Take a guidebook on your trip. Depending on your destination, there may be a variety of guidebooks featuring hints and advice for every step of the way. Guidebooks like Lonely Planet or Fodor's Travel Guides offer expert advice for accommodations, in particular, and their recommendations are attested with honest reviews. From budget to luxury, guidebooks offer the widest array of options for every situation, and also offer detailed tips about various transportation methods. With a guidebook handy, you're never far from making a practical, well-informed, last-minute decision.
Book along the way when it makes sense. If you know where you want to be the next day or later the same day, use the Internet to search for lodging and call the hotel directly to reserve a room. This is an effective way to set up rooms without committing yourself to rigid plans. It helps to find out the policies and regulations regarding your accommodations, since your reservation-less wanderings may either keep you there much longer than expected, or you may be gone in a day.
Follow your fancy. Perhaps the most rewarding part of traveling without reservations is the ability to do exactly what you want, whenever you want to do it. If you've stumbled upon an unexpected beach town and decide to stay an extra week or two, no problem -- you're not missing your flight or another hotel reservation, because they haven't been booked yet. This element of freedom is almost scary, as we may sometimes feel the urge to move on or be at the next place already, but it allows you to stay anywhere for as long as you want.
Rely on friends and family. If you're in an area with relatives or acquaintances nearby, forgo the train, bus, airplane or hotel reservations and only move on when a ride or room is available. The availability of transportation and lodging is an interesting way to frame a trip, so if you end up spending two weeks at Aunt Jamie's house and then a weekend at Grandma's just because that's when you found a ride between the two, you've crafted an interesting and unpredictable trip.
