Be smart when making lodging decisions
Here at ETD, we spend a ton of time looking for outstanding travel deals and get genuinely excited when we find great prices and discounts we can pass on to you.
But one MAJOR mistake we see a lot of travelers make when booking lodging is chasing the cheapest price. Remember, the cheapest price does not always equal the best deal. Various factors (amenities, star rating, guest ratings, date/time, etc.) impact value and price. When selecting lodging, particularly in Europe – it is critical that you look at location.
If you are like us, you probably browse prices, find a hotel that is cheap and has good review scores and then whip out your credit card and book your stay. So far, so good! But then you arrive to your destination…take an expensive cab ride to your hotel…and realize you are far away from the action. FAIL. And it gets even worse. The next day you wake up and have to spend extra money to travel back to see the attractions. You want to go out for a nice dinner and evening on the town, but that isn’t very convenient either. By the time you add up those extra costs (multiplied by the # of days on your trip) you realize your “savings” weren’t what you had hoped.
If you’ve paid hundreds (or thousands) of dollars/euros to travel to your European destination – wouldn’t you want to spend as much time as you could truly being there? Nothing takes the excitement out of your vacation like a poorly located hotel.
ETD wants to make it easier
If you notice, for each of our destination pages – we feature an embedded Booking.com lodging map (see Paris example below). We love these maps and are excited to offer them in our current site design.
These maps provide great info on: 1) prices; 2) review scores and 3) location. Take advantage of these features. Look at where the attractions are and zoom into the areas you might want to stay. Of course you don’t have to stay right under the Eiffel Tower…maybe somewhere a little quieter…but at least you can see what’s nearby and then read the reviews to confirm if the property is your kind of place or not.
On that note – if you are trying to save money and are willing to stay further away than popular areas – consider staying near public transport options (train stations, underground/metro, airports). That can make it easier and cheaper to get to attractions or other parts of town. They also tend to be hubs for taxis or ride-share (Uber, Lyft, etc.) offerings. Public transport stations are usually indicated on our embedded maps – you just have to look around and zoom in. As you move around and change your zoom level you will see the available lodging and prices automatically update.
Best of luck in your hunt for the perfect lodging deal!