Arthur Frommer's Vacations for Real People
THE BEST-PRICED Hotels in France, Spain, and Italy?
A Newly Updated Book Series Gives You Hundreds of Names
If you're willing to forego frilly descriptions of overpriced hostelries and go straight for the scoop on which hotels are decent and cheap, what they offer, and how you find them, we can't think of any book series that does the trick better than Margo Classe's Hello! series of guides to inexpensive hotel rooms in France ($50-$90 a night for two), Spain ($40-$80), and Italy ($40-$75). All three are impeccably researched and remarkably thorough. An independent, budget-minded traveler going though any or all of these countries should consider the books a must-have.

Say you're planning to travel to Bordeaux--do you want a hotel near the train station, or closer to the center of town? If the former (which Classe does not recommend), then her choice is the Lion d'Or, a 25-roomer for which she gives you the address and telephone, price (single rooms start at 115 francs, or less than $20), credit cards accepted, the extent to which English is spoken, the features and general level of cleanliness, and precise walking directions from the train station--all in an extremely compact, no-nonsense style. Closer to the town center, she offers no fewer than 16 hotels that meet her price and quality criteria. If you can imagine the same treatment for 20 other cities in France (including 80 pages of listings for Paris), you get some idea of how informative and densely-packed these books are.

What makes the books even more noteworthy is that Ms. Classe has done every shred of the research herself, and paid out of her own pocket for every single night of it. The series is clearly a labor of love, and a necessary purchase for anyone in search of unpretentious, well-priced lodging. The books are a bit pricey (the Italy book goes for $16.95, the other two $2 more), but any cost can be quickly made up with your first night's stay. The books are all available by calling Wilson Publishing at 213/939-0821, e-mailing classe@earthlink.net, or visiting the publisher's Web site at www.spannet.org/wilson.
Copyright © 1998 Arthur Frommer

Los Angeles Times - Travel Section - by Lucy Izon
Hostels aren’t for everyone. Sometimes you want more privacy, but are still willing to forgo frills for an economical price. A new source for finding low-cost lodging in France is "An Insider’s Guide to French Hotels: $50-$90 a Night for Two" by Margo Classé.

Classé has collected information on economical lodgings in Paris and 20 other French cities. Her criteria are that they have at least one room that meets the price requirements (with its own toilet and shower), and that the hotels are customer-friendly and centrally located.

This book is designed to accompany a guidebook. Hotel listings cover rates and amenities ranging from TV to direct-dial phones, reservation contacts and if the staff speaks English. You’ll learn about the neighborhoods and get directions from the closest rail station. Don’t expect listing for youth hostels, dormitories and student accommodations. However, if the hotel does cater to a young clientele, she points it out. In March 1997, Classé visited each hotel listed in all 21 cities except for about half of the hotels listed in Paris. She had been to most of the Paris listings over a five-year period from 1991 to 1996.

The book also includes information on events. The author suggests that you familiarize yourself, with the schedule of local holidays, traditional events and religious celebrations in cities you are planning to visit so that you know which times of the year hotels are likely to be especially busy.

Izon is a Toronto-based freelance writer. She can be reached at http://www.izon.com

The Washington Post - Travel Section
World Wise by Gary Lee
You’ll find cheap quarters in Margo Classé’s "Hello France! An Insider’s Guide to French Hotels: $50-$90 a Night for Two."

New York Post - TRAVELPLUS
Traveler’s Update
Simple Pleasures
Want to promenade through Paris or amble around Annecy without wearing a hole in your budget? "An Insiders’s Guide to French Hotels $50-$90 a Night for Two" by Margo Classé, is a no-nonsense directory to hundreds of clean, safe and inexpensive rooms. There are tips on reservations (do you need one?), accommodations (what to ask for) and the nearest train or metro station.

The Times-Picayune - Travel Section
by Millie Ball
GOOD READING
I’ve lost track of how often I’ve been asked for a recommendation of an affordable hotel in Paris. Sandra Gustafson’s "cheap Sleeps in Paris" is one book recommendation I’ve made, but her definition of cheap doesn’t always match others’. This new $18.95 book, self-published by Margo Classé could be the answer. She and friends checked out each place in this book—and in another one on Italy ($16.95), where the hotel price range was $40-$75 a night. The target audience, says Classé, is cost-conscious travelers who are too old for hostels and dormitories, but don’t care if the curtains match the bedspread. They want a clean, centrally located room with a toilet, in a safe part of town."

