Booking.com graciously sponsored this post. All opinions are my own.
Something to know about me, I love spontaneous trips. In fact, aside from my yearly trip home for the holidays, they’re essentially the only trips that I take. There’s just something about the simultaneous commandeering and loss of control that’s just a little bit addicting. Not to mention how they always make for the best stories. Now, while it’s never really been a problem for me, not knowing where I’m going, or ending up at a not so nice place for the night because it’s ‘part of the adventure’, that’s not exactly the case for my significant other. That being said, one can imagine the toll this has taken on my travel life.
Enter the Booking Now app. Seriously, this is probably the best tool that someone like me could ask for. Obviously there are tons of hotel reservation search engines out there, but this one is specifically for those of us who obey that itch to just get up and go. Whether you decide to simply get into a car and see where the whim takes you, or you choose to go the ‘finger on a spinning globe’ route, they really do have you covered. This way, I can get my travel fix, and he can have the peace of mind knowing where we’re staying that night.
WHY is this for us you may ask?
The user interface is insanely fast and simple. If you’re heading out last minute, the last thing you’re going to want to do is get held up with any kind of details. And they designed the app with this in mind. It essentially only takes 4 short steps to find the perfect place to stay, that day, virtually anywhere in the world.
- 1st – Choose your location. You can do this either by typing in your intended destination, or, if you don’t have one, by using your current location to see what’s nearby. Should you choose to change your destination mid-search, this can be done whenever you feel like it via the search map. Because ‘whenever you feel like it’ is most definitely the theme.
- 2nd. Select your price range. This is one of the things that makes this app so perfect. With five different tiers of what you want to pay, you can have your spontaneous trip cost nothing more than your average weekend, or you can celebrate an unexpected life victory in style (maybe a promotion?). Either way, it’s going to be super simple.
- 3rd. One adult, or two? Surprisingly quite a few things to be said and questions to be asked about with only these two options being offered: Is it depressing that someone would be going alone? (Definitely not) What if there are more than two adults going? (Then it’s probably a different kind of trip) Why isn’t ‘number of children’ asked? (We’ll let you answer this one yourself) Moving on!
- 4th. Finally, your must-haves. If you’re someone who would absolutely die without WiFi or a continental breakfast, you’re going to be okay. The app offers just enough options that you’re definitely going to be able to find what’s important, but you won’t spend so much time clicking through filters that you end up cutting into that precious time when you could be on the road.
That’s it! Seriously. You’ll be taken to a map that shows how far your options are from your chosen location, their price, their rating, pictures, a little about them, how close of a match it is for what you’re looking for, literally anything you could want to know. Once you’ve found the one you’re looking for, booking is super quick and easy, which isn’t surprising. Both because everything else so far has been, and because it’s also the name of the app. It would be pretty weird for them to have dropped the ball here. Just sayin’.
Now I do want to mention that the creators of this search tool aren’t crazy. They know that not all trips/people are going to be spontaneous, and so it wouldn’t be the most prudent thing of them to only cater to this idea. For more planned out trips they have another app called ‘Booking.com’. Still super simple to use in all the right ways, but you get a few more options as far as filters go. You don’t actually have to use any of these, of course, but seeing as your trip isn’t literally right now, why wouldn’t you want to take advantage of these? After you choose your dates, location, and amount of people involved (yes, friends and children are an option this time) it will take you to an overall hotel list. From here you simply apply some filters, everything from check-in time to hotel theme, choose how to sort them, and you’re all set!
Okay, that’s all for now, I won’t go on and on. Basically, what you need to know is this: In the time that it took you to read this entire article (not that we’re mad about it) you probably could have booked a hotel for today three or four times. So honestly, I’m not sure why you’re still here ;)
Wing everything. Except your accommodation.
