CChottel;
Precisely the point...I don't wish to discourage particularly young or first-time travelers who may believe what they hear about the "impossibility of finding anything but high priced luxury hotels" in this place or that....I try whenever possible to encourage them to do the research at Barnes and Noble or on this board...so we mustn't discourage these folks...assure them that, yes, much less expensive lodgings are available and they don't have to go into deep hock to eat more than adequately...and they won't in any way compromise the travel experience. Very important that we all adhere to this on these Fodor boards!
Stu T.

Wait a minute, the OP says eight weeks, most of us can't afford that long time

Good point, Mimi...I forgot about that....jeesh..eight weeks, two months...that sure changes the whole thread.
Stu T.

When you're retired, you can afford the time more easily than you can afford the trip!

then why even post such a thread? It's so ridiculous to even ask the question you have asked?

It's not at all ridiculous, as the many interesting answers (and interested answerers) would indicate. Thanks, adeben, for a thought-provoking thread!

I agree it's not a ridiculous question. Have you seen some of the threads here - far more frivolous than this one. Why not explore people's thoughts on this subject. Also don't understand why people jumped all over him and got all defensive. His original post didn't sound at all negataive to me.

cchottell - I totally agree with you. For me there is only so much I feel comfortable spending per year on travel, before I start feeling I should be saving for retirement, spending it on the kids, etc. so if you have only a set amount the less you spend on accomodations equals the longer the trip can be.

And one of the things that drives me crazy is all those people who honestly believe they can't afford a trip to Europe becuase they think it will cost so much. They hear, or read (for example in newspaper travel stories) about "average hotel costs" of $200 a night and figure they can't afford it. I was one of those people for many years. I wish I had know sooner that I could travel to Europe for the same thing I could travel for in the US. So one way of doing that is to tell people. If you just read random travel reports on this forum you might get the impression that it has to cost more than it does. So I like to see threads like this. It doesn't mean I think there is anything wrong with people who want to spend $200 a night, or that I am jealous of them.

I probably shouldn't post this, but do you notice that sanditravelnut returned no less than six times to respond to this "ridiculous" question, all of them attempts to shame abeden for being foolish enough to ask it? Why not ignore it if it's so ridiculous? I'll take foolish over nasty any day...

Mimi had the answer... when you go for 8 weeks, you have the time to make the trek back and forth to centre ville. When time is short (as it is with me) and money is less of an issue (there is only so much you can spend in a week or so), then you say, 'what the heck... I'm only there for a short time, let's get the nicer place rather than spend too much time dealing with traveling back and forth'.

I look forward to the day when I can go for longer than a week again!

As for the food vs. lodging thing... I'm not a 'foodie', but if I don't get a good night's sleep 3+ nights in a row (uncomfortable mattress, blankets, thin walls, etc.), I get mildly cranky. Of course all of those things aren't guaranteed by more expensive lodging, but its a higher probability.

B&B's don't work for me since I'm also a fan of my own bathroom... many kids make for small bladders :)

Would you ever stay in a hostel again? (Are there any age limitations?) They have cheap lodging, ready-made mates, great center locations....

Surfmom: News flash...back in the 50's, 60' and 70's many b and b's had shared bathrooms...this is becoming rarer as the years go on. The typical B and B in Western Europe , the UK or the US offers private bath rooms and many of the amenities found in ***star hotels.
Try one, you just may like it. Besides, B and B has become more of a universal phrase and many times a 3*** or 2** hotel list temselves as "B and B's"..

Happy travels Surfmom.
Stu T.

Adeben, perhaps it would help if I try and explain what I 'hear' when I read questions like this:

To me, I hear you asking: "I can't understand why some people have different priorities from me. I understand that they do, I just want to understand why." So long as this is what I hear (perhaps you meant something different) perhaps you can understand why I and apparently others find such questions so exasperating. To me, the default is that people have different goals, different problems to solve than I do; it would astonish me more to learn that everyone was the same as me. Similarity is what would require explanation!

If you've been on the board awhile you will find there is a certain competitive spirit that flourishes regarding travel budgets. Now, there's nothing inherently wrong with competition - it forms the basis for our economy after all - but should this be the motive for these questions, I dislike it if I suspect the questioner is pretending otherwise, i.e. is 'merely curious'. (Why, for that matter, should curiosity automatically be deemed so innocuous, that it requires no justification?)

Perhaps you meant to ask, 'what are your goals in picking a hotel' which would be a more open-ended question, with less implied assumptions about whose standards should form the departure point. That said, I should point out that quoting absolute figures on hotel budgets is pointless because I've found that more variation in hotel price can be explained by the difference between location than the difference between hotel categories. 30 € might be a king's ransom (okay, so I'm exaggerating a little) in an eastern European rural village where one could conceivably get a five star hotel for that amount.

On the other hand, questions about how people evaluate value are always interesting, especially if value is framed in relative terms. For example, if I had to pick between two urban hotels identical in all respects except that one had double glazing on the windows and the other lacked these soundproofing details but had fresher paint and furnishings in better condition, I'd pick the former, every time. It all comes down to what one perceives as solving one's problems, and for me, getting a good night's rest is often a problem. I need relative quiet, and oh how I envy those of my friends who could probably sleep next to an artillery range. These friends probably would be satisfied with much simpler (and cheaper) hotels than I would be, simply because they have a different sleep profile.

