Let the games begin! Book that hotel room!

Countdown - 9 days!

Here's the top 5 things to check when booking accommodations for your travel. I'm sure there will be plenty more as I learn through my errors...

1. Check all the available mega-sites - Priceline, Hotwire, etc. Priceline has treated me well so far. Quick information, and rapid results. I haven't been successful at the 'name your own price' option yet. Perhaps I'm just too cheap. But start with these sites to get ideas on what hotels are where and roughly what you should expect to pay.

2. Check the websites for individual hotels as well - Sometimes the hotel website will actually be cheaper than what you find on the mega sites. Doesn't happen very often, but it does happen. The hotel sites will sometimes give you more accurate information about what room options are available.

3. Don't forget the Mom & Pop hotels - these are harder to find, but I use Google Maps and find my destination, then enter 'hotels' and see what pops up. Many times these hotels don't have a website, so phone calls may be your best option. Other times they'll have rates online, but no way to check availability. Again, a quick phone call may be faster.

4. Check the reviews - clearly there are far more negative reviews out there than positive ones. That doesn't mean hotels with negative reviews are all dumps. It means that people who write negative reviews typically far outnumber those who write the positive ones. And most people who have an acceptable stay don't think at all about writing a review about it. In any case, you can still use the reviews to get an idea of what might happen when you visit a particular location. You can decide for yourself if there are far too many negative comments to 'risk' your stay there. Tripadvisor.com is my favorite review place.

5. Expect to get what you pay for. If you are able to book a room for $50 a night when all the surrounding hotels are charging at least twice that, keep in mind that there's a reason that they'll rent the room to you for such a discount. Don't be 'surprised' that you don't have all the amenities that you see at other hotels (with much higher room rates).