So my carefully laid plans have collapsed (twice….long story) and I’m now scrambling to find a hotel room in NYC’s Upper West side the Sunday after thanksgiving – as in this Sunday night. Not my favorite position to be in but at least it’s not the Thursday of Thanksgiving (let’s hope that plan doesn’t collapse…) I’ve stumbled upon the NYLO hotel at 77th and Broadway which is surprisingly affordable ($150 including tax) but the affordability has me a little suspicious. I’ve looked it up on Trip advisor and Yelp, for what that’s worth and I’ve tried to find out if it’s listed on any recent bed bug reports and so far nothing alarming has cropped up so guess we’ll give it a go. It’s only for one night (famous last words)…. (What does NYLO stand for?)
Category Archives: LODGING
Last minute scramble for a hotel room in NYC – argh
Filed under LODGING, New York City
when next in Omaha/council bluffs …where to eat
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Will Forte, a star of the new film “Nebraska” had some interesting restaurant suggestions after shooting the film in Omaha. So for the record, he told the NYTimes he liked The Boiler Room in Omaha and Dixie Quicks for breakfast in Council Bluffs. He liked staying at the Magnolia Hotel in Omaha and also recommended the Occidental Hotel in buffalo, Wyoming which we also liked when we stayed there (it is supposedly where Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid stayed when in town…Will didn’t mention another good place in Buffalo…Tom’s Main Street Diner on, you guessed it, Main Street.
Looking for cool quirky places to stay? Check here:design tripper blog!
Was intrigued to read in the NYTimes Sunday about a travel blogger/writer Meghan McEwen, whose blog Design Tripper Check it out here not only focuses on places to stay around the world that are design-oriented places – in the sense that they are “quirky” and have a feel or authenticity that reflects their surroundings/neighborhood (think Longman & Eagle in Chicago or Porches in the Berkshires; ) — but has dared to open up one such place in her hometown (which is also near my hometown)…Detroit. on-the-lookout-for-quirky-places-to-stay Her inn is a small place called Honor and Folly in the Corktown neighborhood near the old Briggs (Tiger) stadium and the crumbling hulk of Detroit’s once grand train station, above the BBQ restaurant , Slows, which we tried to eat at a few years ago when I was visiting but it was too packed on a Sunday night (this is a good thing but still…) to get a table without a long wait. I’d love to stay at the inn but it’s booked over Thanksgiving when we need a place to stay. It’s also a bit pricey for us – as these quirky places can be – one room is $165 a night but two rooms is a very reasonable $215. I’ve found a hotel with less character but a more affordable price ($95) near my childhood stomping ground of Huntington Woods/Royal Oak.
McEwen has a great eye and tastes very similar to mine. Her website doesn’t include places in some of my usual haunts – such as Iowa – or recent places I’ve visited including Peru, Poland, Germany, Czech Republic, Breaux Bridge Louisiana where I managed to find some great places that are perhaps design-tripper worthy! Another website with a similar bent is http://www.welcomebeyond.com
Filed under LODGING
Prospective buyers for the Hotel Pattee in Perry Iowa!
You heard it here first (maybe) but the DM Register is now confirming what I heard from a Perry shopkeeper a few weeks ago during a bike ride from Waukee to Perry – there are prospective Buyers for Hotel Pattee in Perry, a true gem of a historic hotel. Here’s hoping it happens!
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| Motto: Make yourself at home! | |
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Coordinates:  41°50′24″N 94°6′0″W |
When next in Vermont: Snapdragon Inn in Windsor
I think I’ve found a soulmate for The Sylvia Beach Hotel on the Oregon Coast (Nye Beach in Newport), famed for it’s bookish aura (the rooms are named after authors – most recently added are rooms honoring Amy Tan, Ken Kesey and Jules Verne), the place is full of books, no television, radio, wi-fi!). It’s the Snapdragon Inn in Windsor Vermont (photo above), in the central/southern part of the state, which apparently offers a “New York Times Best Seller” package that enables guests to choose a book from the NYT best-seller list and it will be waiting for them when they check into a room. Geddit? Book a room. Book a book. The inn is apparently the former home of a famous book editor (Maxwell Perkins) so that was part of the inspiration. No official word on whether you get to keep the book but guessing yes…
Cabins to stay at in Decorah Iowa
We were hoping to stay in Decorah at what looks like the lovely Fern Hollow Cabin but alas it was booked the dates we wanted. Here are some other options!
1. Trout River Log Cabin 2336 Trout River Rd., Decorah, IA [map »] (see photos below)2. Pepperfield Project,
next door to Fern Hollow Cabin, run by the original gardener and orchardist for Seed Saver’s Exchange, and is a teacher on all things garden. Guests stay in home with him and share the kitchen.
1575 Manawa Trail
http://www.pepperfieldproject.org/
3. Loyal Rue
Loyal has a restored log cabin 11 miles N of Decorah.
