In Australia

We book a room if we are going to a major city, but we trust to luck anywhere else. The only risk with this one is that if it is school holiday time, or there is a special event in the town you are visiting, you might be out of luck. We once decided on a whim to drive to Dubbo (a few hundred kilometres from our then home in Sydney), arrived at 8pm, and couldn't find a bed anywhere, not even within 200 kilometres of the place! There was a rodeo on. We ended up having to drive all the way back to Sydney and got home at 3am.

In USA

We ALWAYS pre-book a room for one or two nights in the city we first arrive in, and do the same for a night or two before we fly home. If we are on the midnight flight to Sydney, we also book the room for the whole of that night, so we can spend the whole of the previous day sight-seeing, have dinner, and still have a place to relax and have a shower before our flight. Bit of a splurge, but it makes that long flight home much more bearable.

We tend to give airport motels a miss unless there's a really good reason to be close to the airport (eg an extremely early flight) - they tend to be expensive, often there is no-where to eat except the motel restaurant, and there's nothing much to do once you've checked out all the room toys. Instead, we book a city motel which is on the airport shuttle route.

We tend NOT to book ahead for the rest of the time, because it gives us much more choice about where we want to go and how long we want to stay. Generally, we try to find a place before 5pm (earlier in winter) - if we leave it much later than that, we have found ourselves hunting around after dark, which isn't as much fun.

Tip: We ALWAYS pre-book if we want to stay in the lodges or cabins in National Parks (this is a great experience, try it!). We have often found you need to book these up to six months in advance (depending on when you are planning to go).

Tip: Many places overseas will give you a discounted room rate on presentation of your Australian motorist organisation card (eg NRMA, RACV). Not sure if overseas ones are honoured here!)

Tip: Las Vegas - half the fun in visiting Las Vegas is staying at one of the huge casino hotels. This can be VERY expensive (room cost, I am not talking gambling, which of course can go either way) if you want to stay Friday, Saturday or Sunday nights. Instead, plan to go mid-week. You can pre-book over the internet or just walk up to Reception and ask for the daily rate - on these days it will be MUCH cheaper than the normal rate (Probably applies in Reno too).

In Europe

We've tried a number of different strategies here - prebooking through a travel agent, internet booking a day or so ahead and also turning up at the tourist information booking office and getting them to find us something on the spot. This last option is the one that gives you the most freedom and we did not have any problem finding a bed at a reasonable price when travelling in May/June, except in Milan, where we ended up paying heaps for a pretty yukky room, because there were not many left. I am not sure this would be a sensible strategy in peak periods, but in any event, don't leave it too late in the day to time your arrival if you are going to go this way.

We always pre-book the night we get off the flight from Australia and the one before we fly back.

Tip: If you are seeing Europe by Eurail, it makes life a lot easier if you book into a motel as close as possible to the train station. DOUBLE CHECK which station your train terminates at in big cities - once we booked a hotel which we thought was close to the station the train terminated at, only to find we had to lug our bags onto the commuter line train for two stops to reach the right place. People with luggage upset commuters, especially if they happen to be travelling in peak hour.

Tip: In Germany, you will often find an 'Intercity' motel either in, or close to the main rail station and those we have stayed in have always been comfortable, clean and extremely convenient. However, you could probably find something very similar not much further from the station and perhaps a little cheaper.

Using the Internet to book motels

We've done this a fair bit and only on a couple of occasions have we turned up to find that the booking has not been registered at the motel. The internet rates have always been cheaper than the walk-in rates, sometimes hugely cheaper. Even if you don't feel like booking over the internet, it is at least worth seeing if the place has a website, because you can then look at the room photos and the location map if they provide one.