If you scan the hotel review sites -- booking.com, tripadvisor.com, hotels.com, venere.com -- and eliminate the highest and lowest scores, you get a good idea of a hotel's value and character. I like booking.com because reviewers must have stayed in the hotel and you can cancel all bookings, no charge.

Note the hotel's star rating doesn't mean much. It usually indicates facilities like bar, restaurant, pool, etc. Nothing about charm or local character.

I seek out hotels like you describe. Among my criteria are smaller hotels (too small for a tour group), local character and charm, preferably family-run, and centrally located. I've had good luck finding such hotels -- but through a lot of research (which I love). Once I narrow down my search, I like to deal directly with the hotel. Often I get a good rate and develop a good relationship with the staff -- which I suspect leads to a better room and better service.

If you list your stops, desired room type and your budget, we can give you suggestions.

" you can cancel all bookings, no charge"

Not true. Booking.com has started offering cheaper prices for bookings you can't cancel.

Here is my perspective as a travel advisor.

The public is pretty evenly divided between (1) those who enjoy the nuts and bolts of researching a destination and planning a trip and (2) those who feel completely overwhelmed by all of the content out there.

If you love doing all the planning yourself (and that is what Fodor's is all about), by all means do so!

But if you aren't into research and detailed planning (and even if you are), there ARE compelling reasons to use a travel advisor.


Two different reasons you might want to do so:


(1) for added amenities when booking luxury hotels

Although it's quite easy to book anything on an online travel agency, a travel advisor who is affiliated with a consortium such as Virtuoso can get you amenities for the same room-only price you'd pay online. Think of perks like free daily breakfast, upgrades if available, and another amenity (such as a $100 F&B credit as an example, but they vary by property). Why miss out on these kinds of amenities. Visit virtuoso.com/hotels to see what I mean.

If you can find a travel advisor who does not charge fees for hotel bookings, you get the best of all worlds. You get a better value than you can book for yourself online (you're still paying for the hotel when you check-out)... at no added cost to yourself. Your travel advisor is compensated with a commission from the hotel (which doesn't cost you a cent).


(2) for help with planning an entire itinerary

The OP is planning to travel to Germany, so my advice is to look for a travel advisor who has expertise in Germany. I have a colleague who is a native German, speaks the language, thoroughly knows the country, and is a Conde Nast recommended advisor for Germany. She will charge a planning fee (after all, her time and expertise are worth something), but you'll get the benefit of all of her years of experience researching the destination and planning there.

Using a *well qualified* travel advisor (I don't mean popping into the travel agency at the strip mall down the street and expecting to find a German expert) can save you hours of time planning ... and save you from common mistakes, saving you money and (most importantly) making the most of your precious travel time.



By the way, notice that I use the term travel advisor. The best TA's are committed to a process of working with you, involving you in crafting your own trip, learning your dreams, and then choreographing an itinerary that simply works.

Best wishes with your trip!

Intelligent post Travelhorizons.

Talk about special pleading (at least you admitted your interest up front). The "public" is very UNevenly divided between those who can afford Virtuoso hotels and those who can't. And the TA's commission may not be broken out separately for an individual hotel guest, but it is certainly built into the overall cost structure, which means that all guests are chipping in for it.

No reason to pay a TA for info on Germany, there are many posters here who who collectively have more experience than a single person.

Can we really think that Fodors can replace all TA's all over the world ?

Another interest of a good TA is that he takes some responsabilities : if there is a problem, thye will solve the issue. When in Thaliand in an organized trip, our pre-booked hotel collapsed - TA found a solution. Even when alone on an organized trip, you have somebody who can help you. Not everybody speaks the local language - or even English - not everybody is US citizen... a Belgian lost in Japan and speaking no english may have some isseus when facing a problem. And would like to have a back up.

However I think the vast majority of tourists coming to FODORS do't need a TA...

just a few more thoughts

Try and avoid Bookings or TA scores of 3.5 and below.

I did a detailed comparison of Hotels and Bookings including their various deals and while Hotels seem to give you the better deal, the range of hotels and the individual costs (let alone the software on APP) lead me to use Bookings far more. So while I keep both on my phone I only use Bookings or go direct.

paris: >>Or you can do like me - you select a hotel and book the wrong one.<<

LOL. I can top that: Select a hotel for the wrong nights. (I was looking at the wrong month on the calendar when booking.) Showed up at the little hotel in Germany on the wrong night and caused a frenzy. They were quite nice and accommodating about the mix-up.

One of our traveling friends asked at dinner one night, "when you travel, do things always go wrong?" I thought about that and I couldn't remember in lots and lots of trips abroad when Anything had "gone wrong". Yes, there have been times when we missed a flight or had a hotel mix up but we just made the arrangements and caught the next flight or changed rooms or hotels. We look at that as part of the travel experience. Booking for yourself on line or through a travel agent won't change that.

The reason we travel has to do with those differences and uncertainties. If we wanted the safety of the routine we would stay home. Let down your guard, book your trip, go and enjoy. If something does "go wrong" you'll just be building a story to tell your friends when you get home. Bon voyage.

@vicenzo - I once booked for the wrong month because of the difference in writing dates between Europe and the US. Fortunately I caught it a couple of days out as I was going to email to confirm the reservation (I had made it direct, I don't bother with that for booking.com) and was able to change it.

»Select a hotel for the wrong nights«
One of my nightmares. Until now it has always gone right, but I dread the moment it turns out I made a mistake.
A travel agent is no full-proof guarantee: for a trip to Saint Petersburg they had made a reservation for a hotel with the same name in Moscow. Happily enough I discovered it in time.

Erm

So I did the all these mistakes :
-I booked a wrong hotel after careful researh
-I booked a hotel in the right city but landed in the wrong one, 3-400 kms away at midnight...
-I booked hotels for the wrong nights (note the 's')
-I booked 2 trains for the same date same journey (at separate times - I booked one month before, forgot I had and rebooked).

What I've never had is booking.com or hotels.com mismanaging my reservation : the rooms I have booked have always been available - no errors from their part)

One has to be careful...

....