How to choose where to stay in a city you do not know

Most advice on how to choose where to stay in a city comes as a list of neighbourhoods with a sentence each: this one is lively, that one is quiet, the old town is charming and expensive. That helps if you already know what your days look like. If you do not, you are choosing a base for a trip that does not exist yet, and the usual result is a lovely room that is half an hour from everything you actually do.

Plan the days first and book the bed second. The right area is the one your days keep passing through, not the one with the best photos.

Plan the days before you book the bed

The order matters more than any tip about specific areas. A neighbourhood is only “well located” relative to something, and that something is your own plan: the museum you are going to on Tuesday, the station your day trip leaves from on Thursday, the restaurant you have wanted to try for years.

So start with a rough plan, day by day, even if it changes later. It does not need times. It needs places, grouped so that each day sits mostly in one or two areas, which is worth doing anyway: planning your days by neighbourhood is what makes a city trip feel unhurried. If you use Traveley, the days are built before anything is booked and each one opens in Maps as a single route, which is exactly the view you need here.

Find where your days actually meet

Put every day of the plan on one map. You will usually see two or three clusters, and something in between them that several days have to pass through: a central square, a main station, the bridge everyone crosses. That in-between zone is the first candidate for where to stay.

Weight it by days, not by sights. A museum quarter you visit on one morning counts once. The old town you walk through on three evenings because that is where you eat counts three times. A base next to the thing you do once and far from the thing you do every day is the most common mistake on the map, and it looks reasonable on a listing because the famous sight is the one the listing names.

Measure in minutes and changes, not kilometres

Distance on a map is a poor guide in a city. Two kilometres along a direct metro line is closer than one kilometre across a river with no bridge nearby. What you want to know about each candidate area is:

• Minutes door to door to each of your clusters, including the walk to the station and the wait.
• Number of changes. One direct line is worth a lot. Two changes to get anywhere will wear you down by day three.
• How late it runs. A line that is every five minutes at noon can be every twenty at night, or stop entirely, and that is when you will be using it to get back.

A rule that works in most cities: a short walk from a station on a line that serves at least two of your clusters, with no more than one change to the rest.

Check the way back at night

You will leave the base in the morning, rested and in daylight. You will come back after dinner, tired, possibly in the rain. That second journey is the one that tells you whether an area works. Before booking, look at the last stretch, from the station or the restaurant area to the door: is it a walk you would be happy to do at eleven at night, along streets that are lit and have people in them?

Noise is the other half of the evening. The liveliest quarter is a great place to spend an evening and often a poor place to sleep. Reviews are useful here if you read them for specific words, such as “noise”, “street”, “bars” or “windows”, rather than for the score. A quieter street one block back from the busy one is often the best of both.

The first and last day decide more than you think

The base is also where you arrive with luggage and leave with luggage. On those two days, the connection to the airport or main station matters more than anything else on this list.

• How do you get from the airport to the door with bags, and what does it cost at the hour you land?
• If you leave early, does anything run before your flight, or is it a taxi?
• Can you leave your bags somewhere before check-in and after check-out, so the edges of the trip are usable?

An area that is perfect for your days but an hour and two changes from the airport turns arrival into an ordeal. If you land after a long flight, it is worth reading how to plan arrival day before you settle on where you are staying.

How to choose where to stay: compare two areas, not ten

Once the map has given you candidates, narrow them to two and answer the same questions for both. Reading reviews of ten neighbourhoods produces a feeling, not a decision. Comparing two against your plan produces a decision.

• How many days of the plan start or end within a short walk?
• Minutes and changes to each cluster, by day and at night.
• The walk home at eleven at night: lit, busy, short?
• Somewhere to eat and a shop for water and breakfast within a few minutes.
• The journey from and to the airport or station with luggage.
• Price per night, plus what the location will cost you in transport across the whole stay.

That last line is the one people skip. A cheaper room further out can cost more once you add two tickets a day for everyone, and it always costs time.

An example: four days, two candidate areas

A four-day trip. Day one: the old town and the cathedral. Day two: the museum quarter and the park beside it. Day three: a day trip by train from the main station. Day four: the market and the waterfront, then an evening flight. Dinner most nights in the old town, because that is where the places you want to eat are.

Option A is a flat in the old town: beautiful, a short walk to dinner every night, fifteen minutes on foot to the museums, but twenty-five minutes by bus to the station on day three and a long way to the airport with bags. Option B is a hotel by the main station: plainer, cheaper, one metro line to the old town and the museums, a five-minute walk on day three, and the airport train from the same building.

Count the days. A wins three evenings and two mornings. B wins the day trip, both travel days and saves money, but adds a metro ride home after every dinner. Neither is wrong: if the evenings in the old town are the point of the trip, A is worth the awkward edges. If the trip is mostly about covering ground, B gives back an hour a day. The method does not choose for you. It makes the trade-off visible before you have paid for it.

Three traps in the listing

• “Central” means central to something, and not necessarily to your plan. Check the actual address, not the description.
• District names are big. A place listed under a famous area can be at its far edge, or across a main road from the part you were picturing. Drop the exact pin on your own map.
• The photo is of the room. Nothing in it tells you about the street. Look at the street itself before you book, and at the way to the nearest station.

Choosing where to stay this way takes twenty minutes once the days are planned. It is the twenty minutes that decides how much of the trip you spend getting places, and how much you spend in them.