Travel Essentials The Hotel

“This is perhaps what you envisage when you booked, but the realities are often very different. 3, 4 and 5 star hotels in some counties are often 2 or 3 star at best. Over the years we have stayed in some real dives, (we are not here to name and shame - it is just a fact of life!) some of them seriously dangerous with exposed wiring, blood and other fluids, (and don’t even look at the mattress), rats, cockroaches and other nasty insects, including of course the ubiquitous mosquito and the like. Some of these have been provided by well known respectable travel companies, but occasionally even on an “adventure” tour you do find the odd gem, and we have had some truly world class hotel experiences in the most unexpected locations such as El Salvador.

We’ll add some more about hotels in latter editions, and include some photographs of types of hotels, so you can make a more informed choice. We don’t have a lot of hotel memorabilia as we don’t advocate “stealing” from hotels. In the early days of travel it was often the rage to take the bath robes, towels and slippers. Yes we take consumables such as soaps etc, but you have paid for these. Nowadays we usually take our own - which saves the hotel money.

Tricks of the Trade.

If you travel with adventure companies do not expect luxury, or in some cases even basic standards of safety or hygiene. (very much also country dependant). As companies have sort to cut costs over the years we have noticed a gradual drop in hotel standards, along with a reduction in what they provide. Ten or Twenty years ago it was common place for at least every other day to get either lunch or an evening meal and on many days both were provided, along with breakfast everyday. All trips were included and the “extras” list was tiny. There was no such thing as a “tips” kitty, which seems to be the latest game to extract money from you, and to get you pay part of the drivers expenses. Evening meals have all but gone, and lunch is now inevitable also at your own expense. There may be “group” organised evening meals - but these are at your own expense.

The excursions list has shrunk and now the free day has become 2 -4 “free days” in a fortnights tour. This just means you now have to pay extra for excursions on these days, so the travel company saves money. Everyone ones a day “off the bus” once in while, but this is far more cynical. There has also been a notable drop in the quality and tour companies seek to do things that don’t cost them any money, hence church / temple and ruins visits have started to feature very heavily. Some have become so formulaic as to have become a joke, church / cathedral / castle ruin, large tree, church, monastery, statue, bridge, church, church, castle, UNESCO Heritage site, National Park, UNESCO site etc etc - you get the picture, and whilst some of this is interesting it is mainly done to save the tour company money and does not necessarily represent the best there is to see.

The other little trick that tour companies now play is to get a hotel “out of town” or far away from the centre, this is to save them money, but it makes you life very inconvenient and we have had to walk 20 to 30 minuets to get into town, often through some pretty dodgy neighbourhoods. You will also find the hotel choice a bit cynical, in that often you get an OK hotel to start, but then they go rapidly down hill with some pretty dire places on occasions, followed by a “gem” which often seems more of a gem that it really is, often because it has a pool and isn’t as crap as the other places! They then cynically improve the standard towards the end and review time, hoping you will just remember the “good” hotels at the end.

The tour companies pretty much all use the same “ground agents” these are the people that conduct the tours, and we have been on trips, where people paying half as much as us, and twice as much all pretty much have the same experience - because its all the same people doing it at ground level. Your bus might be a bit more fancy or less so, but that’s about it. Travel companies also often book the same hotels, and you will find books of “welcome to the trip” from a half dozen or so different companies.

Polar travel has become a classic example of tour companies jumping on the “band wagon” with many little more than resellers of other peoples products, whilst at the same time claiming to “polar experts.”

The other thing we have noticed is the deterioration of the flights, with crappy times, long layovers, or impossibly short transfer times between flights, and the use of hubs such as Madrid, Belgium, UAE and Qatar featuring over the years, where in effect you are all flown to and then sent out on a larger fleet plane to the final destination. The flights have got longer, the times of day (night and early hours of the morning) awful, either getting up at stupid o’clock or getting in really late. Airports can be one of the most dangerous places, and kidnaps at the extreme end and more common place rip off fares being perennial issues. We hate arriving at night or early hours, it is not safe.

We have over the years started to book our own flights so you can get shorter flight times, better travel times, and you can either buy it cheaper or get an upgrade for the same money. Ditto hotels, we can usually get a genuine 4 star hotel and better flights, plus the tours for less than the tour company provides. So why travel with the travel companies? The No 1 reason is security, collection, group bus and a local who speaks the language and can sort things. No 2 has to be the company of other people. Particularly evening meals, however now the travel companies have stopped providing this groups have become a lot more fragmented and “cliques” more likely to develop. The people company aspect cannot be underestimated, its just simple things like seeing a condor swooping over for the first time and the collective wow! or gasp! Or just being able to say look at that sunset! You can tell the lizard next to you, but they are often unimpressed - after all they’ve seen it a hundred times before. In all seriousness it’s that collective sharing of emotion, knowledge and feeling with someone else.

And the last thing we will raise whilst we are on the subject is the constant “discounting” which invariably leads to part of the group feeling ripped off as they paid full price and part of the group getting it “cheaper” It irks!! Just charge a fair price, and the same for everyone. OK so a loyalty discount is ok - at least this is fair and transparent. Different prices are unfair, not transparent, and it leaves a bad taste, unless you're the smug one who got it cheaper!

We have stayed in literaly hundreds of hotels over the years from flea pits to the world best, and even a few “private residences” of the worlds wealthy and elite. from castles to exotic exclusive retreats, mountain cabins and thje occasional ditch! Most have been typical tourist class and we have an extensive collection of hotels interior and exterior shots from every continent, as well as ships cabins and camping.