when you go on a long road trip do you plan every hotel stop on your way there?

[flamingglobessigmund]

So when you go on a long road trip do you plan everystop you make for the night on your way there? or do you wing it and just stop whenever your tired of driving? We are going on a long road trip this summer and will just be stopping when we are done driving for the day. We don't know where we will be stopping therefore we are just going to wing it and hope for the best.

The last long car trip we took was from NM to MN and back. It was something like 9 states in 7 days. I booked rooms for the trip up to MN, based on how far we wanted to drive each day. It was mapped out. I was glad to have to have the reservations.

On the way back, we just winged it. Going into a hotel when I was very tired left me open to pay any price just for a place to lay my head. It was also during Sturgis Week (which I didn't know ahead of time) so we were competing with motorcycle enthusiasts for rooms.

 

[Geoff_M]

For those who wing it...

Are you able to get discounts when you just walk up to the desk and ask for a room? I almost always have a AAA, Government Rate or other discount when I book a hotel room. Do you guys get these discounts or do you pay the full rack rate?

For our next trip, we're doing a "modified winging it"... that is instead of walking off the street and risking paying rack rate, we'll stop a few hours ahead of time, get on-line, and book something over the Internet using either a chain's web site or a travel discount site.

 

[tlbwriter]

After that we always have a reservation. Even if we are making it from the car as we drive.

I love the Hampton app for the iPhone.

 

[njmom47]

AAA is my answer! Get a TripTik, figure out where you think you'll be stopping, call AAA and ask them to find you a room. We did this on our last drive home from Florida (not WDW ), on the road, and had no issues at all. Just make sure to get a refundable room (in case you change your mind..that didn't happen on the Florida drive though).

 

[gator75]

We are traveling fron ND to PA in AUG

 

[golfgal]

I have never really taken a multiple day road trip where I needed to make reservations for more than one night. I have always made reservations for those nights. One trip I wish I hadn't because I wasn't tired enough to stop driving when I got to the hotel and could have kept going but that was the only time. We are taking a road trip next week, made a reservation for the first night already, the second and third nights we have "reservations" at my parent's place and we will drive straight through on the way home.

If we were ever to do a multiple day road trip, we would probably plan it as such that we stay for a couple days at each stop so we would make reservations then. When the kids are gone I think it would be fun to do a complete "wing-it" vacation and just go where the wind blows us.

 

[minkydog]

So when you go on a long road trip do you plan everystop you make for the night on your way there? or do you wing it and just stop whenever your tired of driving? We are going on a long road trip this summer and will just be stopping when we are done driving for the day. We don't know where we will be stopping therefore wwe are just going wing it and hope for the best.

Usually I don't, but recently on a trip to Tampa we endured the Night From Hell. It was spring break, but honestly, I had no idea that there would be NOTHING available for miles and miles. We were driving from Atlanta, thinking we'd probably stop in Ocala or Gainsville. Huh! Not only was the whole state of Georgia driving to Florida, but there was some huge playoff game going on in Gainsville and everything was booked for 50 miles. In fact, one of the (several) hotels we stopped at advised us to just drive on to Tampa! Well, we just couldn't do that. It was after midnight and I was so tired I was falling apart. I managed to find a seedy Days Inn, situated behind an equally seedy truck stop. DS24 remarked, "What is this, Rape Central?" Yep. The room smelled faintly of smoke, but at least the beds were mediocre. We managed to get a few hours sleep despite the truck noise and neon lights. I have to say,the free breakfast was actualy not bad.

I think this experience has changed my normal fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants modus operandi.

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

I'm more of a planner. So yes, we do tend to schedule things. Especially if we are using hotel points. We will research towns on our driving route that have cheaper exchanges. For example...Chain Hotel A near the big city requires X points per night, but Chain Hotel B 30 miles before or after the city, requires Less points per night. We go with chain hotel B. Same deal on cost.

I'm just not a good negotiator and getting stuck with rack rate stinks. Browsing prices on the internet and booking ahead of time saves me money.

We are also early morning drivers and not late at night drivers--and with kids...I may not be done driving, but they are sure done riding. Knowing our specific stops along the way is helpful for them.

 

[book_junkie]

I had some bad experiences with an extended-stay hotel right after we moved to Texas (people trying to break into the room while I was in there and having to call the police as management was unable to help), so I'm a little particular about hotels... And with my hubby being wired a bit tight is not a winging kind of guy , and we both have major pet allergies , so we've found that it's just way easier for us to have reservations.

We do have the numbers to the hotels/chains/ AAA, etc. so that we can cancel by the 5-6 p.m. time frame if we need to, and we know how long we can drive in a day and plan accordingly. And we both bless our smartphones as we got stuck the weekend before Memorial Day when storms were going through Texas for two whole days before getting back- only way we got a room and on a flight.

We know that going from our place to either WDW or our family up north takes us two days where it could take another couple one while driving through the night, but that's so not for us, and we have favorite chains that we stay in and rack up points. In fact, on our trip to see his brother's graduation, and on our trip back to our college town for my brother's last homecoming in college (and our alma mater) this fall, both rooms are paid for with loyalty points racked up from conference stays.

