The soon to open Sanctuary Hotel in Times Square, New York is offering rates from $149 – $249 as part of a dress rehearsal to allow guests to discover the hotel before it actually opens next year.

This by itself isn’t unique, but there are a few details about the Sanctuary that make it a little bit more interesting. For starters, the hotel is still currently operating as the Portland Hotel, which bills itself as the best cheap hotel in Times Square.

Sanctuary Hotel, New York

But the new and about to open Sanctuary is not really an economy hotel, and will be charging nightly rates from $400. Since the hotel has been in this state of transition for quite some time now, it’s like they’re permanently stuck in some kind of twilight zone between being a cheap hotel in New York and a more upscale one.

It’s not really a bad thing, since the hotel has been nice enough to offer these dress rehearsal rates on and off. So guests will get to stay in a brand new hotel with an illuminated glass floor lobby and plush guest rooms with flat-screen television sets and crystal chandeliers for rates that one would normally pay at a cheap dump. Read More »

On September 9, 2010 at exactly 12:00 noon, the Hoxton Hotel in London is once again releasing 595 rooms for £1 and another 595 rooms at £29.

Haxton Hotel, London

The last time the hotel tried something like this, their website and booking system got drowned by over 250,000 people trying to book the rooms and the 1000 rooms got sold out in 13 minutes flat.

The one pound rooms can be booked only via the hotel’s website, and for those who manage to get to the booking page before others, the stay must be booked for in between 10th Sept 2010 – 9th January 2011.

Each person is allowed to book only one room for one night only. Extra nights or rooms will have to booked separately at the standard rates. The room rates are the same irrespective for single and double occupancy.

One child under the age of 12 can stay free, and guests can ask for an extra bed free of charge. The £1 sale includes a room with a choice of a queen bed or two single beds. The hotel has 185 double bedrooms with one queen size bed and 20 twin bedrooms with 2 single beds.

A free breakfast of freshly squeezed orange juice, a granola yoghurt pot and a banana will be delivered to your room. They also have onsite the American style Hoxton Grill downstairs with rates from £5, in case the free lite Pret Breakfast isn’t enough.

The 205 room Hoxton Hotel opened in 2006, and is located 5 minutes from the Old Street Tube in Shoreditch in East London. It claims to be a ‘no bull shit hotel’ with low rates (£59 per night, if you book well in advance) and you get water and milk in the fridge and cheap phone calls to America, in addition to the free breakfast.

The entire hotel has free wi-fi, and the rooms have flat screen television and bathrooms with rain showers and fluffy towels. There is an ATM and a convinience store in the lobby, not to mention a cool wireframe Lamborghini.

More info: 81 Great Eastern St London EC2A 3HU UK; 020 7550 1000; www.hoxtonhotels.com/

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On my quest to ferret out the most economically priced accommodations (read “cheap”) as I backpacked through Mexico, I’ve stayed in hostels, hotels, B&B’s and inns that have ranged from utterly disgusting to marginal to amazing finds. In the central Mexican town of Queretaro I discovered one of the latter. Casa San Gallito was represented as a hostel but from the moment I set foot on the property it became a home away from home.

Mixed sex doem

If you weren’t looking specifically for this hostel it would be easy to miss. The unassuming entrance is just an open doorway in a long row of flat-facade colonial buildings, with only a placard sign set in the center of the doorway to advertise what is within, but step around the sign and into a lovely open courtyard dotted with tables, chairs and potted plants. Beyond the courtyard are more common areas, including the best kitchen I have ever seen in a hostel, where breakfast (which is included in the room rate) is served every morning, and a full living room with couches, bean bag chairs, TV, library, and computer. Unlike other hostels, which often provide minuscule common areas, the living room at Casa San Gallito Hostel was large enough to accommodate Read More »

Normally, I travel without reservations and just find a conveniently located hostel upon arrival in a new city, but an eleven-hour bus ride from Chihuahua meant I would arrive in Zacatecas at 11 p.m. Since many hostels literally “roll down the shutters” after a certain hour, in this case I emailed Hostel Villa Colonial to reserve a room. Still, I worried whether they would be open when I arrived. I need not have worried; not only are they open 24 hours, when I arrived their front doorway was crowded with people, as was the small lobby and common kitchen. I fought my way through the crowd of revelers to the front desk and the manager greeted me warmly, explaining that he had received my email and reserved the penthouse for me. At $250 pesos (about $21 USD) per night, it was more expensive than I normally preferred, but since it was their last available room, I didn’t quarrel.

View of illuminated dome of Cathedral from the rooftop terrace at Hostal Villa Colonial

Three and a half flights of narrow stairs later the manager and I alighted on the rooftop terrace. “How do you like the view?” he asked. “Pretty impressive, no?” Indeed, it was the best view in Zacatecas. One direction looked directly at the illuminated dome of the Cathedral, another at the crest of La Bufa Hill, with its historic hilltop chapel, museum, and mausoleum lit up against a pitch black sky.

Rooftop terrace and second common kitchen

Across the terrace and just beyond a second common kitchen, we mounted a few more steps to the penthouse and stepped inside. Its double French doors were thrown wide to the sights and sounds of the city, which was crammed full of visitors for an arts festival. The room’s queen size bed and TV were luxuries for me, as was the ensuite Read More »