When planning a trip to Syria, you'll soon notice that Booking, Expedia, Airbnb, and other familiar international booking platforms are conspicuously absent. We suggest this absence is to be embraced as a good thing! 

Local companies have jumped in, with several new platforms offering convenient and rapid booking methods. HalaSyria, SyriaBooking and Rahal allow you to browse and make hotel reservations, while Beti Betak is Syria's "Airbnb, but halal". See our detailed listings linked below. 

As a special In Your Pocket tip... traveller numbers are still very modest, so away from the high-end hotels that can be booked out by international organisations, if you have some time, it’s often perfectly feasible to arrive without a reservation and simply compare a few mid-range places to see if the price, room and mood fit your expectations. Damascus hotels are known to be open to bargaining, so if you have a good proposition for a better price, perhaps in combination with a longer stay, by all means see if you can come to an agreement. City centre hotels are close together, and you will likely find a good option at a reasonable price soon enough. Embrace 1990s-style spontaneous travel!