Best & Worst Motel Chains

howdy it's Kyle with a video talking about and comparing the various national motel chains and this is primarily designed for roadtrippers so I'm looking at some of the national budget Motel chains and some of the national mid-level motel chain so this is not the video to watch if you're interested in learning about the ten thousand thread count sheets and the diamond-encrusted faucets at the ritz-carlton of the Four Seasons but if you're interested in learning what are the best and worst motel chains for road trippers and which ones offer the best value then this is the video for you this is really important information for road trippers for two main reasons the first of that you'll want to make sure you have all your rooms booked in advance and all the times people think that booking your room at the motel is kind of like booking a table at a restaurant where you only have to have reservations for the fancy ones and you can just walk right into an Applebee's and grab a table well it doesn't quite work that way at motels and I've seen that on many occasions where I've been checking in with a reservation and somebody has walked in and asked if there's a rule available in the person's like no we have no vacancies so some of these even cheap motels can surprisingly fill up especially the ones that are just off the interstate you know people have been driving all day they're tired they pull over and just look for the first room it's available and again often times are full so make sure you do have things booked in advance and the second reason why this is important information is because you'll probably want to stick to one Motel chain for all your reservations so if you're in recon five ten days however many days are going to be gone it's just so much easier to log on to one company's website make all the reservations there and you have to deal with any kind of hassle if you have to change your itinerary to last-minute have to juggle this company's reservation with that one so that can be kind of a pain but if you stick all with one Motel chain moving things around a little bit is much easier so half things booked in advance stick with one Motel chain and your trip will have a lot less hassle I'm going to be looking at three different levels of motels the first is going to be the low end budget motels and these are the cheapest national chains out there so if you're primarily interested in saving money these are the ones you're going to be looking at the second level is going to be the upper level budget Motel so that makes me sense they're still budget they still offer no frills but tend to be a little bit nicer of course cost a little bit more and the third level is going to be the mid-range motels and so I'm not gonna be looking at anything above that because most people on road trips aren't looking to spend 150 200 bucks a night on a motel so again these are the three levels I'm going to be examining I'll be looking at 18 different national chains in this video and in my 20 years of road tripping I say that 16 of them most of all times in various parts of the country so I'm pretty familiar with these chains as a whole and what they have to offer and even the - I have not say that I have a pretty good idea what their life is based on the eyeball test looking at what kind of neighborhoods are located in and what they're most comparable to so without further delay let's get to the details of the individual chains at the low-end budget Motel level I'm looking at three major national chains the first is Motel 6 and that's the one that the course has the most locations they're all over the place you can always find one and even after 20 years of road tripping I'm still staying at Motel 6 if that says something about it and I say it probably 50 different ones and for the most part they're perfectly fine they're you know basic bare-bones no frills nothing special about it and most of them are a little rough around the edges but some of them are also pretty nice surprisingly and so a lot of them have been recently renovated such nice and you know a lot of them again are a little rough but you know there are very few them they're kind of sketchy but there are a few sketchy Motel 6's don't stay at the one in East Oklahoma City that one is super sketch but um yeah the thing I like about Motel 6 that you can just book all of them at once and if you could change your itinerary last-minute it's no problem and that happens a lot when road tripping so say you're traveling along i-40 and you're heading west and you stop in Amarillo eat one of those 72-ounce steaks and you're really regretting it and you can't get as far as Albuquerque where your reservation is you can call the 1-800 number or say hey we can't make it as far as we thought can we change the reservation to say to come carry kind of thing and there but yeah it's perfectly fine no big deal or say the opposite say you're making a really good time we can get forwarded an Albuquerque can we change it to Gallup oh yeah no problem so I've done that many times and there's a decent chance that will happen to you on your road trip so that's kind of like I'm saying at the beginning it's nice to have all your reservations with one chain because you can change them like that without really any big issue they're having to deal with various change so again if I'm going low-end budget and I'm going to be traveling by myself I'm going to be going with Motel six most likely the other major national chains I'm looking at one is Travel Lodge and for the most part the average Travel Lodge just perfectly finds just like the average motel 6 you know this basic bare-bones no-frills you know maybe a little rough around the edges