Stu, lighten up. I said it with a smile (literally and figuratively).

Newsflash...I have stayed at B&B's. Many times. And not in the 50's, 60's and 70's, but in the 80's and 90's. And while perhaps I have made poor choices, many of the ones that I've stayed at have shared bathrooms... in Ireland, in Wales, in the UK. Would you like the names?

I'm a budget traveler. I travel solo, so paying more than, say, 75 Euros per night for a hotel room, is a splurge.

So I usually stay in 2-stars, occasionaly I find a 3-star which suits my budget. I'm after quiet, clean rooms, and in cities I'm not familiar with, I'd like to stay centrally located, although I don't like to be right by famous tourist attractions (I was grateful to myself for not booking anything near Navona for my trip to Rome last month), which affects the prices of the hotels I tend to book.

Charm? I don't know what that means, really. I know what "charm" means and don't like it (I find much of the Latin Quarter and Saint Germain "charming"), it feels artificial to me. And I also don't think I would be comfortable in a 4 or 5-star - I don't need all the luxury. I stayed in 2 3-stars in Paris and in Verona, and they were perfectly fine for me, even a bit over the top, as far as amenities are concerned.

That said, if my plans for a trip to Emilia-Romagna next fall come true, I'm going to splurge on a nice hotel in bologna for 5 nights. But that's an exception. :)

I'm sure some of you still won't see my point that I tried to make above, which is that clearly most people aren't saying "I prefer cheap hotels" but they are saying "sure I would like nicer hotels but I can't justify paying that extra money". Even many of the posters who have replied to say they agree that expensive or nicer rooms are not a priority, still say things like "I'm going to splurge for a nicer hotel in ________" or "sometimes I manage to find a three star for the price of a two stay". So once again my point is simply that who wouldn't prefer a nicer room? The topic is really "do I want to PAY for a nicer hotel?" -- not "would I like a nicer hotel better?" And I still say the answer is simply that if we all had unlimited funds, or someone offered us nicer hotels for the same price as the cheap ones -- then who wouldn't grab at the "upgrade"?

So once again, my answer to "why do people spend more money for nicer places ?" is simply "because they can". And abeden and others please don't tell me that if I handed you an extra hundred dollars and said "here you can use this on a nicer hotel" that you would hand it back to me and say, "no thank you I prefer to share a bath and have a small room". Why is that so hard to understand?

There's nothing wrong with saying you don't want to spend a lot of money on hotel rooms, but please don't try to convince us or even yourself that you PREFER smaller, more uncomfortable, un aircondtioned rooms in summer, or shared bathrooms. Deep down you know that isn't true. Yet some of you seem to be trying to convince us that you would turn down a luxury hotel because you actually prefer those kinds of rooms. I don't believe that for a second, and if you really stop to think for a minute, I think you'd have to agree. You've won a free trip to Paris, all expenses paid. You can stay in a four star hotel, or we'll put you up in a shared bath one star. Which will you choose?

Hi Neapolitan,
If the offer of an all-expenses paid holiday in Paris was contingent on my staying in a 4 star hotel, of course I would accept, and with alacrity! However, if the offer included the possibility to take cheaper accommodation and spend the difference in the manner of my own choosing, then that is the option I would choose, and Paris would see a restaurant crawl that I, at least, would remember for the rest of my life.
Hi Sue,
My original post, perhaps poorly expressed but I think not, was about the significant number of posts that SEEM to have 'accommodation' as the main component of a trip to Europe. Pick any city in Europe, and the things that make it attractive for me are NOT likely to include a hotel.

Neopolitan said:
> And I still say the answer is simply that if we all had unlimited funds, or someone offered us nicer hotels for the same price as the cheap ones -- then who wouldn't grab at the "upgrade"? <

I don't entirely agree, although it's a bit difficult to tease out why. But here are a few points:

a) There's something very restful about simplicity. Many religious movements have made simplicity, even extreme simplicity, a cornerstone of their practice. So too have aesthetic movements. There can be something very soothing in a plain, serviceable room with absolutely nothing extra. Every now and then some very wealthy person decides to chuck it all and go live in a monastery; this is clearly a related impulse. Of course, some designers recognize this and incorporate "simplicity" into their $500 hotel rooms.

I saw an advertisement for a tour to Italy that I considered to be fairly pricy, considering that 7 nights accommodation would be spent in a monastery in rural Tuscany in a former monk's cell, with shared bathrooms. But apparently that's all part of the appeal of this artistically oriented tour.

b) For many people, the pleasure of being frugal and having a room that meets minimal standards outstrips the pleasure of a gorgeous room. "The Millionaire Next Door" book discusses a common sort of wealthy person who lives pretty simply.

c) This is related to the above, but for many people it's almost physically painful to pay more than necessary.

d) I would never say that people in 1* hotels are more "real" than people in 5* hotels, but you will get a different slice of life in each. So if you say you will either never stay in a 1*, or that you will never stay in a 5*, you are missing this slice of life. Maybe it's a big deal, or not.