Winging it in France
 

I am finding myself overwhelmed trying to find accommodations and not sure what is the best choice. What's your opinion on winging it with no hotel reservations (except for the first day) and just driving from Paris to Nice and back and picking my lodging on the way?

Many autoroute exits at peripheries of cities are loaded with chain motel type accommodations that rarely seem hard to find vacancies. go to www.accorhotels.com for the largest such chain. You can often make a reservation and be able to change or cancel without obligation until 7pm the day you arrive. Each motel can make reservations for you as you go but i'd just go as you go. Just like you would in the U.S.

The only place you could have a problem is along the major autoroute to Nice at the busy transit periods around the first, middle and ends of July and August.

That's my take - hopefull such French resident will comment.

It depends on the time of year. Popular tourist destinations may be full up, other are less so. 14 years ago, we had to drive 30 km. from Beaune to find a (lousy) hotel. That was in July. We also had difficulties eslewhere in Burgundy. On the other hand, we had no problems in the Bourbonnais.

I think it may depend on what kind of hotels you are looking for - in city charmers or institutional highway chains.

I'd start with www.viamichelin.com and decide where you're going to end up each day.

Also Best Western in Europe, oddly enough, has some good hotels. They are mostly affiliated hotels and not owned by Best Western. I've stayed in many of them, after I figured this out by accident.

They also will call ahead to your next destination (at last count, free) to see about room availability.

Tourist offices are helpful in finding hotel accomodations. Listed here:

http://www.tourisme.fr/

Try www.chambresdhotesfrance.com.
Accommodation are all different.
We stayed on a duck farm in the
Pyrennes, May, 2004. It was wonderful. Room, dinner and breakfast
was about$75.00.

We have winged it a lot. The problem is that during the busy summer months you can spend a lot of your time looking for a place to stay. Given your time is limited there, you may want to invest time in looking for a place before you arrive. But there is always room for adventure if you wing it!

I find it much more overwhelming trying to pick the right place when I'm tired and worried that I won't find anything nearby than when I'm sitting at home with plenty of resources to compare the choices and make a decision.

Previously I tried to wing it but as the OP said you can spend a lot of time looking for a place. If you are overwhelmed looking on the net it will not be any better while driving around.

In my experience, I was the one jumping out of the car, running into the hotel and asking for a room. Remember that most people are settled into their rooms by 6 pm so they are set for dinner at 8pm.

What cured me from ever wanting to do this again was driving/asking for hours in Burgandy only to decide to go outside of town. We drove up at 9pm to a lighted inn and as soon as we were parked, near the entrance, all the lights were turned off, needless to say, they did not answer the door. We ended up in town at the hotel de gare in a very dirty and nasty room....

Hardly ever prebooked a room in my life, even including first nights when arriving after a 24-hour flight! With one exception, however - if arriving late at night (such as our arrival off a Channel or Irish ferry at 1am) I have been known to phone ahead the night before and book something. Sure, we've had our moments - but none ever turned out bad, and it's all part of the richness of travel. Makes for good dinner conversations!

On a more practical note, it can be cheaper to wing it. One time I spent ages searching through accommodation internet sites in Rheinland Germany, but got overwhelmed by it all just as you have, and gave up. I winged it, and found that by fronting up on the night I was able to get significantly better rates than I had been seeing on the internet a month or so before - some even from the very same establishments.

Hi J,

>just driving from Paris to Nice and back and picking my lodging on the way?

What's your itinerary, and when are you going?

((I))

I'm going mid May and I only have a week. I didn't figure lost drive time and being tired in the equation and am thinking it may be better to fly out of Paris to Nice and just look for a really nice hotel there.

Check on PREM tickets for the TGV. It might be better than flying. http://www.sncf.fr/indexe.htm

TGV will be better than flying almost surely. And if you are just "getting there", don't drive. It is just "long".

You could also try www.chambresdhotes.org
There is a good selection of b&b and holiday homes there.