By Boyd Lemon / Guest contributor
The holidays are coming soon, and you might be traveling to visit family or friends, and for myriad reasons cannot spend the nights in their home. After that, before you know it, you may be planning an annual vacation. So I thought this would be a good time to pass on what I have learned about spending the night in hotels during my many years of traveling for pleasure.
I am always looking for new ways to find good, clean, inexpensive places to sleep when I travel. My preference is to spend as little as possible on a place to sleep that is safe, clean and provides privacy. I don’t want to pay for luxury, because I plan on spending very little time in the room; I’m just going to sleep there. If I stay in a hostel, I want an in-room bathroom, because — call me irrational — I just don’t like to share a bathroom with a bunch of strangers, and I want to be able to get ready to go out when I decide to; I don’t want to have to wait my turn to use the bathroom. That said, I don’t mind sharing a bathroom with one other person, if that person owns the place. It is easy to work out bathroom use with one other person that you can talk to.
That is why I really like this website: www.airbnb.com/ They offer rooms (and sometimes whole houses or apartments) owned by a private party for less cost than a comparable hotel room. Check it out. I have stayed in rooms they offer several times, and I have had great experiences for $50 to $75 per night. Some offers are even less. The site offers accommodations in all big and many not so big cities worldwide. People who participate in this program by offering rooms or apartments tend to be friendly and outgoing. My experience has been that they are eager to help you find whatever you need to enjoy your travel experience. They sometimes offer extras, like free bicycles, or discount cards for local attractions; and often breakfast.
For traditional hotels my favorite website is hotels.com.You can almost always get a hotel room for less than you would get by contacting the hotel directly, sometimes a lot less. The only drawback is that your credit card will be charged immediately upon booking, rather than when you check out. But, if your plans change, you can cancel and obtain a full credit on your card in accordance with whatever the cancellation policy of the hotel is, which is disclosed to you when you book.
As a bonus on hotels.com, if you sign up for it, you get a free night’s stay in the hotel of your choice after you have stayed in hotels booked through hotels.com ten nights (a room comparable in price with the average you have paid during those ten stays). So, in effect, you are getting a 10% discount off their discounted price. I have stayed in their recommended accommodations dozens of times and never had a bad experience.
On the other hand, I do not recommend just G0ogling “hotels” in a city and booking at whatever site you randomly selected. I’ve done that and have been sorry. Once when arriving at the hotel I had booked, I found it was closed.
Another tip: if you are driving, inquire about the availability and cost of parking. I once failed to inquire about parking, and although the hotel was only $50 per night, the only available parking was four blocks away in a shopping center that charged $25 a day to park.
I don’t put too much stock in the star rating systems of hotels. First, the factors considered in the star ratings vary widely. Second, those factors are usually not of much importance to me, such as, whether the hotel has a restaurant or a gym or a pool, etc. I just want a clean, quiet, safe place to sleep. I have stayed in three star hotels that had a restaurant and bar, a free breakfast, a pool, a gym and provided a foot massage machine and Jacuzzi in the room, but were dirty and the walls were so thin, I could hear the TV’s in the rooms on both sides. I have also stayed in one star hotels that were clean and quite adequate for sleeping. I rely more on the agency that recommends them and the photos and descriptions on the website. Reading the reviews on Hotels.com is also helpful. One bad review doesn’t bother me, but if there is a pattern, I look elsewhere. Occasionally, I get a bad one, but most of the time I find two star hotels on the websites I recommend to be adequate.
In large and medium sized cities, an important issue is do I stay in a city center hotel that is convenient to the sites I want to see, or do I stay on the outskirts where the accommodations are less expensive? I think that is a personal choice you have to make according to how you feel at the time and depending on what the price differential is. Remember, if you stay on the outskirts, you will have transportation or parking costs; on the other hand, the outskirts may be quieter and more pleasant. On balance, I tend to prefer to be closer to the action, but not always. It’s a personal choice that I can’t offer any legitimate advice on, except that you consider the pros and cons before you book, and certainly be aware of whether the place you want to stay is or is not centrally located.
I usually do not stay in national or international chain hotels (Holiday Inn, Sheraton, Hilton, etc) because they are overpriced for what they are, except for occasional promotional specials.
I tend not to stay in B & B’s, for the same reason. You are paying for “cute” or “quaint.” I do make exceptions when occasionally I want to hangout for extended periods in a quiet country atmosphere and write or just chill out. But if I’m just out to see the sites in a location, I don’t want to pay for all the frills that B & B’s usually offer (B & B’s in Ireland are an exception).
I have to add one caveat. I’m not just a practical guy. Sometimes, it is worth paying extra for romantic accommodations when you are with that special person.
Happy travels!
— Boyd Lemon is a retired lawyer, who re-invented himself as a writer, living in Ventura. His memoir, “Digging Deep: A Writer Uncovers His Marriages,” published last May, is about his journey to understand his role in the destruction of his three marriages. He believes it will help others to deal with their own relationship issues. Excerpts are on his website, http://www.BoydLemon-Writer.com Currently, he is writing a book on retirement, tentatively titled “Retirement: A 10 Step Program to the Best Time of Your Life.” He expects it to be released near the end of this year.