Booking a London Hotel

St. Athans Hotel; 20 Tavistock Pl  Russell Square, Camden Town, Greater London 

My tips and suggestions for what to look for when booking a hotel in London...

Websites like Trip Advisor, Booking.com and Airbnb are great places to compare prices of hotels and find a lodging that suits your trip. 

Make your search as specific as possible by entering details like the area you would like to stay in, budget and extras like a kitchenette, private bathroom, television etc. Remember to check if the price per night is shown in your currency and if it is price per person or per room!

I chose the St. Athans Hotel because it is within walking distance of St. Pancras International Station where we would be getting of the Eurostar from Paris. This meant we could save on public transport and go straight to the hotel while getting our bearings of London. 

As a tourist, public transport will be a key factor of your time on holiday. It is a cheap way of travelling around the city, so it is important to find a hotel within walking distance of a tube station or bus stop. My family and I chose to take the tube/underground rather than the bus because I found it easier to plan the itinerary and if worse comes to worse and you hop on the wrong train, you can simply get off, go back and take the correct one using the same ticket. 

Hotels on a budget

You can get cheaper rates by booking well in advance and sacrificing luxuries. 

An example of this is choosing a room with a "shared bathroom". In our hotel, there was a bathroom on the ground floor and one on the top floor. However, there is a basin in the room so you can still brush your teeth and such in your own room.The pros are that you are saving money and that you will only be needing the bathroom during the short time you are actually at the hotel. The cons are that you have to make a trip to the bathroom to check if it is occupied, and on many occasions you'll have to go back. 

Rooms without things such as fridges, microwaves and televisions will also be more budget friendly. The inconvenience of not having a fridge and microwave is that it's harder to prepare your own meals (and save money) but keep an eye out for a future post about getting around this. St. Athans Hotel had a common room with a tv but to be quite honest, we didn't really have time to be sitting around watching telly. 

Internet connection is something I know I can't sacrifice, so look for hotels with free wifi (most places have this). The room I was in was on the second floor and didn't receive wifi signal, so I simply went down to the common room and it wasn't a problem. 

Location

As well as being close to a tube station, it is important to choose a hotel near the places you will be visiting. It is a given that the hotels in a prime location will cost more than the ones at the edge of London, but it evens out once you think about the cost of travelling and the precious time spent sitting on the tube. Hotels nearby Green Park and Oxford Circus are quite central in terms of tourist attractions but anything within the red lines are fairly good places to book. 

(A) is the location of St. Athans Hotel, so as you can see, I probably wouldn't book a place any further out than that. 

Reviews

I think it's a great idea to read the reviews for a place you have your eye on. Many websites allow you to choose reviews which are relevant to you by offering a list of variables such as travelling with small children. A lot of the time, there will be mixed reviews for a place. One person may rave about this being a fantastic hotel with friendly staff while another might say they had a terrible experience. It's really up to you to judge whether someone is biased or had a one off bad time. If 100 people liked it and 5 disliked it, it's safe to say this hotel is pretty good. Don't get put off by someone's angry paragraph because there are a lot of picky people out there with different standards. Bear in mind the price you are paying for the room. 

-Good luck with your search and make sure to leave any queries in the comments below :)