In fairness, I didn’t realize it was crazy. I was giving Jon anxiety, but that’s nothing new. After the trip, I asked a few of Jon’s friends who recently took extended breaks from work to travel. I was confident they’d side with me on booking hotels on the fly. Nope. They both had them booked way in advance of their trip.
We had booked our two-week vacation to Croatia and Slovenia, but work was dominating my time. I didn’t fully research the destinations like normal. I had the first five nights booked but after that the possibilities were endless. I wanted the flexibility to alter our plans if we came across a town we loved.
The majority of the towns we stayed in didn’t have a major hotel chain. I found that the Croatian and Slovenian hotels had a 7-day cancelation policy that made it hard to change plans last minute or didn’t have a way to book online.
On day 5, I booked us for two nights at Villa Borgo in Motovun. On day eight, things got crazy. We planned to move onto Slovenia, but we didn’t know if we wanted to stay on the coast in Piran or go straight to the mountains. I convinced Jon that we should drive to Piran and check it out before booking a hotel for that night.
We arrived in Piran. It was a lovely coastal town. The town square was beautiful. Look at me pose with my Coca-Cola, which I only drink on vacation because Europeans don’t love Dr Pepper. The only true downside to Europe. That and ice cubes.
A few days earlier, we were on the beach in Lovran, Croatia. We enjoyed that experience, but we are more mountain people on vacation. So we decided to move on to Bovec.
We absolutely loved the town of Bovec. It’s a little ski town with one lift, tons of hiking, a brewery run by an American and access to the Soca River. Since I have a T-Mobile international plan, I can book hotels from my phone. I quickly booked a place with a magnificent view of the mountains for three days on booking.com.
We used booking.com for most of the trip. I found that to be the easiest way to book a hotel since most wouldn’t let me book online. I’ve almost completely stopped using Airbnb because of the way they show their pricing. It is infuriating to see a listing for $75/night and click on it to find that it doesn’t include the cleaning fee, additional charges, etc.
Again, it was time to move on but I didn’t know if we should stay in a town near Lake Bohinj or Lake Bled. We drove to the town I’d picked out near Lake Bohinj. It didn’t look like much. We stopped and ate lunch. I suggested before we leave town to drive to the water and look around. I didn’t realize the town I had picked out wasn’t the closest place to the lake.
We ended up staying in Ribčev Laz at a place I booked while sitting on the rocky beach of Lake Bohinj. It was walking distance from the lake. If we had more time, we would’ve stayed in Ribčev Laz for a while. We drove to Lake Bled on our way to Ljubljana. We were both agreed that Lake Bohinj was better. (probably confirmation bias).
While booking hotels on the fly can be risky. I thought it was well worth it. We were able to check out a city to see if it was for us and we avoided staying in the wrong town.
What do you think? Am I crazy? Do you book hotels on the road or in advance?
Don’t walk the entire loop around Lake Bohinj in sandals.
Also, try to put your shirt on the right way.