Dont book online, or you will end up paying double. Search the internet well before you land there. Take a taxi from the airport and direct the driver to take you to the hotel. Dont let him accompany you to the reception, or the rates will go up again. Leave your luggage in the cab, and walk to the reception and enquire the rates, and you will find that its a lot cheaper than what you might have found while searching on those online reservation sites.
Goa has more hotels than houses, so you never run out of a place to stay, unless you want to be very close to a beach or something. Finding a room at Panaji or Madgaon isn’t that tough. On or off season, you will get decent AC rooms with decent room service for about Rs 600 a day, and the same room will cost you atleast Rs 1000 when you book thru sites like makemytrip.com
You could find a lot of serviced appartments in Goa, and next time I plan to take one instead of a hotel room, and the cost will workout a lot cheaper if you stay there for a few weeks together.
If you ask me, panaji is the best place to be. You can go where ever you want from Panaji, as if you stay at Calangute, it will be a very long drive to Miramar or Dona Paula or Mapusa. Calangute is about 10 Kms from Panaji, and when in Goa, without a jeep or a scooter, you would be wasting your time. It is such a beautiful place to be moving in a Taxi or a bus. Well, atleast I think so as I am a bit of a roadie.
And when you need a jeep, dont ask the hotel people to get it for you as it will cost you the earth. You can get a decent Mahindra 4×4 jeep for abour Rs 800 a day at candolim or a gypsi for about Rs 1000. You should be able to get a Honda Activa for Rs 150, and an avenger or a bullet for about Rs 300 a day. If you book them on weekly or monthly basis, it will cost you even less.
