in?" or "was that where we stayed where the bed sagged in the middle and we kept rolling together?" Isn't it interesting that how he remembers which city is which is by remembering first the hotel we stayed in.

Yes, I obsess about hotels too.

Wow, what a lot of good comments. Thorspecken is my husband's German name so I think my "all things in order" is all my own! I thought it was interesting that someone mentioned age--when I travelled Europe as a student I would just roll in and out of town without a care in the world. I guess now although I am not wealthy, I have some bucks to do Europe in a different way. I think what I have to do is do the Ben Franklin thing, list all the priorities on a paper and decide! But since this created a lot of good commentary I'll give an example of the problem deciding. In Venice I've booked the Wildner which is a reasonable hotel (Eur 190) right next to the ultra deluxe Danielli with the same view. Then there is the Pensione Accademia which gets rave reviews from both Fodors and Rick Steve and is about the same price. So I know I have to decide but both sound great. Still would enjoy further commentary.

Will Travel: When I'm traveling alone, I choose regions like Umbria or Emilia-Romagna where I know there's pretty good public transportation. I do not plan rigidly, but I become familiar with places I might want to visit and make sure that there are various options to get there by train or bus from the city where I'll be staying.

If I want to go to areas that are too difficult to travel around by public transportation (e.g., Basilicata), or if I want to see the countryside, I take small group tours or walking/hiking tours for one week and travel independently for a few days before and after. If I'm really going to the boondocks, I research the public transportation, which is usually some extremely inconvenient bus that runs once a day or is very indirect with connections, and make sure there is some way of getting there. But then, once in the area, I try to find an easier way by getting a ride, e.g., from the owner of the agriturismo where I'll be staying, or a cousin, or a friend of the leader of the tour I've just taken. (If you're going to a remote town, you can also write to the town for advice on how to get there, and some nice person in the municipal offices might give you details re the buses or even offer to give you a ride.)

To figure out how to get around in remote areas, in my opinion it is necessary to speak Italian. But to get around by bus and train in more modernized areas, it is not absolutely necessary to know the language, though it would certainly make things easier and more pleasant.

For us location is absolutely important. When we are on vacation, our usual sightseeing routine is to get up early and have an ambitious morning, lunch, then rest in our room. After a more relaxing late afternoon outing, we like to regroup in our room, and maybe again between aperitifs and dinner, so we like our room to be right in the center of things so we can go in and out easily. I really spend quite a bit of time choosing the location of a hotel because first I must know where everything is - sights, transportation, restaurants, shopping, piazzas,...We are quite happy in 2 star hotels as long as they have a wonderful location.

cmt - thanks for the tips.