Zebby

Hi all! We, two adults and two children, 16 and 12 yo, are traveling in Spain by car starting about two weeks from now. First week already booked with Madrid and Bilbao. My question is whether it is possible to rent 'locally' through signs with 'room to rent' or through visitor centres? We plan to travel from Bilbao to the west, Santiago de C. Or is this a bad idea?

StCirq

It's a bad idea. Unless you want to spend a whole lot of your vacation driving around hoping you don't have to sleep in the car. But two weeks from now, really? That makes it a really bad idea.

Robert2533

In one word, NO! You'll be traveling during high season and everything but the most expensive properties are booked.

chapla

Good that you have booked in Bilbao! You can visit lots of places using it as a base.I don't know how much/far you want to travel. As already mentioned,it is the busiest time of the year! You will have a hard time making decent reservation even ahead of time!
Hurry and start to find places and make reservations!

janisj

I agree w/ the others - not only should you book every single place ahead of time . . . You may have a hard time NOW finding places to book after that first week.

Pegontheroad

Absolutely agree with all of the above.

ribeirasacra

Rent through signs? If you mean looking out for rooms free signs or such thing. Then here in Spain we do not do that.
If you are driving around cities only then a lot of hotels are located in pedestrian areas so you will end up first looking for a parking garage then a hotel.
Signs for Casa Rurals are not the same and will vary in each area you are in. So what do you look for.
If you do not have any reservations then at least know where you are aiming for with several accommodations you can try and get a bed, (well 2 or three beds) for the night.

OReilly

Seriously bad idea. I toured Northern Spain at this time of year a couple of years ago. I tied to book a few weeks in advance of the trip and had great difficulty getting accommodation. I finally had to go through a travel group in Spain and adjust my itinerary to suit where they could get me an hotel. I will try to find the name for you.

OReilly

In case you get desperate, here is the outfit I used. They were wonderful!

http://www.totallyspain.com/

regards Ger

stevewith

I got curious, so I did a quick search on Booking.com for availability in Santiago de Compestela for a family of 4 (2 adults, 2 teens) for the week of Aug 6 - Aug 12, and I found 31 properties with availability for a family your size, and at least one third of those were properties with highly favorable reviews and very attractive prices.

I did a similar search for Santander and came up with 20 properties.

Santiago de Compostela and Santader are two of THE busiest areas of Northern Spain for tourism, so if they have that much availablity, I would hardly go into panic mode about finding rooms.

Last year I road tripped through Northern Spain in the first week of September, and I booked all my hotels less than 24 hour in advance using hotel internet connections. I would book them after dinner the night before I was headed some place.

Thought I would give you a less than hysterical picture.

annhig

personally, if i were travelling in high season with kids, I'd think twice about not booking in advance.

that said, we certainly did this in Northern Spain and pace ribierasecra, we had no problems identifying places with vacancies, nor locating them. however, it was about 26 years ago, AND there were just the two of us.

ribeirasacra

Totally Spain ads a huge mark up to any property listed.
I like the above posts research. The only trouble trying to find somewhere is having to hunt around. Maybe book the following accommodation via booking is a compromise between just turning up and then hunting down something and planning 100% most posters want you to do.

OReilly

Interesting. Clearly the current economic climate is taking its toll.

rialtogrl

I think the Spanish tend to make last minute plans, not book too far in advance, so just because rooms are available now doesn't mean they will still be available in early August. Having said that, when I was in northern Spain for a month in May/June pretty much everyone was talking about how the Spanish aren't really traveling too much.

It sure would take the anxiety out of it to book ahead.

sparkchaser

Anything is possible. Is it advisable? Hell no.

Zebby

Well, ok, my wife tells me sleeping in the car is not an option... And now that I have recovered from panic mode after the first posts, I guess we have to spend some serious time booking up ahead for the rest of our trip! We will probably end up compromising as Ribeirasacra already mentioned because we're still undecided on definite itinerary. Eventually, we will get it sorted out. I hope. I'm sure. Thank you for your posts, warnings, informative as well as the comforting ones!

socaltraveler

If it were just me and DH, I might consider the freer spirit of winging it, but with the kids, nope, not so much. If you do decide to not make concrete plans at least follow stevewith's advice to plan at least a day or two ahead and use the internet to make reservations before you set out in the morning.

Robert2533

The Spanish may be traveling less, but Northern Europeans certainly are not. All of the less expensive properties in an around San Sebastian-Donostia are booked for August and into September. The Costa Brava is the same. Santiago may have some opening, but not that many. The Camino has been busy this month.

ribeirasacra

Robert, The Camino has not been as busy when compared with some previous years. It is is no barometer for hotels along the northern coast as this poster wants to do. As stevewith has already pointed out there are rooms available in SdC and if by shear chance they are all booked up one can always stay a few km outside. The same goes with any city location. In fact this may be a cheaper option, as car parking can be expensive in city centres.
Being in the hotel business myself and I read the websites associated with Spain's hotel industry. Some of the posters here are writing panky advice.
socaltraveler: Have a great trip and enjoy a peaceful North Cost vacation.

ribeirasacra

No that should not be socaltraveler that should read Zebby