Hotel luggage storage, lockers and left luggage

Your flight leaves in the evening, but you have to be out of the room by eleven. Or you arrive in the morning on a night train, and the apartment is not ready until 3 pm. Dragging a suitcase through the old town for hours costs energy and half the day. There are three good solutions: your accommodation's luggage room, lockers at the station, and luggage storage services in shops and cafés. Here is how they work, when each one fits and what to watch out for.

The three options compared

All of them usually cost something, except at hotels, where storing guests' luggage is often a free service. Current prices are shown by the provider or on the machine.

1. At the hotel: ask at reception first

The simplest solution is usually your accommodation itself. Many hotels take their guests' luggage before check-in and after check-out and keep it in a luggage room or behind the reception desk. You get a claim ticket or a numbered tag. Some hotels even let you use the lobby, a bathroom or the breakfast room before check-in.

It is best to ask when you book, or at the latest the day before. Small guesthouses and apartments often have no staffed reception and no room for suitcases. With holiday flats that use a key box or a code lock, you may find yourself in front of a locked door – that is where the other two options help.

Hotels without staff: guest luggage lockers

Many hotels, aparthotels and hostels work with self check-in and have no reception desk that is staffed around the clock. Instead of a luggage room behind the desk, many of them offer hotel luggage storage without staff: guest luggage lockers or a locked luggage room that you open with a code, your key card or a PIN from the booking confirmation. Hostels usually have lockers in the dorms or a luggage room; for the lockers you often need your own padlock.

These lockers are just as useful at the end of your trip as at the start: you check out, put your bag in a locker and collect it in the afternoon. Whether a property has them, and until when you can collect your bag, is not always clear from the listing – ask before you book, especially if your flight or train leaves late. If there are no lockers and no staff, use one of the two options below.

2. At the station: locker or left-luggage counter

If you arrive or leave by train, the main station is often the obvious place. Whether it has lockers depends a lot on the country.

• Germany, Austria, Switzerland: Big stations such as Berlin Hauptbahnhof, Munich Hauptbahnhof, Vienna Hauptbahnhof or Zurich HB have lockers in several sizes. You pay at the machine, and the rental period is limited.
• Netherlands: Amsterdam Centraal has lockers in the station.
• France, Italy, Spain: Big stations tend to have staffed left-luggage offices or locker areas behind an X-ray security check – for example at the main Paris stations or at Roma Termini.
• United Kingdom: For security reasons, there are hardly any lockers at stations. At the big London stations such as King's Cross, staffed left-luggage offices do the job instead.

What your station offers right now is on the website of the station or the rail company. On public holidays and in high season, the large lockers fill up quickly.

Base map: Natural Earth

A locker makes most sense if your train leaves from the same station or you take the train to the airport. If your accommodation is on the other side of town, the detour to the station can easily cost you an hour.

3. Storage services: leave your bag in a shop or café

For some years now, many cities have had luggage storage services that use shops, cafés, kiosks and small hotels as drop-off points. One of the big providers of luggage storage^* is Radical Storage. The idea: instead of one fixed luggage room, there are many small points spread across the city, often just a few minutes from sights, stations or your accommodation.

This is how it works:

1. Choose a place: On the provider's website or app, you search for a drop-off point nearby and see its opening hours.
2. Book and pay: You enter the date and number of bags and pay online. The big providers usually charge per bag and per day.
3. Drop off: At the drop-off point you show your booking confirmation. Your bag gets a tag or a seal.
4. Pick up: You collect it with the confirmation during opening hours.

The biggest advantage over the station: you can choose the place based on where you spend the day. If you want to see one more museum on your last day, drop your bag right next to it. In cities such as Rome, where the main station is far from some neighbourhoods, this saves a lot of time.

What to watch out for

• Check the opening hours: This is the most common mistake. A café may close at 6 pm while your train leaves at 8 pm. Before you book, check when the drop-off point is open on your departure day – including Sundays and public holidays.
• Keep valuables with you: Passport, laptop, medication, chargers and keys belong in your day bag, not in the suitcase.
• Take a photo: Photograph your bag, the tag and the confirmation. It helps if anything gets mixed up.
• Read the terms: Check what the provider is liable for and which items are not accepted. Food, large amounts of liquid and dangerous items are excluded almost everywhere.
• Mind the size: Lockers have fixed dimensions. A large hard-shell suitcase does not fit into every locker – at storage services and counters this is rarely a problem.
• Allow a buffer: For the pick-up and the way to the station or airport, plan 30 to 45 minutes more than the map shows.

Which option fits when

You stay in a hotel: Leave the bag there. It is free or cheap, and you will be back in the area anyway.

You stay in a holiday flat without reception: Use a storage service near the flat or on your way to the station. In Paris, for example, Radical Storage has drop-off points in many neighbourhoods.

You continue by train: The locker at your departure station is often the quickest solution, especially in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the Netherlands.

You fly in the evening: Many airports have their own left-luggage service. Usually, though, it is more pleasant to leave your bag in town and head to the airport only in the late afternoon. How best to get between the airport and the city is covered in our article on airport transfers.

You are in London: Do not count on station lockers. Use your hotel's luggage room, the staffed counters at the big stations or a storage service such as Radical Storage.

Best of all: less luggage

Departure day is easiest with little luggage. For a city break of two to four days, a cabin bag or backpack is often enough – and you can simply take it with you if needed. What to pack is in our city break packing list.

How YesTrip helps on departure day

In YesTrip you can plan your last day hour by hour too: add dropping off your bag as a stop of its own, and the Today view shows you what is next and how far it is – on foot, by public transport, by car or by bike. With the weather for your travel days, you can see whether it is worth spending a rainy day in the museum next to the drop-off point. You can download the map of your destinations to your device beforehand with the offline package.

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