Hey, so Iwill be traveling in July and hittin the big cities in Western Europe....I was planning on booking all my hostels now...is this a bad idea? I want to be flexible but i've been told that July is the most popular time to travel etc. Also...when i book they say they want a time of arrival...and i have NO idea when that would be...so do i just make up a late time to cover myself??? What do people normally do? Is it easy to call and change reservations after they are made should my plans change? thanks!

If you wanna book all your places now, then I say go for it! As for making a time of arrival, I would say 4pm is a good time, and if your going to be late, get to a phone and call the hostel to let them know, should not be a problem.

I used theTravelpunk Hostle Reservation System to book my rooms on my last trip to Europe and It was great, everything was ready for me when I arrived. And its a great way to support the site!

And a very big http://www.harrythecat.com/graphics/w/welcome4.gif to you!!!! Its great to have ya on the boards!!!

WELCOME TO THE FAMILY!!!!!!! :thumbup:
about the hostels if i know i'm going to be some where then i book, but i try not to get to far on my booking b/c plans can change. This is my first trip though so i may be doing it all wrong!!! :lol:
good luck and have a great time!!!!! :thumbup:

Thanks for the advice! I am still so confused about something else though too- If I book a hostel for say 3 nights and my plans change and I wanna arrive on the second day of my reservation or maybe leave the hostel a day early or whatever, how does this work? Will they keep my reservation if i give this notice ill be a day late? does anyone have any experience with this...i'm a first time traveler and VERY nervous about all this! I hate that i'm making my plans so set in stone by booking but I'm worried everything would fill up if I was spontaneous and decided the week of! Thanks for any help...

I doubt they are really strict on the arrival time that you put down, but does anyone know for sure?

Hi kookie,
I just got back from an awesome trip in western Europe and had one issue w/the dates changing situation... we were retards and booked the wrong dates at the hostel in Cinque Terre. We booked for 3 nights, but were actually only going to be there the last 2 nights of that reservation. When we called to say we wouldn't make it the first day (we knew they'd charge us for 1st night anyway since we didn't give 3 days notice), but they said they had to cancel our entire reservation! Even though we were going to be there the 2 nights. We asked if we could just make a new reservation for those 2 nights and they said no. Made zero sense, but not much by the way of customer service does in europe sometimes. Anyway, they can be stingy sometimes, but that was our only issue. Don't miss Cinque Terre! It's incredible!