Our first “serious” trip outside Romania was few years ago, when we wanted to go to Numismata (an European Numismatic Convention) in Munich. My boyfriend worked in the city for some years previously and was confident we won’t get lost in there. But still, there was a problem: accommodation.

As in any normal city, we have lots of travel agencies in Timisoara (where we live in). With amazing offers to get you to the other side of the world, discounts, 5 star hotels, anything you want. Still there were still people who complained about problems once they reached their destination: the rooms they booked weren’t available, the 4 star hotel looked like a 3 star hotel etc. Some of the issues were pretty minor, but others could really ruin the vacation for you.

And since we always thought the best people to know about their accommodation facilities are the ones to own the “shack”, we tried a different approach. The first stop was of course the huge Booking.com, we were pretty reluctant to use since we live in Romania and thought it would be pretty difficult to book a room and especially have the credit card work to solve all the things needed to confirm the booking. Well, we were wrong. In under 2 minutes my credit card was checked and considered valid, the room was booked and we also received an email confirming all these details.

After reading honest reviews from the people who were already there, seeing on the map the exact location and distance to the city area Numismata would take place, and browsing through tens of possible hotels, we made our choice.

The day we arrived there some nervousness was normal. What if my credit card wasn’t OK? What if they didn’t keep the room available? What if? Well, everything was working nicely. I said my name at the Reception, they confirmed the booking, gave us the key and in few days our positive review was posted on the site, marking yet another good “transaction” for the hotel.

From that moment on, all our bookings were done online. Sometimes we’d go to the hotel’s site an book the room or use booking.com again. This way we found excellent rooms in Berlin, Munich and even Croatia. The last “find” was a studio apartment we were so pleased with this summer was the third time we’d go there.

All done from my computer back home. See all possibilities, read all reviews and then decide. No promotional texts coming from agency people who might never have seen the place, no lies, no exaggerations. What we saw online was what we got. No surprises, except for the positive ones, when we realized the place was even better than what we expected from the online presentation.

In our case there is “no contest” in this area. In a way I kinda feel sorry for the travel agencies in my city I just ignore, but we are used to working on all details on our own. Maybe we lost some amazing discounts, who knows. But we like to get in touch with our hosts as soon as possible and prepare for our trips on our own.

What’s your choice in these cases? Do you rely on travel agencies in your city to do the work for you and just take one of their offers? Do you book your own accommodation online and go from there?