I'll be visiting Europe for the first time this summer and would appreciate any input!
I will be traveling to Sierra Leone this summer and en route, I'll be staying in London for a week. I would like to ride the Eurostar and visit Paris and Belgium while I'm there and not limit myself to just London.
Here is my conundrum though: I enjoy the spontaneity of trips like these and don't want to book hostels now- I feel like that would put me on a time crunch, which is exactly what I want to get away from. However, I'm not an expert as to where hostels are located, how to find them, etc.
Should I just get to London with a general idea of the sites I want to see and worry about lodging later? I'm not quite sure how to approach this and would appreciate any input.
Reply to this Hello Doug 😊
To get a list of the hostels and their amenities just Google hostels and the name of the city you are going to. A list will come up. You can book them online with your credit card. No real need to prebook everything before your trip. You could book the next hostel, just before you leave to go to that city. I recommend that you ask somebody you trust at home to book the hostels for you, so you dont have to take any security risks with your credit card in internet cafes. What I do is email my boyfriend before I arrive in a particular place and ask him to book a hostel for me. He then sends me the booking code and details about how to get to the hostel.
If you are travelling in Summertime, I think it is best to prebook at least just before you arrive in the cities. Hostels get booked up. And it is a pain to arrive at a hostel only to find it is full and then have go to the other side of the city to another, when all you want to do is drop you backpack and crack open a beer.
Mel
Reply to this Hi Doug
I would definitely recommend that you book your hostel for London as you will find that they get booked up quite quickly especially if you want to stay in central London. Are you a member of Hosteling International? If so you can stay at any of the many YHA hostels in the UK and whilst they are not necessarily the cheapest they are decent quality...
Reply to this we usually just booked our hostels a couple of days before we left for the next location sometimes only phoning a hostel on the way whilst on the train. i would recommend in the summer months that some locations get booked out very quickly. the best hostels in cities such as amsterdam and london will be booked out very early in advance so i would maybe pre book these. if your plans change while on the road as long as you cancel them a few days in advance you should get your deposit back and in the worst case scenario you will lose the 10% deposit.
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