Carol, when we were in our 40s we stayed in places much like yours. In fact, our first trip over, we stayed with bathrooms down the hall like I did as a student, but decided that that really was no longer the way we wanted to travel. As we aged, we began seeking more amenities until we were in the $70-80 range, and more recently up to $100/night. Maybe it's because we are less spry, maybe because we do less gallavanting at night (I remember well hitting the jazz clubs and strolling the Paris quais at 3:00 am). I like having a minibar for my yogurt and the occasional ice cube. I think I tend to regard a hotel as my home away from home now. Since my home isn't very fancy, a $100 hotel in a big city will do. (I paid 48 euro in Amboise.) My husband was 70 and I am 60, so perhaps it is the older segment that seeks comfort (though I suspect not). Also, maybe we think there's no reason to cheap it out saving for future trips since who knows how many there will be.

Ick, I don't believe I'd like to even know you tightwads! $100 or less for a decent hotel and location in Paris? I don't think so.

I look at it this way. I have a taste for Fodor's restaurant recommendations and a Lonely Planet sense of hotels. <BR><BR>Some day I'll be older and less able to get around. A room will be more important to me. For now, it's not. <BR><BR>Paris? I was just there at the beginning of May. Hotel Flor-Rivoli, 1st arondissement, 65 euros a night for a single ensuite. I only slept and took a shower there. There was too much to do to stay in my room.

I agree with Sue, it's all relative. I did the hostel thing or the cheap $3.00/night in the early '70's as a teen, when it was very cool hanging out with other 18 year olds, meeting other travelers, hitch-hiking and backpacking. Great experience. But it's also a fun experience seeing how the other half lives, just for a day or 2.<BR><BR>The first time we upped the ante on a hotel room to include a bathroom was in our 30's with a baby. Try running down the hall to give the baby a bath or change a diaper. You NEED that water in the room!<BR><BR>Okay, so now we're both professionals, and kicked it up a notch to include cable t.v. in the room and buffet breakfasts where available. Throw in a classy restaurant every once in a while, but we still find the greatest food and best fun in little bistros we accidently run into, and, of course, the street food. After all, atmosphere and local color is everything that makes us happy. But I have to tell you, I still check out the best deals, and find if you're diligent, you can find great rooms at affordable prices. Frankly, I would be, these days, hard-pressed to go back to a place like the Hotel Kabul in Amsterdam (where I stayed for $3./night in '73), which was a flea-bitten trap even back then, when I've worked as hard as I have so that I can stay in a bug-free room and don't have to worry about my backpack getting ripped off.

Hi Carol, It's so nice to see some Canajuns here!! I have just been bitten by the travel bug at age 40, and we (just me and my friend) are going to Holland for two weeks and leaving the husbands home Yeehah! We too are looking for cheap places to stay and eat. It's amazing how much people are willing to spend on a room 'ey? i find it a personal challenge to see how little i can spend...maybe next year i can save enough to go elsewhere...hmmmm, wonder if he'll let me go alone again?

I don't think Gretchen travels much... I can name about 10 hotels right off the top of my head in the 5th, 6th, or 7th which are under 100 bucks a night - en suite, and quite nice (not the Ritz, but still...)

Why do so many Canadians act like things cost them more. A hotel in Europe is just as expensive to someone from the US as it is to someone from Canada. Yes I realize it takes more of your dollars to make one of ours, but what does that have to do with anything? If it cost you 300 Canadian and us 190 US or whatever -- it would still be the same exact amount of money!!! By your rationale pre-Euro Italians couldn't possibly afford to travel. A $100 hotel room would cost them 200,000. Horrors, how could anybody afford that????

Good point about "Canadian dollars," xxx. I wonder if al this confusion would be less sever if one of the currencies was called something other than a dollar? Doesn't sound so bad to say one (US) dollar equals .9 euro or 1.5 loons. Of course they're all different!<BR><BR>But I do think the Canadians are looking fndly back on the day when their dollar wa worth more proportionately against hte US dollar -- when I was growingup the exchange rate was about 1.2 and now it's 1.5

got that right Jen!!!

xxx<BR><BR>If I make $30000/yr canadian and you make $30000/yr us, how do you figure we have the same travel budget? That same hotel DOES cost me a greater percentage of my annual salary.

Apples and oranges, Metoo. You may get paid less for the SAME JOB, but your cost of living could be less too. The hotel still costs the same, but your ability to pay is different. So, you have to make a choice, which is what all of us do when deciding how much to spend for a hotel room, car, home, etc. That's life.

A friend of mine who's a nurse moved from Toronto to Atlanta. She has the same job and is paid about 1/3 less than she was in Toronto -- but actually it is about the same amount of money, even though her cost of living is higher here in Atlanta. Saying she was paid $30,000 in Canada and $20,000 in the US doesn't really mean she's making less. If she were being paid the same number in the US it would be a huge increase in salary. Don't you Canadians realize that something that costs $3.00 in Canada in Canadian dollars, probably costs $2.00 in the US in US dollars -- same amount of money, just different number amounts. Yes, there was a time when the Canadian dollar was nearly equal to the US dollar, but then things cost a whole lot fewer of them -- now that the Canadian dollar is worth less against the US dollar it takes a lot more of them to buy something. This is simple math. Just because both countries use the word "dollar" doesn't mean you should be comparing them. Jen was right about that.

