Just as in Copenhagen, the hotels of Stockholm are heavily booked in the summer months. That, however, doesn’t mean that the city is crawling with tourists-as Venice, for example, is-but simply that no overwhelming number of hotels exist for the tourists who arrive in summer.
But just as in Copenhagen, the city guarantees that it will find you a hotel room, at the price you specify. To pick up their offer, go to the Central Railroad Station, where you’ll find an office calIed “Hotellcentralen” on the station’s lower level. Staffed with Englishspeaking aides, it maintains contact with every hotel, boarding house or guest-accepting private home in Stockholm, and stays open every day of the week (until 11 p.m.) to obtain a room for you.
If the budget hotel situation happens to be particularly tight on the day you’re there, the Hotelcentralen will find you a room in a private home-often a surprisingly comfortable room-renting for affordable prices. They also have the scoop on the youth hostels of Stockholm, the dormitories, and the mission hotels situation. Your best time to get the best budget hotel is in the morning hours, for they gradually fill up as the day goes along.
I’ve set forth my own hotel choices immediately below, and you can write for reservations, making certain to enulose an international postal response coupon. But that really isn’t necessary; simply schedule your arrival into Stockholm for early in the morning, go to Hotelcentralen, ask if they can squeeze, and if they can’t, they’ll get you another room, similarly-priced.
Virtually all of these hotels, in this most expensive city of Europe, offer doubles at prices ranging to a high price. For cheaper digs, either request a room with a private family, or else turn the section headed “Af Chapman”-a mysterious name that will introduce you to the starvation budget variety of Stockholm accommodations.
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