Trout River Valley
welcome to Trout River Log Cabin, a 19th century Norwegian-built log house nestled in the rolling hills of Northeast Iowa.
Filed under Agritourism, Iowa, LODGING
Air B&B options and the newTrout Run Trail in Decorah Iowa
I finally got around to joining Air B&B and found two good options in Decorah, including Fern Hollow Cabin, (they’re both in old log cabins), where we hope to go this weekend to ride bikes on the new Trout Run Trail which looks incredibly cool. Opened in September 2011, the trail is an 11-mile loop around this outdoorsy northeast Iowa city, snaking along the Upper Iowa River (our favorite canoeing river in Iowa) and adorned with public art/sculptures. It runs past Luther College, the Decorah Trout Fishery (home of the famous Decorah eagles, whose nesting via webcam captivated a worldwide audience last year…word has it the eagles have moved on. We saw a spectacular eagle in flight near a nest in Gray’s Lake Park in Des Moines yesterday!)
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Portlandia nails it with B&B spoof!
Thanks to my world-traveling cousin Scott for sending me this link to a hilarious Portlandia B&B spoof
that demonstrates exactly why men in particular have a hard time staying at bed and breakfasts! Especially men traveling solo. We women traveling solo don’t have as much problem with them. I can’t stand cloying interiors or overbearing hosts but I do like the prices and often the ambiance and convenience of B&Bs.
Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen, stars of the show.
Filed under b&b
Where to stay on Hawaii’s Big Island: can the mags/books/websites be trusted?
So I’m elbow deep in thick guidebooks trying to figure out the best (my “”best” definition: the most interesting/authentic, least expensive/resort/chain-like) place to stay on Hawaii’s Big Island and fine myself torn about two B&Bs in Volcano, Hawaii (right by the National Volcano Park).
I’ve gone to the websites for each and watched the videos and slide shows and scanned the maps and read the testimonials. I’ve looked at one room after another, even one B&B’ s floor plans. Does it really make a difference if the proprietor was born and raised in Volcano – or a relatively recent transplant from Oklahoma? Do I care that one serves a hot breakfast, the other a cold; one serves organic fruit, the other fruit not billed as organic? And to think I used to just travel without booking a place to stay – let alone the absolutely perfect place to stay, whose every crevice I am familiar with in advance.
This researching also raises the question of whether to trust the opinion of various travel magazines and guidebooks. Having written for both, I sometimes wonder what their criteria is for choosing “the 25 best” or “the 10 places we love” etc. (A recent example – Forbes Magazine recently selected the Des Moines neighborhood I live in as one of America’s 12 prettiest. It’s nice enough but one of the top 12? Looking closer, I saw that a Des Moines magazine editor helped do the picking.)
Back to Hawaii: B&B#1 appears to be the darling of the travel mags (two have given it a major thumbs up) and it is the cheapest. But judging from the websites of each, it looks rather drab compared to B&B #2 which is more cheerfully decorated, gets respectful reviews in two guidebooks (as does B&B #1) , has its share of local “Best of” awards, and was selected as a stopover by a respected walking tour company. True it’s $70 more a night, which one guidebook says is a “con” because it’s overpriced for the area. But I may just have to go with my gut on this one.
A tale of two beds – in western Wisconsin
Just back from a great trip to southwestern/west-central Wisconsin where the difference in the two places that we stayed may best be described as a tale of two beds. The first bed appeared to be as old as the historic hotel it was in – which dates to the 1880s. Sagging and soft from the start, it sat atop bouncy springs that creaked and moaned at our slightest move. Not good. The room itself was small but had considerable old world character, kind of like a place Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid would have stayed at after a robbery. We shared a bathroom with several other rooms – the bathroom down the hall. It was surprisingly available. We only saw one other lodger – a bearded biker who greeted us from his room by waving a bottle and asking “Want some Cherry bomb?” Um, no thank you. But hey, the room at the historic Trempealeau Hotel in Trempealeau, Wi. along the banks of the Mississippi River was $43.20.
The second bed was maybe the best bed I’ve ever slept in – king-sized (which the owner of our b&b said means it’s as wide as a queen bed is long…) with a special remote control that you can use to adjust the firmness ON EACH SIDE. I went with 45 (who knew) and Dirck went with 40. And we were both very happy at the lovely Justin Trails B&B Resort outside Sparta, Wi. We stayed in the “Garden Suite” – on the side of a sunny yellow farmhouse on a former dairy farm with a big red barn, two newly built cabins, lovely grounds, two lamas (Dusty and Rusty). We had a large room, with a glassed in porch overlooking a beautiful garden and beyond that a cornfield, a white barn and blue silo in the distance, and a green bluff rising beyond that. Classic gorgeous Wisconsin dairyland. We never saw any other guest although apparently there were some. And that’s what you get for $135 (or so) a night. More tomorrow.
