Advice wanted: finding hotels and motels: GPS?

I take a long bike ride almost every year, and would welcome the ability to
identify a place to stay 50 miles before I get there, so I know how far I
have to go (or to stop earlier if there's nothing ahead), and to call for a
reservation. Here are some anecdotes of near serious problems I had: 1. In
White River, Ont., one night, I got the last motel room in town, with no
other towns for 50 miles. It would have been a real advantage to have
called some hours earlier. 2. I counted on finding a motel in a MN town of
2500 population, but there was none; By the time I found a motel 20 miles up
the road, it was well past dark. I don't mind night riding at home, but
dislike it in unfamiliar places. 3. Biking up the St. Lawrence River from
Montreal to Quebec City, I assumed motels would be ubiquitous. They weren't
and I once again ended up riding well past dark to find a place. 4. Same
thing as 2. above happened in central Maine, except that the town in which I
intended to stay was smaller than promised by the size of the dot on the
map..

I have been reading up on GPS systems and understand that some models have
hundreds of thousands of locations programmed into them. Is this something
one can use, not just to get directions to a known location, but also to
identify motels in the first place? (BTW, I do not, in the US, feel the
need for a GPS for direction finding. Europe would be another matter.) Is
there way other to identify locations while still hours away? I assume in
any event there will be difficulty finding "mom and pop" locations. The
best I've been able to do so far is to carry relevant pages from Super 8's
national directory. Presumably I could also find them for other chains.

Any experience out there in dealing with this?

I know the obvious answer. Plan the whole trip in advance, and make
reservations from the comfort of home before I leave. Suffice it to sy
that's not my style. I like to get as many miles per day as reasonably
possible for me, and depending on wind, hills, my own energy level,
thunderstorms, flats, maintneance problems etc, that mileage can vary
dramatically.

Thanks for any assistance.

This doesn't answer your GPS question, but what I do is take along
pages printed from http://www.motelguide.com This directory has
quite a few of the Mom and Pop motels including phone numbers.

Like youself, I don't like to make reservations in advance, and
instead take things from day to day. However, I typically start at
sunrise and ride until ~3-4 hours before dark so that I have enough in
reserve to go 40-50 miles if I find the motels aren't available.

--mev, Mike Vermeulen

If you go to motelguide.com you may find privately owned ma pa type of
motels, and save some $$

"Mike Vermeulen" wrote in message
...
This doesn't answer your GPS question, but what I do is take along
pages printed from http://www.motelguide.com This directory has
quite a few of the Mom and Pop motels including phone numbers.

Like youself, I don't like to make reservations in advance, and
instead take things from day to day. However, I typically start at
sunrise and ride until ~3-4 hours before dark so that I have enough in
reserve to go 40-50 miles if I find the motels aren't available.

--mev, Mike Vermeulen

Some years ago when I did about 1,000 miles from Florida to Raleigh I used
Yahoo yellowpages to research motels in all the likely towns along the way,
consolidated them and printed them out pretty densely on two sided paper.
That worked pretty well, with no need for GPS.

I later tried out a sort of combined GPS/palm device from Garmin that had
motel listings built in. Called I-Que 360, I think, but it was not very
good. It had a terrible battery life and not great maps. They still sell it
so I guess some folks like it.

What worked the best for us in Finland was just asking people along the way
for help on places to stay. We had a cell phone and would just call their
tourist office if all else failed.

George

"Ron Wallenfang" wrote in message
...
I take a long bike ride almost every year, and would welcome the ability to
identify a place to stay 50 miles before I get there, so I know how far I
have to go (or to stop earlier if there's nothing ahead), and to call for a
reservation. Here are some anecdotes of near serious problems I had: 1.
In White River, Ont., one night, I got the last motel room in town, with no
other towns for 50 miles. It would have been a real advantage to have
called some hours earlier. 2. I counted on finding a motel in a MN town
of 2500 population, but there was none; By the time I found a motel 20
miles up the road, it was well past dark. I don't mind night riding at
home, but dislike it in unfamiliar places. 3. Biking up the St. Lawrence
River from Montreal to Quebec City, I assumed motels would be ubiquitous.
They weren't and I once again ended up riding well past dark to find a
place. 4. Same thing as 2. above happened in central Maine, except that
the town in which I intended to stay was smaller than promised by the size
of the dot on the map..