Newsday - Travel Section - travel@newsday.com
ON THE GO
QUICK TAKES
"Hello France! An Insider’s Guide to French Hotels $50-$90 a Night for Two" by Margo Classé offers lots of detail, including best rooms and extent of English spoken.

The Wichita Eagle - Travel Section
by Arlice W. Davenport, Travel editor adavenport@wichitaeagle.com
Dear Margo,
I am an avid European traveler and have found your books extremely helpful. As I mention in my review, they fill a serious need for the independent traveler.

"Hello France! An Insider’s Guide to French Hotels, $50-$90 a Night for Two" by Margo Classé (Wilson Publishing)

"Hello Italy! An Insider’s Guide to Italian Hotels, $40-$75 a Night for Two" by Margo Classé (Wilson Publishing)

When it comes to touring Europe, the travel advice industry has never been bigger. A quick browse through any bookstore will turn up no shortage of guidebooks to the Continent, each promising a wealth of budget tips, back-door secrets and sites off the beaten path.

For the most part, you’ll find reliable information and entertaining opinions in all of them. But even the most ambitious books rarely devote as much space to listing accommodations as they do to describing destinations. And the lodgings they tend to profile are often too pricey for independent travelers to afford.

That means you’ll generally have to consult more than one guidebook to find enough options to meet your needs. And once you’ve done that a few times, you’ll start to wonder why there isn’t a single volume focused exclusively on lodging.

If you’re headed to Italy or France, you have your wish. "Hello Italy!" and "Hello France!" by Margo Classé are guides that do one thing only: list lots of budget hotels from $40 to $90 a night. Each place is guaranteed to provide a clean, cheap, comfortable room with bath or shower.

Safety is also a top priority, but space is not. (Some rooms, I’ve discovered, are little more than converted closets!)

For sheer numbers of entries, however, the books can’t be beat "Hello France!" for instance, lists more than 150 hotels in Paris alone. And there are dozens of choices for 20 other French cities, from Bayeux to Arles.

The Italy volume—though not as large, and presented in a slightly different format—is similarly thorough. I found my favorite spots in Venice and Florence treated fairly.

One caveat: The listings in both books are of hotels only. No hostels, no bed-and-breakfast, no alternative lodgings. Just centrally located, safe hotels in major cities—clearly an advantage for the train traveler.

Classé also spells out what her books don’t do: replace your favorite guidebook. Still, for good measure, she throws in tested tips on packing, preparing for your trip and smoothing the way once you arrive. These make a decent primer for the first-time traveler, and a handy reminder for the veteran.

I consider the France volume by itself a tremendous discovery. And a book on Spain is fourthcoming. Now, if only Classé would start working her way north across the Continent, so travelers to all of Europe could rest in peace.

America On Line
Hello France! An Insider's Guide to French Hotels $50 - $90 a Night for Two by Margo Classe (Wilson Publishing, 224 pages, $18.95, ISBN 0-9653944-3-3)
This is a valuable guide. France is an expensive country to visit and hotel prices are no exception. Read a Travel Holiday article or one of the other travel rags produced in the U.S. and you will think France is for the rich alone with the average price of a room (according to their articles) being $150.00. What they don't tell you is that all of the hotels they are reviewing are three star or higher hotels (France has a hotel rating system from 0-5 stars, plus a luxury class.).

If you are willing to do without a few amenities such as an elevator, bellhop, and large room (according to U.S. standards; most hotel rooms in France will be smaller anyways.), you can get a decent room within the price range that the author suggests. Most of the hotels she describes are in the 0-2 star range with an occasional three star hotel found at these prices in some of the provincial cities.

Beginning with the capital of Paris, one of the most expensive cities in the world, Classe lists hotels found in all of Paris' arrondissements except for the 19th and 20th. Why the last two arrondissements were left off, we are not sure since some real bargains can be found there. (These are Paris' lower class neighborhoods, so most everything is cheap.) The book seems a little incomplete without including at least a few hotels from each of these areas. For those arriving on the run, she includes hotels to be found at both Paris airports.

