How To Pinpoint The Right Location For Your Travel Lodging
- Updated: 04/08/2022
Part three of “How To Find Just-Right Accommodation In Five Steps.”
After figuring out your lodging budget and must-haves – steps one and two of the five steps to finding just-right accommodation – it is time to answer the question, where should you stay?
Location matters. Booking a place in an area that is safe, close to main attractions, and is ideally atmospheric and has great service – will radically increase trip enjoyment.
Plus, it will be leaps and bounds better than staying in a poorly located place likely to cause stress and frustration.
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To figure out which area is the best to stay in, I recommend doing three things when planning a trip, they are:
- Get to know the neighborhoods and areas and understand which is the best fit for your group.
- Identify your likely activities. Are popular activities and attractions nearby?
- Decide about public transportation – will you use it?
Where To Get The Best Neighborhood Overviews
I have a great shortcut for getting to know the neighborhoods in larger cities and towns – using Google’s hotel search tool.
It is not obvious that Google offers a valuable neighborhood overview, and for those who know where to look – it is a gold mine of information.
When I use Google’s hotel search tool – which I arrive at via the Google Travel main page – I look for the “Where To Stay” button after I enter my search destination and dates. I show a screenshot of what to look for below.
For example, if I click the “Where To Stay” button for Boston, as is shown above, it will list all of the city’s neighborhoods and provide background information for each – such as average lodging cost and a location score.
For more on how to find the “Where To Stay” button on how to use it, view the YouTube video below.
And when Google can not deliver the location overview goods – perhaps I am traveling to a larger region – I go old school and read a guidebook. I love guidebooks for their unbiased and independent content and write more about why here.
Guidebooks are excellent resources for providing overviews for larger regions and cities, often offering in-depth write-ups about geographic areas, large and small.
For a Boston trip a few years ago, I used the Frommer’s Boston Day By Day guidebook to read about which neighborhoods sounded like the right fit. Many looked great – including Beacon Hill, the North End, the Waterfront, and Back Bay.
After pairing the neighborhood overviews in the books with the Google “Where To Stay” information, it became clear that the walkable, character-laden, and restaurant-heavy North End was the best location choice for our family.
Which it was – we had a great vacation exploring its cobblestone streets surrounded by history, historic architecture, and excellent restaurants.
Related: Read more on why I recommend checking out a guidebook for every trip you take in the article, “For The Love Of Guidebooks.”
How To Quickly Identify Likely Activities To Make Sure Your Lodging Is Close By
When narrowing down the areas to stay in, it also helps to figure out – at least roughly – what tours or activities you would like to do during your visit.
For our trips, if I do not already have a good idea of what we want to do, I search Google Travel or Tripadvisor to view top recommended sights and activities.
My goal in doing this is not to get a comprehensive list – I will do this later – instead, I only want to figure out if the locations of my likely activities are close to my lodging.
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A high location score in Google’s hotel search tool mentioned above – favors places that are highly walkable and close to popular visitor sites, so it is a helpful reference point when deciding where to stay.
Though, if your family plans to do activities that are less mainstream or further afield, such as attending sports events, or concerts, or going on day trips, you will want to take this into consideration when looking for a place to stay. If you are on a city trip, and your likely activities keep taking you out of town, there may be no need to pay a premium to stay in the city center.
Consider Public Transportation - Will You Need It?
Does your destination have public transport, and will you use it? If you are visiting Paris with kids, for example, you will undoubtedly want to stay within easy walking distance of a Metro station to minimize that last tiring trek back to your lodging after a long day of exploring.
And for other destinations that are not major metropolises, consider checking out their public transportation systems to avoid driving-around-town and parking hassles.
For example, when visiting Charleston, South Carolina, even though we had our car with us, we regularly relied upon the city’s free and easy DASH bus transport to get around town. Our hotel conveniently had a bus stop right across the street.
And other times, it is good to figure out when you will not need public transportation because this may give you even more flexibility with where you book your lodging.
For a spring break trip to Washington D.C. we decided to walk nearly everywhere instead of using its extensive metro system – even clocking in 25,000+ steps in one day.
And when we hit exhaustion, we relied on ubiquitous and affordable ride-sharing services (pre-pandemic), such as Uber and Lyft, whose prices per person at the time – were equivalent, or in some cases, less than buying four one-off metro tickets. Which meant our hotel did not need to be on or close to a metro line.
Since transportation is not a sexy travel topic – except for cities with outstanding metro lines that are destinations in their own right – overviews about transportation systems and whether or not to use them do not generally show up in blogs and online activity guides. So, it pays to do a bit of extra research to decide if zipping around town on the public transport system is right for you.
The best resources for giving the skinny on whether public transport is the right fit are guidebooks and visitor bureau websites.
These sources typically also provide helpful links to transportation websites, where visitors can access more detailed information, such as route maps, times, ticket prices, and more.
Next up – finding mind-blowing lodging. With your trip budget set, your lodging must-haves identified, and the right neighborhood nutted out, it is time to dig in to find the right place to stay. For where to start your search, read “Four Top Resources For Finding The Best Trip Accommodation,” covering the final two steps in our “How To Find Just-Right Accommodation In Five Steps” series. Also part six of our “Amazeballs Guide To Better Family Travel.”
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Hi, I am Janice and and I run the Gather and Go Travel blog. I am a travel writer, blogger, and bookhound, specializing in family and group travel. I have traveled extensively domestically and internationally to 40+ countries. I am fascinated by other cultures, religions, and languages—and love to share what I have learned in my writing. For more on my background, read my bio, our story, and how to work with me.
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4 Responses
Thank you for the reminder that finding the proper hotel will need some homework. I plan to travel a little bit next month, thus I’d want to hunt for a suitable location to stay. By that time, I’ll be taking a long vacation, therefore I want to make sure I’ll be spending it somewhere other than the city.
We appreciate you mentioning that you use Google Travel or Tripadvisor to view top-rated attractions and activities. My mother desires a trip. She wants to stay at the nicest hotel close to events. I’ll advise her to use Google Travel or Tripadvisor to look up accommodations.
You are welcome, I am glad it helped.
Thanks for the reminder that some research will be needed when looking for the right lodging. I’d like to look for a good place to stay because I want to travel a bit next month. I will be having a lengthy vacation leave by then so I want to make sure I will be spending that outside the city.