Now to just convince him that we NEED to stay on Disneyland property when my conference is in Anaheim next summer...

 

[aprilgail2]

We usually always wing it- worst that happened was once me and my daughter just slept in the van in a hotels parking lot. We are driving cross county in 2 years and will do the same, worst comes to worst we spend a night in the van.

 

[StitchBuddy]

Well, it depends on if it is a holiday. If it is a holiday then I make reservations. Because, if you don't you may end up with no where to stay. This has happened to us on more than one occasion.

 

[skuttle]

Once we were driving to WDW when I was 19 weeks pregnant and we planned on just finding a place to stop for the night. We didn't realize that it was spring break for almost the rest of the country (our spring break is different for some reason). Ended up not being able to find a place to stay so we called our resort at WDW and they were able to fit us in early. We checked in around 3 or 4am if I recall. I will NEVER travel w/o a reservation again!

 

[TLSnell1981]

We NEVER wing it. I have EVERY room booked months in advance.

 

[Becky2005]

I have a larger family so don't feel comfortable winging it now. Way back in the dark ages when I traveled with my family as a kid would travel we winged it all the time but most hotels didn't have a problem with bringing in a cot back then either.

We learned that you started looking ahead for hotels around 4 pm because you may not find one at the first stop and by dinnertime most were full. That was before the days of cell phones though. I'm sure now you could just figure out "Ok we want to drive 100 more miles" so find hotels down the road and make a reservation that way.

Of course, DH didn't listen to MY method of when to start looking for hotels on the way home from our honeymoon and that is why we ended up driving all the way from NJ to IL in one day (because the hotel we looked at was completely booked with a convention) and it was already late....so we just kept driving....he did agree I was RIGHT.

Edited to add - for the one who asked if you paid rack rate for just walking in - it depends. They usually have travel books that have discount codes in it for hotels along the route. I know we have used those in the past too. I'm pretty sure it was the Opryland hotel we ended up with once for something like $39.99 - this was when they still had the theme park there though, so I don't think the hotel was as fancy as it is now but it sure was way fancier than $39.99!!!!!

Honestly, I had never stayed in a hotel before with bellhops! THANKFULLY my DH had or I probably wouldn't have known to tip the poor guy....my family growing up always stayed in either no name hotels or things like Motel 6. I think I was in shock the whole time that we actually got the room as cheap as we did.

That was at least 19 years ago though but I know they still have the coupon books. One of our best winging it's was pretty much what you can do with cell phones now before everyone had them. At one of the rest stops, they had special phones with speed dials for several of the hotels on the route that were also in the books -- so we knew about how much farther we wanted to go & called, so we had reservations but didn't make them until we could guage how we were doing. This was all pre-kids though and with 4 kids, I'm not comfortable doing that.

 

[pospisil]

We're taking a long road trip this summer (old route 66 from TX to CA) and we're winging it. I'm a planner, so it's stressing me out a little bit. I really, really want to stay in one of those teepee shaped motels, so have my fingers crossed that it will be available. I'm hoping I can at least plan a day or so ahead as we're driving.

 

[scjo68]

I absolutely have reservations for every single night I am away from home. Always. It would not occur to me to head out for a multiday trip without a place to stay. Can't imagine.

OTOH, my in-laws seem to like winging it, because they seem shocked that I would even have any kind of plan.

 

[aprilgail2]

I absolutely have reservations for every single night I am away from home. Always. It would not occur to me to head out for a multiday trip without a place to stay. Can't imagine.

OTOH, my in-laws seem to like winging it, because they seem shocked that I would even have any kind of plan.

I wouldn't even have a clue how far I was going to drive to be able to make a reservation in advance. We drive until tired- sometimes until 5pm other times until 10pm..all depends on how much traffic and how tired I am. We like to go as far as possible so I would hate getting to a place at 4pm that we had a reservation for when we would have been able to go another 300 miles if I had not had to stop for a made in advance reservation.

 

[Swan4Me]

We've been burned before by assuming we could stop when we got tired and discovering that there was an event in town and not a single hotel room available, so now we either plan ahead to stop at a certain point, or make a reservation while we're on the road, when we feel like we know when we'll want to stop.

Us too-this happened one winter-there was a huge cheerleader thing in some mid sized town we stopped in-ended up staying in a not nice Holiday inn-blech


I now plan road trips from city to city and book the Hampton Inn or Hilton Garden view or other better chain hotel there

 

[msjprincess]

I make reservations. We have 3 kids and a lot of places will not take more than 2 kids. If we had 2 or less kids I'd probably be more willing to wing it.

 

[MamaLema]

For those who wing it...

Are you able to get discounts when you just walk up to the desk and ask for a room? I almost always have a AAA, Government Rate or other discount when I book a hotel room. Do you guys get these discounts or do you pay the full rack rate?

Sadly, we pay the full rack rate.

We are a family of 6, so those magazines at the rest stops full of discounts don't work for us because they are always for a maximum of 4 people. We also don't have cell phones/smart phones/etc. so can't book online while driving.