Help me find a place to sleep.

September 23, 2008 4:02 AM

I'm currently backpacking through Europe and was given an invitation to Oktoberfest for this Friday. I'm really excited about this, but can't seem to find any places to stay that aren't booked or very expensive. I'd like to spend Friday and Saturday night there, giving me the opportunity to see the rest of Munich. What are my options in the area to find a place to sleep? Are there non-hostel options or perhaps one that isn't well known?
posted by defben to travel & transportation (7 answers total)

Couchsurfing folks will put you up, although I'd ask quickly - if you're lucky, they'll come along too and you can buy them many steins of beer.
posted by Happy Dave at 4:37 AM on September 23, 2008 [1 favorite]

Couchsurfing is the best option, if you planned ahead a little bit. Last minute like this for such a major event, you'd have to be pretty lucky to get a place to stay. If you do use Couchsurfing, or hosteling for that matter, I would look outside of Munich. Places that are reachable from Munich by train. Most people don't bother checking the periphery towns, so you could score a place to stay that way.
posted by wile e at 5:13 AM on September 23, 2008

If the couchsurfing idea doesn't work, this is going to be tough. I'm serious when I say that every single room, B&B and tent is booked and the waiting lists are long in case someone cancels their reservation or doesn't show up. Can you stay with whoever gave you the invite? Check in google earth and see if there are any cheap hotels near the train stops that have any thing free. Load the mefi kml file in Google Earth and see if any mefites (looks like there is only 2) in the area can hook you up. Check maybe out of town? Starnberg south of the city? Only a 30 minute train ride.
posted by chillmost at 5:21 AM on September 23, 2008

Hospitality Club is an alternative to Couchsurfing, and is actually more popular in Germany, so you might have better luck finding a host there.
posted by xanthippe at 5:34 AM on September 23, 2008

I was in Munich last year for Oktoberfest, and even a few weeks prior, there were no reasonable places to sleep. Everything, even hostel beds, were EUR90+. I ended up getting lucky and finding someone on Couch Surfing. But even that, good luck. Many CS hosters in Munich specifically say "No Oktoberfest!" in their profile. I wouldn't count on Couch Surfing, unfortunately -- especially this late in the game. But give it a shot; it can't hurt.

You might want to give Wies'n Camp a shot. It's still pretty expensive (for camping) but cheaper than a hostel even and a good location.

If all else fails, I saw plenty of people sleeping in hauptbahnhof last year. Might not be the safest thing in the whole world, but it would work in a pinch.
posted by nitsuj at 6:15 AM on September 23, 2008

Check sites like wg-gesucht.de, studenten-wg.de, easy-wg.de, and kijiji.de - a lot of people will rent out their WG room for a day or a week during Oktoberfest. Prices may or may not be cheap, though. Other than that, yeah, check out hotels/hostels near the end of the various S-Bahn lines: the S-Bahn runs late during Wies'n, so it's totally do-able, but most people don't want to put up with a half-hour S-Bahn ride, so those places are apt to be the last that fill up.
posted by ubersturm at 11:15 AM on September 23, 2008

Are you willing to camp? That's what I did during Oktoberfest in Munich many years ago. It was a slight schlep into the city, but it was affordable.
posted by bassjump at 6:48 PM on September 23, 2008