Making Travel Lodging One of the Best Parts of Your Journey

For Americans, Spring Break approaches! This means it is time to find the perfect travel lodging for an awesome trip. Your accommodations can make or break your experience, so today I am re-publishing my 2020 article on how to make where you stay during your journey one of the best parts of the trip.

One of my favorite parts of trip planning is researching lodging.  I love this part of travel. While there are differences in researching accommodations depending on the destination, there are some things that remain steady.  For example, when travelling internationally, location becomes twice as important because I often do not rent a car and I need to be near public transportation. 

In general, selecting a hotel or other travel accommodation still boils down (for me) to the following four categories: location, price, amenities and personality.

Location

As I said, when I am in a foreign country, I often don’t rent a car.  There have been times when I have used plane, train, bus and boat to get where I needed to go all in one trip.  If I am trying to find a hotel overseas that has a good location, it will likely be near public transit and tourist attractions BUT, not so close to attractions that it is loud or crowded all the time.  For example, when I visited Venice, Italy I stayed at a hotel a good 15-minute walk from the very famous St. Mark’s Square.  Everyone in my neighborhood spoke Italian.  The closer I walked to St. Mark’s the less I heard Italian spoken.  The crowds picked up significantly too.  It became obvious that everyone was a tourist.  Since I prefer a more authentic experience when possible, I was glad that I selected a hotel a bit farther from the tourist center.

Typically, during my U.S. travels, I have my car and I use it to explore during the day while my husband is working.  Public transit is not as important, but I still care about how close I am to an interstate (this can be good and bad).  I want access to free parking and short drives to museums, art galleries, parks and other fun stuff. 

Price

As a frugal traveler, price is important to me.  I don’t want to spend $225 each night for lodging.  I know for many people that is a pittance.  But, for me, one of the reasons I have been able to afford to go to Europe five times is because I watch price carefully and balance it with other factors.  I don’t often go with the very cheapest place I find unless that place gets a really high score from me in some other area.  I usually end up on the low end of middle (if that makes sense.)  I had never been to Spain before and was looking for something inexpensive in Barcelona. I selected a very inexpensive place right on Las Ramblas, that city’s most famous and centrally located pedestrian boulevard. When I got there, I discovered that it was actually a hostel-style accommodation, even though that word had never been used in the information I had read. There were multiple bedrooms, each rented individually. There was a shared bathroom and kitchen. The bedrooms had no locks on the doors and the boulevard was open all night long. People partied below our bedroom window all. . .night. . .long. This is an example of when paying a little more to stay somewhere 10 minutes outside the city center that fit my lifestyle more closely, would have been well worth the money.

Amenities

The definition of “amenities” changes for me based on destination.  For foreign travel, I look to see if a hotel, guest house or short-term rental has things like bikes to use and whether they are free or for rental.  Is breakfast included?  If so, what kind (continental or full, hot breakfast)? From 2020 – 2022, we tended to stay in each U.S. city for roughly one week before we moved on.  Therefore, I checked to see if there was a kitchenette.  More importantly, I often check to see how that hotel defines the word “kitchenette.”  Some properties include a two-burner stove.  Some properties include an oven (though this is rare).  Some properties supply only a microwave and fridge.  If I am looking at chain hotels, I review the photos of the fitness center.  Usually, these facilities are adequate.  On rare occasion, they are not adequate.  I once neglected to review fitness offerings at a huge property in Tennessee. When I arrived, I discovered that they had only a tiny room (half the size of a basic guest room) that was furnished with two bikes and a few hand weights. This was not appropriate or practical for such a large property. 

I know that many hotels give discounted room rates and then recoup their “loss” by charging “resort fees” and parking fees.  That doesn’t mean I have to like it.  I hate paying for parking and only do it when absolutely necessary.  Does the hotel have a free shuttle to nearby shopping or attractions?  My hotel on Maui (Spring 2019) had a free shuttle that I used at least every other day.  My hotel in Charleston had a shuttle that normally cost $6 to use.  The only reason I used it during my stay (March 2020) was because the property had chosen to waive that fee for all guests.  Note to hotels: If you are going to offer a shuttle, it should be free!

Personality

On all my previous international trips to date, I have rarely stayed at chain hotels.  This may change going forward simply because my husband now travels so much for work that he has achieved quite a high status in the rewards program of a particular hotel chain.  Typically for overseas trips I stay at guesthouses, B & Bs or in short-term rental apartments.  I research them extensively.  I will discuss in another post what my personal process is for using travel planning websites to accomplish this research. Staying at these alternative-type properties allows me to find the unique, quirky, and authentic experience I am looking for in international travel.  Since I am there to experience another culture, I want it to feel that way.  A chain hotel will often have touches of the country or culture in which it is located.  These are usually in the common areas, but the rooms will be cookie cutter.  In Barcelona, my room in the guesthouse that I selected had a historic barrel vault brick ceiling.  In Ljubljana (Slovenia), my efficiency apartment was in a weird Communist-era building where I had to cross a super narrow outdoor catwalk to access the apartment.  I would not have had those cool (and usually photo-worthy) experiences in a chain hotel.  Final note: Should we begin to use chain hotels for our overseas trips more often, I will still seek out properties housed in unique structures and that sort of thing.  Of course, I will continue to balance it with the other factors too. 

In the United States, it is still quite possible to uncover unique properties that remind you down every hallway exactly which city/state/environment you’ve come to visit.  Many of the larger hotel chains now have mini-collections that are more unique.  Look for keywords like “boutique”, “signature” or “unique” in the descriptions.  Lastly, do not allow yourself to be overwhelmed.  Don’t feel that you need to check AirBNB and VRBO and Trip Advisor and Yelp and two different corporate websites too.  Pick a couple of sites, narrow down what type of property you want and then focus on one site that is appropriate for that type of property (i.e. short-term rental vs. hotel).

While finding travel lodging that fits your needs can take some time and research, if you stick with the four major factors of location, price, amenities and personality, you are bound to have a wonderful experience.  If you think of your accommodations as an integral part of your journey and not just somewhere to dump your suitcase, it can really add to the overall trip.  Sometimes the place you call home when you are away from home can provide some of your very best travel memories.

Do you have other features that you look for when planning travel lodging?  If so, leave a note in the comments. REMEMBER TO BOOK YOUR NEXT HOTEL STAY BY CLICKING ON ANY HOTEL LINK OR AD ON THIS WEBSITE. HAPPY TRAVELS!