Four of us (Americans) are taking a trip to London and Rome next summer as a graduation gift to my niece and her mother (my SIL). We’ll be in both cities for 5 days and a quick couple of days in Zurich.
I’m looking for recommendations on where to stay. None of us have ever been to Europe although my wife and I have been out of the US many times. The other 2 have almost never traveled so this should be fairly eye-opening to them, I hope.
Obviously, we’d like to be fairly close to things so downtown areas would be best, I assume. I don’t have any set budget but I’d like to keep things under $300/night if possible. The 4 of us can stay in the same room if necessary but it wouldn’t be my first choice.
Any and all recommendations and/or questions are welcome.
I’m always of the opinion that, unless you are going to be staying right by the places you want to visit (and those are the only places you are going to visit) then trying to get a downtown accommodation is an unncessary expense in somewhere like Rome or London.
Staying just a little further out cuts hundreds off your accommodation costs, you can get bigger and better places to stay and with the tourist spots you want to hit being so spread out anyway it really doesn’t affect the amount of travelling you do.
i.e. If you are staying in Covent Garden and spending most of the day in Kensington then you’ve got a walk and tube to take anyway, no different than if you’d stayed further out.
Also, our family of four always chooses an apartment over a hotel. Cheaper and bigger with more room facilities (and a more common option the further you get from the centre)
I’d spend a evening with Booking.com, google maps and the relevant tube maps open in front of you and look for areas just out of the centre with good local services and restuarants, quick connections to the main attractions and decent apartments for rent.
That’s what we do but it is your personal choice of course.
Yeah, these two requirements are in direct conflict.
I’ve taken my family all over Europe, from London to Rome, from Portugal to Slovakia. The good hotels in the central neighborhoods are always dramatically more expensive, because of this kind of demand.
The suggestion above to look at transit lines is a good one. Here’s an example: We visited Milan a couple years ago. Most of what we wanted to see was in the central Duomo zone. But hotels in those few blocks were stupid expensive. So we looked at the main subway stop, and followed the transit lines outward. We found a hotel within a block of the Loreto stop on the M1 line that was half the price of the more central options. It was almost an hour walk from the hotel to the cathedral, but only 12-13 minutes on the train. That’s a no-brainer.
We’ve followed the same strategy in Vienna, Athens, Lisbon, Paris, you name it. We were in Düsseldorf a month ago and did the same thing. It’s a little more work, but it’s highly recommended.
In London, consider staying at a Premier Inn (there are dozens of locations). This chain is very reasonably priced, super-comfortable and very reliable. (Check the reviews on Tripadvisor.) Great value for the money.
When we stay overnight in London (and it usually is only overnight) we use a Travelodge. It is basic but fine. The four of us can fit in a family room and we often stay at East India Dock. Usually about £70 a night and 15 minutes on the DLR to the Tower of London or 30 minutes to Westminster.
That hotel is not set in a bustling area though, we merely need it as place to sleep. I can understand if someone on the trip of a lifetime is wanting a better location but certainly there are good options that aren’t in the centre.
Can’t speak for Rome but what is it you want to do in London? Theatre? Food? Museums? Shopping? Russell Square seems to be the popular spot for tourists staying in London who can’t afford to stay in the nice hotels in the very centre. If money was no object I would look to stay around Covent Garden or Charing Cross.
here’s an example of the sort of thing I’d be looking at.
This is for a Mon-Fri stay in July next year. It is around your budget, separate bedroom and sofa bed. Near Tower bridge and London Bridge on the South Bank with plenty of restaurants/bars/shops nearby and with London Bridge station on the doorstep.
That’s just an example of the sort of thing on offer, there are many other options (and cheaper ones) in other areas but the principle is the same.
I fully endorse this. Apartments give you much more for your money than hotels, and also give you the opportunity to live where the locals live. The above location (London Bridge/Borough) is fantastic because it’s a vibrant area where locals live and work, there’s loads of great places to eat and you are a hop and a skip from central London, and just along the river from the Tate Modern in one direction and Shakespeare’s Glove theatre in the other.
If you like the sound of living like a local, other areas I would consider would be Camden, Islington, Fulham, Notting Hill, Crouch End. All places with vibrant local high streets and great places to eat. Don’t extend your search beyond zone 2 (as defined by the transport network) - too much travelling and the danger, without an intimate knowledge of London, of ending up in a nondescript suburb with no interesting amenities.
You’ll spend a lot of time on the tube in London, so I agree with staying a ways out of the city. When we went to Rome, we found a B&B sort of place, nothing fancy, but walking distance from many attractions. If you don’t care about the American notion of a hotel, that’s not a bad way to go.
