*SPECIAL
SALES OFFER ON SPAIN AND BRITAIN & IRELAND* *SPECIAL
SALES OFFER ON SPAIN AND BRITAIN & IRELAND* 
Arthur Frommer's Vacations for Real People - Thursday, June 18, 1998
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
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.
Hello Spain! | Hello France! | Hello Italy! | HelloEurope.com |
| Hello! budget hotel guides are published by:
Wilson Publishing 5554 Spokane Street Los Angeles, CA 90016-3121 USA Tel: (888) 663-9269 outside USA (323) 939-0821 Fax: (323) 939-7736 e-mail: margo@helloeurope.com http://www.HelloEurope.com | |