but you know not bad perfectly fine but the main difference is that there's a higher percentage of travel lodges that it could be a little more sketchy so most and refine but there's a higher percentage that they're not going to be that good so I usually don't do travel laws and if you're gonna do you know say ten nights in the road trip if you're booking travel laws there's a pretty good chance that a couple of them are going to be a little dicey so and the one major budget national saying I won't stand at all or the Knights Inn and you know these can be pretty rough and the average Knights Inn is perfectly fine it's like your motel stick or your tribal laws but there's a much higher percentage of nice in that are pretty sketchy I use that word a lot but it's there are some sketchy ones out there so you know if you're gonna book ten nights at night then you're gonna get a couple of rough ones so I tend to stay away from nights and they're not any cheaper than Motel six anyway so if you're gonna go low-end budget national chain I would stick a motel 6 it's just the most convenient and the one I do recommend at the upper end budget motel level I'm looking at super 8 Red Roof Inn Howard Johnson Econo Lodge and Days Inn and these five are all a little bit more expensive than the low end budget level but they're also a little bit nicer but they are still budget no frills bare bones nothing special but you're also significantly reducing the sketch factor you're not going to find really a sketchy one of these five you know some of these might be a little rough around the edges so I needed a little bit of renovation but you're not gonna find them that are totally dicey with prostitutes hanging out in the parking lot kind of thing so you know we haven't had any problem with these I've say that plenty of super rates and Red Roof Inns and you know this whole level of accommodation you know Howard Johnsons are perfectly fine for the most part but of the five in this category they they are more likely to be located in kind of weird areas so you know the main clusters for for motels are going to be off the interstate right downtown or right near the airport so a lot of times if you're staying at a budget type place it's not in one of those three areas it can be a little dicey because you know you have a little more you know remoteness associated weather you might have a little more unsavory activities going on in the neighborhood so you know Howard Johnsons might be a perfectly fine place but it might be located in kind of a ghetto area I tend to stay away from Econo Lodge and Days Inn because you're paying a little bit more for them but they tend to be not any better than the low-end budget and there are some perfectly fine Econolodge and days in but you're paying more than the low-end budget but not really getting much more out of it so if I'm going to go at this level I'm usually going super 8 or Red Roof Inn we've had pretty good success with these two for the most part they're perfectly fine there's I've never seen a sketchy super 8 or a Red Roof but they can be you know could use some renovations at some some times but now these are the ones we usually go with at this level but all the times you know you're paying for the average Red Roof and you're paying for the average super 8 or Howard Johnson even though they want that particular property you're staying at might not be any better than the motel 6 across the street but because the average Red Roof is better you're still paying a little bit more so be little careful with that but for the most part you'll get pretty good value out of this level and yeah we usually do super 8 or Red Roof so you know a decent level but you're not going to get much more out of it than you will of the motel 6 or a Travelodge at the mid-level range I'm looking at Comfort Inn quality in La Quinta Hampton Holly Inn Express jewelry Wingate and micro tel and without a doubt these are the ones where you're going to get the most value they're almost always either recently renovated or they're new properties and they're almost always located in decent neighborhoods they all offer free breakfast in the morning which is nice so with my wife and I are road tripping we're gonna stay at a hotel in this level she likes to get up earlier go down eat breakfast while I'm still sleeping so that's really convenient and you're pretty much guaranteed the place will be pretty nice and of course you're gonna pay a lot more for it and over the course of a 10 to 15 day road trip you know an extra 40 50 bucks a night for a play I can really add ups you could easily add $500 or more to the cost of your trips need to keep that in mind even though any individual night isn't going to be that much more but I've never seen any of the ones in this level to even be rough around the edges they're always at least pretty nice so you can be pretty much a server that you're gonna get a pretty good stay at these places and even if you're gonna go on a you know if you have a ton of money to spend I don't recommend going any higher than this level because if you're on a road trip you're not gonna spend much time when you're Hotel so any money spent on a really expensive place to me it's kind of wasted and the one thing I like about this level is that some of these are actually located right in the heart of downtown so we go to Nashville a lot and we'll stay at the Holiday Inn Express or the quality inn that's right downtown stop very expensive so we can go to a hockey game or go to the bars and afterward just stumble back to the hotel they having to take a cab which is real nice and you're not paying a whole lot more for it so I do like this level of hotel so you're gonna get the most value out