Travel Tips from Lorm: The Hotel Edition

Choosing a hotel is the most critical part of a trip.  If you're staying at a crappy place, it can totally make or break your experience.  

Having been on the road this past month and staying in a new hotel practically every night, I wanted to offer some tips for selecting a hotel.  

Here's how I rank hotels; the qualities/amenities I require are listed by importance, starting with the most essential:

• Cleanliness.  The most important thing is that a hotel be clean - ESPECIALLY the bathroom.  If the bathroom isn't clean, I don't feel clean.  It has to look and smell clean.
• Free internet.  I shouldn't have to pay an extra daily fee to have something that is pretty much a universally acknowledged necessity in 2010.  
• Free breakfast.  It's nice to be able to walk to breakfast in your pajamas.
• Decent cable channels.  I've now been to 3 hotels that have 5 ESPN channels, Cartoon Network, but no Comedy Central.  WTF??????
• Decent curtains.  One of the first things I associate with hotel living is being able to sleep in without any intrusion from the outside world, including the most obvious - daylight.  If the curtain doesn't keep daylight out, I'm sorry - it's a lame curtain.
• Microwave/Refrigerator.  Now we're getting into nice extras, but it's nice to be able to store leftovers and reheat them later - it saves money.
• Open Space for my luggage.  I like to keep a clean, open room.  It sucks when there's so much furniture in a room that you're tripping over your suitcase.

Based on this criteria (and others), I've come to these conclusions:

My favorite chain of hotels is the Hampton Inn.  If I'm not mistaken, Hilton purchased all the Hampton Inns so they are now under the umbrella of Hilton hotels - meaning they're awesome, but not nearly as expensive as staying at a Hilton.  Comfortable beds, excellent breakfast, and spacious rooms.

I've stayed at a few Hyatt Places recently.  The design of each of them is identical, and they are BEAUTIFUL.  

Lobby area.

Front Desk Area.

Rooms are HUGE.

Pretty SWEET.

The downside of the Hyatt Place is that they don't offer free breakfast.  The food they do offer is pretty pricey.  However, if space is what you're looking for, Hyatt Place is the place for you.  :)

STAY AWAY from Days Inn altogether.  You can never be sure what level of clean you're going to get.

If you find the Hyatt Place and Hampton Inn chains out of your price range, pull up to a Comfort Inn or a Quality Inn.  They're owned by the "Choice Hotel" chain of hotels, and they're affordable.  They always have free internet, free breakfast, and decent cable.  Most of the ones I've stayed in have also provided a microwave/fridge, a fitness center, and a business area, should you need to print something out.

Well, that's my 50 cents.  I should've been a travel agent.