For each hotel listing, she provides its address, telephone number, FAX number, and E-Mail number (a few hotels have this), the latter two which are invaluable if you do your own legwork instead of using a travel agent. Ignoring her own book title, she lists the prices for single, double, and triple rooms, and what forms of payment are accepted. Other information includes the price of breakfast and when it is served, plus any special amenities the hotel provides ranging from cable TV to telephone, hair dryer, minibar, etc. For some entries, she makes note about the neighborhood and ends each with directions to the hotel from the train station. In cities with a subway system such as Paris' vast Metro which boasts over 500 stops, she notes the nearest train station to the hotel with the Metro stop you need to exit at, followed by directions to the hotel from the stop.

After 85 pages of text about Paris hotels, she follows with descriptions of hotels in 20 different cities in France. Although it is probably hard to narrow your choices down to 20 cities to represent France, we do question some of her choices. She includes four cities in the Loire Valley which seems overkill especially since one of them is Orleans, a business city that is not visited by many tourists. Tours, which is in the center of the region would probably have been adequate. And while Nice represents the French Riviera, there are no entries for Cannes or Antibes, two very popular cities. Having visited these cities, we know that each has some cheap hotels. We also would not have included Versailles. Although it is a tourist hot spot, it is too close to Paris to be included. She also completely avoids the regions of northern France, Brittany, Auvergne, and Dordogne. But, nonetheless, if you are going to Aix-en-Provence, Amboise, Annecy, Arles, Avignon, Bayeux, Blois, Bordeaux, Dijon, Grenoble, Lyon, Nancy, Nice, Orleans, Paris, Reims, Rouen, Strasbourg, Toulouse, Tours, and/or Versailles, and you are on a tight budget, we recommend that you take this guide with you.

Although the initial outlay of $18.95 may seem a bit steep for this size of book, you will recoup your costs quickly after staying a few nights at one of the suggested hotels in the book. As a compliment to this book, we also recommend that when in Paris, you use the guidebook Paris for Free (Or Extremely Cheap), now in a new, revised edition from Mustang Publishing (1997). And if you are going to Italy, Classe is also the author of Hello Italy! which follows the same scheme/format for that country.

The Times-Picayune
Sunday, December 27, 1998
WORLD BEATER
Travel editor
Milli Ball’s best and worst of ‘98

Best guides for those on a real budget in Europe. Margo Classe of Los Angeles set out to find cheap hotels in France, Spain and Italy. Ask her to describe a hotel room decor and she laughs. “I look for basic comfort, cleanliness and a central location where you don’t have to have a car,” she said in a phone interview. “The question is, can you have a private, clean, charming room with your own bathroom for under $100, and the answer is yes.” She includes 170 hotels in Paris alone. Classe and her husband spent $30,000 publishing her books; nobody pays to get in a book, and she has seen very place she writes about, except in her first book, about Italy, where some friends helped. She’s rewriting that one now after a recent trip to Italy. Most of the books are $18.95, plus shipping. Call 323 939-0821; fax 323 939-7736

San Francisco Examiner
BOOKINGS
By Linda Watanabe McFerrin
SPECIAL TO THE EXAMINER
An Insider’s Guide To French Hotels. By Margo Classé. Wilson Publishing. 224 pages. $18.95. An Insider’s Guide To Spanish Hotels. By Margo Classé. Wilson Publishing. 224 pages. $18.95. An Insider’s Guide To Italian Hotels. By Margo Classé. Wilson Publishing. 284 pages. $18.95.

Hotel hoppers traveling on a shoestring should check out this series of guides to affordable lodging in major destinations. Accommodations listed in these books range in price from $40-$90. All three books also provide tips on packing, time, language and events with a few extra pages for note-taking. The handy fax form seems as if it would be extremely useful to people booking their own accommodations. A bit congested in terms of layout and therefore a little difficult to access, these first edition guides still appear o be extraordinarily useful.

Linda Watanabe McFerrin is a Bay Area poet, novelist and travel writer whose work appears frequently in the Examiner Travel Section. Bookings appears the second Sunday of each month.

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