We arrive in Paris Sept 2 very early and have reservations for that night in Paris near the Louvre. We leave and go to Honfleur, we have reservations there. Then on to Mt St Michel and we have reservations there. But then we leave there and head towards Tours and that area and we don't have reservations because we are not sure where we will end up, or how long it will take depending on how many stops we make during the day. We want to sort of go by the seat of our pants and stop when something interests us. If we do that we won't know where we will end up each day. If we make reservations then we may have to by-pass something we may not want to by-pass in order to get to our hotel on time.

Is this a good idea? I do it here state side all the time, but then I am familiar with stuff here so it's easier for us. Will I be OK doing this in France?

We do have reservations for Sept. 7th a hotel near CDG because my friend will be leaving on the morning of the 8th but then I will be going back into Paris and renting an apartment on my own for another week.

So basically I am only talking 2 nights the 5th and the 6th.

Hi V,

Sept is still tourist season.

The worst that can happen is that you will spend an hour or two of your precious vacation time searching for a room that will be not as nice as you would have liked at a price higher than you would have liked.

Enjoy winging it.

yeah, I agree with Ira that I would think you will find a place to stay. I think if you are going to do that kind of thing, you can't be picky at all. There are lots of cheap hotels around major highways and cities in France, so I think you can find a room somewhere. However, that is going to take time out of your day, probably, searching for a room and hotel. It may not, but I'd just be prepared for that. It isn't that far between Mont St Michel and Tours that I would think you'd have to leave some itinerary so open as to where you want to stay, but that's just me and I hate traveling without reservations. It just preoccupies and worries me, and takes out from my vacation time. Other folks love it, though.

I am a fan of "wing it" type travel so would certainly leave those nights open. September can sill be fairly busy but if you are prepared to stay in a smaller town (which personally I often prefer) you shouldn't have any trouble finding accommodation.

I spent three weeks in France (Paris, Brittany and Loire) in September/October about 18 months ago and we only booked the first two nights in Paris. We didn't have any trouble at all finding accommodation, staying in a variety of hotels, gites and B&B. As we were driving along and saw a place we liked, we stopped and asked. There is only one town that I can recall where we had to try two places before we found a place. A couple of the places we stayed were fairly ordinary, most were good to very good and in the Loire Valley we picked up a couple of chateaus which were fabulous (and I know we paid much less than those who had booked ahead).

Most of all I love the freedom of that type of travel but you have to be the sort of person who is prepared to take what you find. If you want a four/five star full service hotel every time it isn't for you, but then you probably wouldn't be considering it if you were.

It is obviously a "bad" idea for some and a "good" idea for others and I suspect mosty of the people here will think it is a "bad" idea because the people here tend to PLAN, PLAN, PLAN...

ask this SAME question on the other travel websites and you'll get the requisite responses.

BUT, I think Ira and Christina HAVE given you some valuable information in terms of the possible problems in doing it in September.

I want to thank you all for your responses. I seem to be getting a mixed bag here so in the end I'm still wondering should I or shouldn't I ?

Well, I am not a 5 star hotel kind of person. I look for a bed and shower and working bathroom. I never spend time in the room other than to sleep and shower and out I go. So I am not too picky...just don't want hairs in my sheets and bedding....another poster elsewhere complained about this and even that for me was too much. So since I'm not too picky My main concern is basically availability. Like everyone here has said, I may need to go to one or two places to find a room. But heck how much time can that take. Have you any idea how long it takes me to find a hotel I DO have reservations for ?? On several occasions I have gotten turned around or went further than it actually was and spent 1 to 2 hours locating the hotel I had so carefully planned for.

So I don't think time involved is the issue but the chances of availability in early September I guess is what I was looking for. I guess I was just feeling that since it was close to the end of the tourist season I may have more luck in finding availability.

Thanks again for all your help, My husband feels the same as most of you that I should have reservations but then he says that here at home and I never do and I have never really had a problem. But I do know this is situation is not home so maybe I best head your advise and pre-book rooms for those 2 nights. Heck I can always cancel right???

The day of the week for finding a hotel is more important than the time of year. You should just know that Friday and Saturday are the busy nights at most hotels and Sunday night is the easiest. I have found that one of the best methods to travel when I have doubts about availability but still want to keep my freedom is to make a reservation through www.accorhotels.com -- the reservation can be cancelled with no charge up until 7 p.m. on the date of arrival, so if I decide that I have found something better before then, I just cancel the reservation. And anyway, all of the Accor hotels are spotless, even the bottom end Formule 1 places at 25 euros, which can be a lifesaver when you are in the middle of nowhere.

I would guess that if you have directions to the hotel you have reserved, and it still takes you two hours to find it, how could it be better finding hotels where you don't even know they exist? I'm not sure I understand correctly, but if so, it seems that if you don't have reservations you would be best served by finding hotels that are right off the highways.

We always wing it between Provence and the west coast at least four days and we have had unexpected good luck and often return to (even in Provence) the same places, Though we are in our 70s we like alot of seridipity in our travels.

WillTravel...it does not happen to every hotel we make reservations for. However on occassion we have gotten "lost" and it took us quite a while to find out reserved hotel or B&B. This said, during these times we have usually at this point passed a million other hotels and have wondered that maybe it would have been better if didn't have reservations we had to honor because if we hadn't had reservations we could have just stopped at one of the million hotels we passed. Which obviously would have saved us a bunch of time and put us in our beds to sleep much sooner.

I cannot remember in all of our travels to europe since 1997 that we did not pass hotel upon hotel in search of our own. Even on the occasions when we found our hotel promptly we still passed other hotels so "finding ones we didn't know exist" seems to be a non problem. Since when in europe do you drive into a town of any sort and see the listing of hotels right off the highway or as you enter a town. I always see them. I have often found that strange since we don't do that here in the states, but having said that, it makes it much easier to find them, don't you think?

No, my original concern was not being able to locate hotels. Especially since I do have a vague idea of the areas we "might" end up in along the way so I have made a list of those cities or towns with a list of possible hotels in each. Let's say we make it to the first town that I have a list for and we decide it's still early enough in the day that we want to go on then we can. I also will have my cell phone with me so I can at that time call ahead to check availability. We actually did this in Kalambaka in Greece last year and it worked beautifully. Actually in that case we didn't have an actual list but a hotel from the Lonely Planet Guide listed hotels along with phone numbers so we just called ahead and the first one we called had a room and the rate was reasonable, actually cheaper than we had been paying so we told him we were on our way and he waited up for us.

So it's not like I haven't done the "seat of your pants" thing before but that was in October and tourist season was pretty much over unlike this case when early Sept in France is still a little busy with tourists so my only concern was availability at this particular time of year.

We almost exclusively travel the month of Sept., and besides Paris and Mont St. Michel do not have reservations. We never have had a problem. But we also stop by 4:00. If you're going to start looking for a hotel at 6 pm or later then you might have more problems.

We do keep a Red Michelin Hotel/Restaurant guide and Logis de France guide in the car and if it looks like we're going to be in a more popular tourist area around stopping time, we pick a hotel from one of these guides and call ahead from a pay phone (buy a card at any Tabac). The Accord chain IBIS is also very standardized, so if you've stayed in one and found it suitable, then any one of them will work for you. We stay there every few days for their internet access, something the smaller private hotels have a hard time providing.

We love "wingin' it"! Go for it!