make hotel arrangements ahead of time

Either you go the pre-paid routes (such as priceline, hotwire) and get better rooms for lower prices,

or you go the regular reservation route, and pay attention to the cancellation policy as Wunderlust kindly reminds you,

having your accommodations pre-arranged, you can get to a place very late but not to worry about having no place to stay.

Just keep in mind, the pre-paid rooms usually are unchangeable and unrefundable, but for the compromise, you usually get a much better hotel / Inn for the price of a Motel 6 or Super 8 ...

Personally I do not know why there are still people stay at Motel 6 ever since Priceline is in business.