Cheap rooms for budget travel don't have to be dirty or located in sketchy neighborhoods. There are plenty of places where you can find simple but comfortable lodging.
You might not find mints on your pillow. Still with me?
A Tale of Two Hotels
The Maritim Pro Arte provides some of Berlin's finest lodgings. As the name implies, the lobby and hallways are filled with beautiful, even avant-garde art objects. The staff is multi-lingual and attentive. The rooms are spacious and comfortable.
You'll meet Yanks and Brits in the lobby at the piano bar. You can shop for $150 ties in the trendy stores of nearby Friedrichstrasse.
Across town is the Arco Hotel. You'd miss its unpretentious entrance if you weren't looking carefully. Arco sits in a quiet residential neighborhood, but only a five-minute-walk from Germany's largest department store.
The rooms are small but clean. The staff is friendly, but at the time of my visit spoke mostly German. The patrons are from Eastern Europe or other cities in Germany and France. There's no piano bar, just a small room where the staff serves breakfast each morning.
I stayed in both of these places during a 10-day visit to Berlin. Each provides a pleasant, friendly lodging experience.
But Arco forced me to employ my limited German language skills, an experience far more memorable (and perhaps comical) than simply speaking in my native tongue at a fancy marbled check-in counter. Arco made me feel as if I resided in Berlin. The people I met there painted a tapestry of life in one of the world's most interesting cities -- at least when we could understand one another.
Rick Steves and Arthur Frommer have been saying it for years: Budget travel brings you closer to the people and places you visit.
You won't be surprised to learn that the cost of one night at the Maritim Pro Arte will buy several at Arco Hotel. The savings can pay for admission to some of Berlin's 180 museums, finance a day touring castles in Potsdam, or some delicious meals in the little restaurants of the Nikolaiviertel.
I credit one of Frommer's volumes for helping me find Arco Hotel. But there are scores of similar places scattered across Berlin and just about any other major city in the world. Some won't have a Web site or a fancy address. Most will not be listed in anyone's guidebook.
Others can be recommended for a small fee at information centers in train stations or airport terminals. Look for the lowercase , blue-and-white "i" sign.
A few parting tips for finding cheap rooms:
NEVER SACRIFICE CLEANLINESS OR SAFETY
"Budget" is not a synonym for dirty or dangerous.
A REMOTE "DEAL" IS NO DEAL AT ALL
As in business, "time is money" in the vacation world, too. Don't waste time commuting every day to the attractions on your itinerary. It's worth paying a little more to be near those places.
DON'T BE AFRAID TO BARGAIN
If you're staying for a week, management won't have to worry about an empty room for seven nights. That's worth something. Ask about a discount before you agree to a rate.
YOU DON'T ALWAYS TAKE THE FIRST ROOM THEY SHOW YOU
Even budget hotels have larger suites that come at higher prices. If you ask for an available room, often you'll be shown the most expensive first. Find out how to ask the question "is this the least expensive room available?" in the destination language.
PUT MORE STOCK IN TESTIMONIALS THAN GUIDEBOOKS
Guidebooks are an outstanding resource, but they're updated perhaps once a year. Make them a starting point. After you collect names and addresses, check out those selected lodgings on travel message boards and forums. The results can be interesting.
LEAVE YOUR COUNTRYMEN AT HOME
A cardinal sin of novice travelers is to insist that your destination resemble home. Realize that budget lodging in Europe probably means smallish rooms. It might even require a trip down the hall to the toilet or shower.
It also means fewer chance meetings with people from back home. You'll run into them on the subway, but why stay in the same hotel with them? And why should they have to see you when they came to visit Europe and her people?