of this again but again you're gonna pay a lot more for us do be mindful of the fact you're going to add several hundred dollars to your overall trip if you're going up to this level as opposed to say the low budget level when road tripping we usually go with Comfort Inn quality in or jewelry in comfort and quality or the same hotel conglomerate they're pretty much the exact same they cost the exact same and they're all over the country so you can make all your reservations from their website and if you have to you know change your booking last-minute kind of like with the motel 6 I was saying it's really easy to do no problem jewelry is very nice but there aren't that many of them so you really wouldn't be able to do a national road trip and just stay at those but you can do trip weavers kind of staying in the east and doing a little more reasonable road tripping Holiday Inn Express has kind of crept up their prices recently they had if kind of a strong following they were new for a while and then you know people really got into that value you can get from them but because of that it kind of took advantage of and raised their prices a little bit so you might pay a little bit more for Holiday Inn Express and some of these other ones but I mean they're all perfectly fine and I've never stayed at a micro tel or a wingate those are both part of the the Wyndham Hotel conglomerate but they all looked about the same in the same category they look pretty comparable and just looking at some of the reviews online and they seem to be pretty comparable so you're going to get a pretty good value out of any were in this rain so I do recommend any of these places this rains equal they can't go wrong I want to make special mention of Best Western and Ramada and I don't think these are the best choices for roadtrippers because they can just be all over the place in terms of quality and price anywhere from kind of a cheap place you pull up to your door and it's not much better than the motel 6 it's all the way up to a fancy high-rise hotel right downtown so if you're gonna book all your rooms with one of these to changed and we it's gonna vary in quality and price throughout the your entire trip so say you live somewhere where the Ramada is a nice high-rise hotel downtown you might look a room and pull up to is like wait a minute just a cheap place like Motel 6 kind of thing or the exact opposite maybe you live somewhere with Ramada is just that kind of cheap regular place and then you are booking your room that's actually a fancy high-rise hotel so I've never seen a sketchy Best Western or Ramada but you know the quality is gonna be all over the place and the price all over the place and because of that I don't think it's the best choice for roadtrippers something else to consider is that Motel 6 Red Roof Inn and La Quinta are the only three that allow your pet to stay for free and that might be an important consideration for you when we wrote it we always have our dog with us who was important to stay at a place it allows pets to stay for free the other places all allow your pets to stay but that lead to charge it as if it's another person staying there or they'll charge a cleaning fee and you know I'm not gonna lie i smuggled my dog in the places that doesn't allow pets to stay for free but he's also a little tiny lap dog it doesn't shed so I don't feel any guilt whatsoever was smuggling in he's he's ridden in my backpack and I took him through the lobby he's sneaking by into the room so you know again that might be an important consideration for you so again motel 6 Red Roof Inn and La Quinta or the three that will all your pet to stay for free another thing to consider is that if you're trying to save money by staying in the motel out in the suburbs but you also want to go downtown at night to go drinking and partying and you have to take a cab or an uber to get back to your motel factor in the price of that cab or an uber into your hotel cost because if you're saying spending 60 bucks a night at the motel 6 having the suburbs might take you a thirty dollar cab ride to get back out there so you'll factor that in because that hundred all our room right downtown might not be as expensive as you think when you factor in the transportation costs so that's my overview the major national motel chains and which ones might be best suited for you for a road trip my overall recommendations are if you're going to go cheap go with the motel 6 if you want to spend a little bit more money go with any of the mid-range motels and you really can't go wrong with any of them from a road trip perspective I tend to stay away from super 8 and red roofs and Howard Johnsons nothing's particularly wrong with those but over say a 10 day road trip you're gonna spend 200 to 300 dollars more by staying at those places and you're not gonna really feel like you get 200 or 300 hours more value out of it so fun to go cheap go to Motel 6 or a friend little more to go with the mid-range stuff that's the best way to do it on your road trip I hope you found this video useful if you did please give me a thumbs up to let me know you approve and if you're going to be road tripping you may want to subscribe to this channel because I'm posting a lot of stuff about road tripping some good advice and good information as well as just some other geography stuff and some other stuff about us travel so yeah thanks for watching geography Kings hunting out and about to go burn the clothes I was wearing when sleeping at the Knights Inn you

Channel: Geography King

Views: 330,566

Keywords: road trip advice, motels, hotels, national chain

Id: -VwRHMpLRDg

Length: 14min 20sec (860 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 24 2018