Hotels: how to choose the best one

Hotels are the type of accommodation most chosen by travelers. In these years B&B and apartments dedicated to tourists increased their number all around the world, but people still search for a hotel. There are rooms for all need and it is easy to manage them, especially for the services offered by the structures. How to find the best one? Are the reviews reliable? Some of them, yes, but not all of them. So what to do?

I want to share some experience about it. I already wrote a post on my evaluation criteria for the hotels and now I try to give you more advice. Sometimes it is difficult to book the best structure because they are so many and the search engines or the website underline, obviously, only the positive side. It happens to reserve a room and then to see something completely different. But this is not the only problem. You spend a lot of time to research it. Here there are the steps to follow to save time and go direct to the goal.

Filter the hotels

The first step is to use a booking website. You can start with Booking.com because it gives you a good variety and a lot of filters. Of course, there are many other hotels search engines. What you have to do is to insert the dates and the city. Then work on the filters in the menu. The price range, the number of stars, the location, the preferred services and so on. I generally focus on the four and five stars hotels, but this helps me to have an idea about offers and prices. Then I compare more websites, also the official ones. In this case, I suggest to browse in incognito, as I suggested in the post about airline tickets.

The amenities

The filters for amenities are important because in one hand you are going to make a selection of the extras you need. In the other hand, you are going to reduce the number of hotels, so it will be easy to focus on them. The parking for the car, the pool, the WiFi… Some of them are essential for you, so why to lose time to check a hotel that doesn’t offer you what you want. Booking.com gives you also the chance to select the type of accommodation, as for example ”romantic”, “business” or “family”.

Be careful because more options you tick and fewer hotels will you have to choose. So try to pay attention to the main services and avoid the one not so important for you. The reviews together give a star rating, it is good the average number because it corresponds to the reality. Some websites anyway accept opinions only from people who booked through them and who stayed in the structure, so they are not fake. What I suggest is always to read them carefully, because you may not have the same standards to evaluate the hotel. What is good for you can be bad for another person and vice-versa.

Probably you are going to the chosen destination to see something specific, like a monument, a museum, a park or something like that. So you are searching for accommodation quite close to that place. Or do you prefer to stay at the airport or just to be connected by public transportation? You can find information about the location of the hotels in their description, but you need time to check all the text. So easily you can open the map and see exactly the point where the structures are located. Just try to see the distance from the main attractions and the presence of public transport lines.

The booking sites offer you a map of where to see the location of the hotels. It shows them also if they are excluded by your criteria. In fact, you can change the idea and prefer a good location instead of something else. The colors used by the system help you to find each structure on the map. You can read also the price checking the location, so you can consider easily what to choose.

The support

People who go to the hotels want to have staff always present and ready to support them. That is why among the services and the amenities you can check better what you expect. For example, if you arrive late at night, will they be available to welcome you through a 24-hour reception? Will they have someone who can be there for you to show the room and give you the key? If you check the policy of the hotel you can find that the check-in is not available after a certain hour.

What will you find in the room? This is another important question. In fact, you have to find out the size of the bed, if there are a double one or two single beds. Is the room non-smoking? Imagine if you don’t smoke to enter in a place where usually people do it. Will you have the hair dryer and the toiletries? It looks obvious, but to prepare a checklist about the things that you need in a hotel will help you.

Search for hotels requires method and time. That is why with a few steps you can easily reach the objective and find the best hotel for you.

Feel free to ask something or just to add your opinion and contribution in the comments form.

Have a pleasant stay!