There’s a soft spot in Spot Cool Stuff’s heart for unusual hotels. In a world where there are so many mediocre motels, unremarkable rooms, indifferent inns and characterless chains we love when a hotelier gets creative and offers an overnight experience that goes beyond the ordinary.
With a new year of unusual hotel exploration nearly upon us it seemed a good time to look back at the most weird, odd and downright bizarre accommodations we visited in 2009.
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Airport hotels have got a bad name. You might have spent the night in a soulless concrete box by the tarmac, its hallways lined by hollow-eyed passengers en route to a better place. But it doesn’t have to be like that. The next time you’ve got a stopover between connecting flights, you can spend the night in heavenly comfort at one of these luxurious airport hotels. You might be tempted to book a room even if you aren’t using the airport!
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Grandiose casinos, towering hotels, enormous buffets, larger-than-life stage productions and extreme neon are not all Las Vegas takes to excess. The swimming pools of Sin City are outrageous in their size and opulence too. And they are an often overlooked joy of travel here. After a night of gambling, partying, taking in stage shows, drinking, more gambling and whatever else you did (we don’t want to know; or, at least you don’t have to tell us) there can be nothing better than relaxing and recovering by a Vegas pool. Here, in rank order, are our top seven selections:
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November marks the start of the high season for many of the world’s warm weather destinations. Travel to places like Thailand, Turkey and the Caribbean starts to get expensive. Meanwhile, the ski season in Europe and North America prepares to get into high gear. Fortunately, there are good travel deals and discounts to be found. Here’s a selection of a few of our favorites.
As always, you can stay updated on our latest travel deal posts by . . .
• going directly to our travel hot deals page;
• or, getting a Kindle subscription to our travel blog;
• or, perhaps best of all, subscribing to our RSS feed and getting all of our travel posts delivered directly to your email inbox or to your RSS aggregator;
or—why not?—act on all three of those options.
Please note that most of the offers below are for a limited time. And with that, here’s to happy, high-value travel!
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Since the early 1960s the Italian island of Sardinia has been a popular destination for the international jet set. The beautiful landscape, the clear blue sea, the amazing archeaology (such as the 3,000-year-old megalithic edifices that are the Nuraghi) and the friendly locals are all part of the attraction. The island’s ultra-excluvie hotels are also a major reason for Sardinia’s luxury appeal.
So what are Sardinia’s most posh hotel rooms like? Here’s our peek into the three most expensive. (Rates given are for the high season).
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The Monte Carlo Hotel & Casino has, arguably, been the most underachieving property in Las Vegas. The hotel has a near-perfect location in the middle of The Strip, a superb theater space and one of Spot Cool Stuff’s favorite Vegas sports books and poker rooms. And yet the hotel has never generated much of a buzz or loyal following. Somehow the property falls into that lost space between being too expensive to be considered for budget accommodations and too bland to be considered luxurious.
The Hotel32 could change that . . sort of . . . maybe.
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October is an odd time for travel booking. It is low season for cruises (check out our review of luxury cruise lines currently offering discounts) and for Europe and for Southeast Asia. The northern hemisphere ski season hasn’t started yet and the Caribbean is at the tail end of hurricane season. But all this means there are more travel bargains for you.
As always, you can stay updated on our latest travel deal posts by . . .
• going directly to our travel hot deals page;
• or, getting a Kindle subscription to our travel blog;
• or, perhaps best of all, subscribing to our RSS feed and getting all of our travel posts delivered directly to your email inbox or to your RSS aggregator;
or—why not?—act on all three of those options.
Please note that most of the offers below are for a limited time. And with that, here’s to happy, high-value travel!
Continue →
Our favorite room in Bangkok is not the most luxurious . . . or the best value . . . or the most traditional . . . or the most chic. But give us a $150 budget and ask where in the Thai capital we’d want to stay and we wouldn’t hesitate with our answer: the Garden Suite at the Arun Residence hotel.
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