Hotel comparison website

I know, I know, we’re vagabonders…we don’t like hotels!  We prefer to rent apartments, or stay with friends…but what if we’re going on a trip somewhere away from our main crash pad (yes, I just saw the movie “Taking Woodstock”), and we need a hotel?  What if your mother is coming to visit you in Paris and she only likes 3-star hotels?  What if you won the lottery and you have money to burn on a nice double bed with a closed garden?

After a long time of resisting booking hotels online because hotel websites are so impossible to use (and also because you can often get better deals by applying to local tourist bureaus), I’ve found the best website for hotel comparisons, BY FAR, is Venere.com.  The interface is easy to use and allows you to compare several hotels side by side, with user reviews and photos.  The hotels are often pretty darn cheap as well.  Make sure you plug in your dates at the beginning, or you may be excited by a hotel that doesn’t actually have any openings, as I was.  You can also use the Lonely Planet Hostels and Hotels booking engine, which is slightly less easy to use, but slightly more comprehensive, and has the advantage of being approved by Lonely Planet…which may or may not be a plus.  Also, Lonely Planet seems to have restrictions on the neighborhoods it will book in, for larger cities.  Be warned.