Hotels
Ask the concierge? Having spent the last week travelling around Switzerland and openly weeping at the cost of, well, absolutely everything, I’ve made unusually frequent encounters with people I don’t usually trust. Common consensus has it that hotel concierges are an excellent source of knowledge about the city they work in. They know where the [...]
Must have breakfast… There is a mystifying tribe of people roaming this planet for whom not being able to eat breakfast at their hotel is an absolute deal-breaker. These are the people who will insist on booking on a bed and breakfast basis, even though it’s basically the same as the room-only rate with another [...]
Continue reading about The strange fantasy world of hotel breakfast pricing
North Americans and tax North Americans, as a general rule, really don’t like tax. In fact, if you allowed a significant number of loonbags on the shouty fringe of the Republican party to have their way, there would be no taxation at all – let’s face it, we don’t need those vile evolution-preaching schools and [...]
Continue reading about ‘Plus tax’: A phrase that makes no sense whatsoever
Below, I’ve created a very simple 20 point manifesto that I think all hotels should abide by. Anyone running a hotel who would like to sign up can say “aye” in the comments. I will provide free WiFi that works well in ALL rooms. I will not push two single beds together and pretend they [...]
Continue reading about The Grumpy Traveller hotel manifesto: A 20 point plan
Dear hotel receptionists, Imagine someone comes into your hotel. They say they’re a journalist, and would like to see a room as they’re writing a city guide and need to recommend places to say. What do you think they’re asking for? Is it (A) to see a room? Or (B) to pointlessly swap business cards [...]
Continue reading about An open letter to hotel receptionists
If you ask me, there are certain criteria that have to be applied if something is to be fairly deemed a ‘service’. Key amongst them is that it has to be genuinely useful and desired. The hotel industry, however, appears to think differently. A service, it seems, is when someone is put in the way [...]
Continue reading about Five hotel services that are not actually services
Much ado about Naples On Wednesday morning, I was putting together an article about York. I’d just written that Laterooms.com is a decent place to look for deals on B&Bs when Rotterdam-based travel writer Shaney Hudson said something rather interesting on Twitter. Shaney had spotted a sizable chunk of her article on Naples quoted in [...]
Continue reading about A dubious approach to website content
Top B&B? Last weekend, I was up in York researching a city guide. And for a place with so many accommodation options, surprisingly few of them have a degree of flair that makes them stand out from the crowd. But on my trawl around the B&Bs, I finally found one that looked great. It was [...]
London visit Over the New Year I was down in London researching a few stories that shall no doubt send readers over the world into uncontrolled rapture in the coming months. I stayed at the Cumberland Hotel near Marble Arch and I wasn’t overly impressed with it. Out of curiosity, I thought I’d have a [...]
Continue reading about The great hotel room lottery: Renovations and reservations
Travel in newspapers and magazines Despite theoretically making a living by writing for them, I rarely read travel magazines and newspaper travel sections. With the odd noble exception, I find that they just don’t interest me. And there are two possible explanations for this – 1) I’m weird and they just don’t speak to me [...]
Continue reading about What is wrong with travel writing – in microcosm