It's impossible to state all the facts, but here are a few. In Canada, our taxes are exhorbitant. Not only is our income tax rate higher, but we pay 15% on EVERYTHING including legal services. Our property taxes are also very high. The up side to this is that we have medicare and our universities are much less expensive than those in the U.S. (except for state universities,of course). Our salaries are lower for the same work. I am not au courrant on this, but I am sure there are others who can back this up. Our cost of living is higher, because we pay much more for "things". If you want to compare apples and apples, you can compare "name brand" items. Don't forget there are around 10 times as many people in the U.S. So mass production equals lower prices. Travelling outside of Canada definitely is 60% more costly for us. There is no doubt about it.

I am back, and thanks to all of you who agree with me! I too have Fodor's taste in food. But Lonely Planet taste in hotels... I don't think so! We quit with the shared washrooms in our mid 30s and quit with the back packs this trip. We only take the train for day trips.<BR><BR>But I disagree that we are staying in poor quality accomodation. For around $60-100CDN you should be able to stay in a fairly nice, clean, quiet room in a central location, with TV, good mattresses, and a private washroom, in the cheaper European countries. The price is higher in cities. Our most expensive hotel was in a Paradore, a 15th century castle, for 91 E (about $132 CDN, $80 US). It was a bit bigger and more beautiful, and had a mini-bar and both CNN and BBC, but that was it. In Tarifa, we had a comfortable sized room with a large bathroom with marble floors throughout, and the room cost 42 euros. The cheapest rooms were 35 euros, one in Sevilla (a mistake, although large, the sheets were threadbare and it was noisier than we expected), and Lamego and Covilha, both large, nice, and right on the main square. In Porto, it was 45 euros right on the main plaza near city hall, including a very nice breakfast. The only down side was the TV had no English channels. I figure I saved over $1000 compared to bettyk.<BR><BR>Southern Europe is less expensive than Northern... I think this would cost more in Paris or Amsterdam than in my last destinations, Greece, Turkey, Spain and Portugal. Also an important point is that we ALWAYS travel in May. The days are longer, the weather is usually reasonably nice, the crowds are thinner, and the hotel rates are lower.<BR><BR>For the record, for the $6000CDN, we were there 23 nights, rented a car, ate what we wanted, and drank a lot of beer and very good wine.<BR><BR>Breakfast was a pastry and coffee or juice if not included in the hotel. I loved the fresh squeezed juice in spite of its exorbitant cost at around 3 euros. Hotels give you tang, even the good ones. Lunch was usually a sandwich and beer, but sometimes was larger, such as a bargain full roasted chicken with twice as many roasted potatoes and rice as we could eat, salad, and 1/2 litre of wine, for 10 euros including tip! Dinner always included house wine, and varied in cost from 10 Euros for tapas on a day when lunch had been bigger, to about 100 Euros for a beautiful dinner of regional specialties, in the Paradore, under the stars.

We've had so, so many threads on bragging rights about cheap travel. It is not only a worn out issue, it's boring. Boring. I don't care what you spend, I don't care if you share bathrooms, etc. You and I do not share but one thing in common - we both travel. My next vacation will be expensive - I am pulling some of the stops, but not all. I fugure $20K, or maybe a tad less. And so what!!! You simply cannot be interested. And you simply do not have any basis for commenting one way or the other. In other words, it's a dead issue. Different people spend differently. Fine by me. Could we talk about something interesting for a change? Yes, let the bashing begin. I've got pain deadeners handy.

Hey if you can afford $20K have fun. I can not, unless it is a once in a lifetime trip. I have a list as long as my arm of places I would like to see and would like to go every year. Many people would find the fact that I spend $4-8k a year excessive.<BR><BR>You may feel that the information in this thread is tired and boring. That is only your opinion. I might point out to you that the reason most people have responded to this thread was that we are tired and bored of people who seem to have to spend twice as much to get a hotel that might be 10% better.<BR><BR>The others were polite in offering their alternate opinion. Shame on you.

My thoughts. First, attitude matters more than money (in making a vacation successful). We have all heard stories about those who go first class and don't have much fun. I haven't heard many stories about frugal people having a bad time (though an occaisional bad experience). I like nice hotels, but would rather spend my money elswhere. My favorite memories are of hotels with a few quirks. I don't really want to go on vacation and stay at a hotel that reminds me of my house. That said, I do want the hotel to be safe, clean and reasonably convenient.

I agree that simply bragging, either about how much or how little one spends, is useless. However, discussions of the range of prices that are available are, to me, very useful. It can help people realize that a trip to much of Europe can be done even within a fairly modest budget. Since I am definetely in the spend as little as possible in accomodations category (I normally try 30-50 Euros a night), I enjoy finding out about new budget accomodation opportunities or strategies. <BR><BR>

My thoughts. First, attitude matters more than money (in making a vacation successful). We have all heard stories about those who go first class and don't have much fun. I haven't heard many stories about frugal people having a bad time (though an occaisional bad experience). I like nice hotels, but would rather spend my money elswhere. My favorite memories are of hotels with a few quirks. I don't really want to go on vacation and stay at a hotel that reminds me of my house. That said, I do want the hotel to be safe, clean and reasonably convenient.

I really like your idea, cooter, about the need for a range. Bear in mind that in my own personal household, we never travel because we need to, only for fun. So we don’t really think in terms of what we need, but what we want, when it comes to hotel rooms. We want to travel as often as we can, which tends to see us booking 2 star hotels. However, we also want variety, so we often sprinkle the odd 3 or even 4 star hotel room here and there. I’m sure we’re not the only ones who do this. So Carol, I don’t think you need fear that queries about 4 star hotels necessarily indicate that the board caters more to this budget level than the other. Even at that, it doesn’t necessarily make a difference. The late Ed Gehrlein, a frequent contributor to this board, was very helpful in steering us to a great 2 star in Switzerland, even though he and his wife Julie usually chose to stay in a 4 star in the same village.