If you are travelling to a particular country or city for the first time in your life, where do you start to find a good hotel or apartment that you know will deliver comfortable and inexpensive accommodation? Where will you find good Warsaw rentals or a budget hotel when you know nothing of the city or its geography?

A good place to start is always the official tourist site for the country or city as they will give you an indication of what there is available, but these are not always independently rated by the tourist organisation.

If you have friends or family or even business colleagues in the city then you may well be able to take some impartial advice from them on where to book – although no blaming them if it turns out to be a dive!

Some of the independent travel review sites can also be quite interesting, although not always objective and it is usually better to use these as a guide rather than basing your final decision on it as people have very different tastes and expectations when it comes to hotels.

Lastly, the internet hotel booking sites are very useful as you can find some great deals through these third party sites, but make sure that you do some research on the hotel before booking.