We decided on a recent week long tour following the Inn Valley Route to book all our accommodation in advance. Some of our nights were spent in youth hostels. In our experience it is very difficult to find a double room with or without shower in a youth hostel just by turning up at the door.
We also used booking.com to book accommodation on several nights. This site avoids problems with landlords who would normally bar touring cyclists because they only wish to stop for one night. Single night book bookings are accepted. I presume the other websites offering booking are similar.
The great advantage is that the room is booked and guaranteed. There is no need to flog yourself into a heart attack to get to the hotel by 18:00, say, in case the owner decides you are not coming.
There are a few problems however with these systems:
- These websites do not always have all the accommodation in a city, town or village on their books. This means if you don't find a hotel on one site it pays to check one of the other booking sites.
- Check exactly where the hotel or guest house is. We just booked ourselves into a hotel about 200m (about 650') above and 3km away from the cycle route. It was a long walk pushing a heavily laden touring bike.
- Another snag is that these organisations fill your email in box with offers afterwards.
- In our experience there do not appear to be many B&Bs on these websites' lists. There are however special websites offering B&Bs. Feed B&B and the name of the country or the area you are interested in into your favourite search engine.
- Make sure you know how to get to the accommodation. Use one of the map apps to download the exact position.
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