I love walking in Rome, cruising the back streets and alleys there is always something to discover.
Last time we were there we had a two-bedroom apartment up by Vittorio Emanuele metro station. Not the most luxurious of surroundings but the apartment was excellent, cheap and a 15 minute walk to the Collosseum and 30 minute walk to the Pantheon.
Rome is a terrific walking city. Stuff to see everywhere.
Last time I was there, I happened across a busker who was playing trumpet solos from Ennio Morricone’s movie scores in a high-walled and very resonant neighborhood alley. Beautiful and haunting. Stood there for several minutes and then gave him every last bit of my change. What a memory.
Thanks to everyone that has replied. I have no issues whatsoever with getting an apartment or a VRBO kind of thing. In fact, I think I’d prefer it assuming that it has a washer/dryer. Packing 14 days worth of clothes into a suitcase and keeping it under 50 pounds can be challenging, especially for inexperienced travelers.
I’m on my phone so I can’t scroll back and see who recommended not going out beyond zone 2 but thanks! I tried to save money in Chicago once by staying near O’Hare and taking the train in. It took an hour each way and just wasn’t worth it to me.
The point about the washing machine is a great one, we’re off to NZ for two weeks next easter and we’re just taking hand luggage because we’ve got those facilities throughout.
yeah, that’s just a little too far to be practical or enjoyable. 20 minutes or so to where the action is? No problem.
London transport is cheap and very accessible. My contactless debit card basically acts as an Oyster card. i.e. you just touch in and out either side of your tube journey and you are automatically charged the discounted rate and if you take multiple journeys in a day the amount you spend is capped at the cost of a daily travel card.
So no tickets, no calculations and very little hassle. It is an excellent system.
My first suggestion would be don’t go in the summer when it’s too hot (especially Italy), too crowded, and everything is at its most expensive. My trips to London and Italy were in October and it was great.
In London we stayed within walking distance of Victoria Station. From there it was easy to get almost everywhere we wanted to go, either by foot or by public transportation.
In Rome, we stayed near the Largo do Torre Argentina, where Caesar was assassinated. Again, a great location for walking to most parts of the central city. Made a mistake by trying to walk all the way to St. Peter’s from there though. Use the excellent bus services.
I wish that this were an option but the niece will be in college by then and my wife and SIL both work in the public school system so we’re really limited to when we can go. The good news is that we live in Oklahoma and the summer heat is just something that we learn to live with.
Two different answers for the cities you’ve selected:
London is ridiculously expensive for hotels. I’ve spent the most, for the “minimal-est” rooms in London. BUT the Underground (“tube”) connects you to anywhere you want to go. So I would recommend not staying “downtown”, but find a reasonable place (hotel or AirBnB, or even normal BnB) further out. Just make sure it is within easy walking distance to an Underground station.
Rome, on the other hand, is much more of a walking city. You can hit most of the tourist stuff you’ll want to see (Pantheon, Coliseum, Forum, etc.) just from walking around. And I found hotels to be very reasonable. On my last visit I just used Hotels.com and found a place near the top of the Spanish Steps that worked out great. The only more out-of-the-way place was the Vatican, but we just took the public transit (light rail ?) out there and it worked out fine.
One general tourist tip on Rome: it’s a very different destination compared to London, Paris, Berlin… Those cities have many, many different things to see, so the tourists are generally fairly well spread out. But visitors to Rome are really after the Top Ten, and that’s pretty much it. There’s a lot more, but those highlights are on everyone’s lists. And Rome will be very, very busy in the summer, so you’ll be dealing with concentrated pockets of tourists right where you want to be.
So here’s my tip: organize your time so you’re hitting the major sights as early in the day as possible. Seriously, plan to wake up and get a genuinely early start. Otherwise, if you arrive at, say, the Trevi Fountain around 11am, you’ll be in a shoulder-to-shoulder crowd, packed out into the surrounding side streets. If you book a Colosseum tour for mid afternoon, you’ll be standing in line for 90 minutes minimum.
But if you can manage to walk up to the Trevi Fountain between, say, 7 and 8, you won’t exactly have it to yourselves, but it’ll be a lot more accessible.
Then save the less touristy places for later in the day, when all the other travelers are shuffling around the square waiting their turn to enter the Pantheon, or whatever. The Villa Borghese park, for example, is absolutely beautiful, well worth an afternoon walk, and it won’t be wall-to-wall tourists. And did you know there are 900 churches in Rome?
Thank you! That sounds like great advice. My niece and SIL are farm girls so they’re used to getting up early and doing chores. It’ll be hardest on me.