I have been reading up on GPS systems and understand that some models have
hundreds of thousands of locations programmed into them. Is this
something one can use, not just to get directions to a known location, but
also to identify motels in the first place? (BTW, I do not, in the US,
feel the need for a GPS for direction finding. Europe would be another
matter.) Is there way other to identify locations while still hours away?
I assume in any event there will be difficulty finding "mom and pop"
locations. The best I've been able to do so far is to carry relevant
pages from Super 8's national directory. Presumably I could also find
them for other chains.

Any experience out there in dealing with this?

I know the obvious answer. Plan the whole trip in advance, and make
reservations from the comfort of home before I leave. Suffice it to sy
that's not my style. I like to get as many miles per day as reasonably
possible for me, and depending on wind, hills, my own energy level,
thunderstorms, flats, maintneance problems etc, that mileage can vary
dramatically.

Thanks for any assistance.

A technique I've used in areas where I'm not sure whether a motel
exists is to do a simple google for motels in the town of interest (eg,
motel anytown state). This won't necessarily list all motels but for
small towns will usually at least tell you whether there is one or more
motels. Of course, this works best if you can access the Internet the
evening before you have an idea where you might be at the end of the
next day. Then you always have the uncertain technique of asking
around in the current town where you are staying if they know anything
about motels in some town down the road. This, of course, is pretty
hit-or-miss.

One of my tools of last resort on a trip is Google Short Message
Service. It's gotten me out of a few jams on the road, including a major
bike repair done overnight.

You can text message a request for local hotel information, and Google
returns quickly with a listing. Here's a demo page:

http://www.google.com/sms/demo.html

Type in "motel city state" for a sample listing. It's not an
exhaustive list, but the motels that are full usually can refer you to
others.
--
terry morse - Undiscovered Country Tours - http://udctours.com

Ron Wallenfang wrote:
I take a long bike ride almost every year, and would welcome the ability to
identify a place to stay 50 miles before I get there, so I know how far I

If possible, stop at a local bike shop and ask about rooms. I did that once
on a ride from Bar Harbor ME to Atlanta GA. To our surprise we were offered
great (no, Fabulous!) rooms in a Holiday Inn for about 1/3 the normal cost,
and less than what even a flea bag motel would have cost.

mike

Ron Wallenfang wrote:
I take a long bike ride almost every year, and would welcome the ability
to
identify a place to stay 50 miles before I get there

Look at http://www.buyreliant.com/gps/roadwh..._road_whiz.htm Saw
them at Wally World in auto section for $19.95

Looks interesting. I copied the front page for reference purposes. I
wonder if anyone's actually used it while bicycling. One potential issues
is is concentration on Interstate highways. Much of this years year, I'll
neither be on or near one.
"Trailgalore" wrote in message
...

Ron Wallenfang wrote:
I take a long bike ride almost every year, and would welcome the
ability
to
identify a place to stay 50 miles before I get there

Look at http://www.buyreliant.com/gps/roadwh..._road_whiz.htm Saw
them at Wally World in auto section for $19.95

pretty cool stuff, thnx
"Ron Wallenfang" wrote in message
...
Looks interesting. I copied the front page for reference purposes. I
wonder if anyone's actually used it while bicycling. One potential issues
is is concentration on Interstate highways. Much of this years year, I'll
neither be on or near one.
"Trailgalore" wrote in message
...

Ron Wallenfang wrote:
I take a long bike ride almost every year, and would welcome the
ability
to
identify a place to stay 50 miles before I get there

Look at http://www.buyreliant.com/gps/roadwh..._road_whiz.htm
Saw
them at Wally World in auto section for $19.95