How to Find a Hotel Room for Coachella

If you really want to have the best Coachella experience possible, you need to start planning NOW. You know that old saying "early bird gets the worm"? Well, in this case, the early bird gets the best hotel rooms! And since this year's festival will be three days long instead of the usual two, a good hotel room is going to be more important than ever! So, GET ON IT!

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• A computer
• internet access
• a credit card
• a phone

1. 

   ROUND UP YOUR POSSE. Send an e-mail out to all your friends that might be interested in going to Coachella and bunking up with you. You need to get an idea of how many people you need to find beds for (or sections of empty floor). You don't need an exact number, because you can always count on a few people flaking out. Plan far enough ahead, and you'll have time to replace the flakes

2. 

   FIND YOUR CRASH PAD. The internet has made it easy to find out which hotels are closer than others to the polo fields, and the fine folks at coachella.com have made it even easier by creating a comprehensive list at http://www.coachella.com/visitors/hotels but you'll save time by using a booking website such as hotels.com, expedia.com, travelocity.com, etc. There are a couple sites that are specific to the Coachella Valley area such as http://www.southwestrooms.com/coachella.html and http://www.deserthotelreservations.com/

3. 

   BOOK IT BABY! If you can find a vacancy, make the reservation! Typically, you just need to give them a name and a credit card number to hold the room. It doesn't mean you're locked in and have to stop looking. Most hotels won't penalize you if you cancel a reservation, so book whatever you can find and keep looking for something better

Tips & Warnings

• There are several cities near the Coachella Festival that have hotels and motels. As you scour the internet for hotels, keep in mind that the closest is Indio, followed by (in order of closest to farthest) Indian Wells, Palm Desert, Rancho Mirage, Thousand Palms, Cathedral City, Cabazon, Palm Springs, and Desert Hot Springs
• Don't get locked into thinking that hotels and motels are your only accommodation options. There's also camping and vacation rentals.

[como]

on 2/12/2007 Great article!

[JoeyC]

on 1/29/2007 Btw, the coachella lineup is out. Check it out at http://www.coachella.com/

[xupypr]

on 1/29/2007 Greate picture