I’ve Booked Hotels in 56 Countries (My Exact Hotel Booking System)
What Traveling to 56 Countries Has Taught Us About Booking Hotels
(hint, it’s not “read the reviews” or “book early”)
Frank has spent years booking hotels for himself, for his partner Edwards, and now for clients. After 56 countries and a lot of great, terrible, overpriced, and surprisingly charming hotel stays, he and Edwards have developed a system that works.
Most hotel booking advice is so vague. “Read the reviews”. “Pick a central location”, or “Compare prices.” These things aren’t bad, they’re just generic. They’re not actionable steps you take.
In this article, Frank and Edwards’ share the practical tricks they’ve used again and again to book the right hotel.
A quick note before we get started: Frank and Edwards have traveled together for years. Frank has aphasia, which makes speaking difficult, so Edwards often does the talking when they share their travel stories. Clips from the interview for this article are below. We sincerely hope these travel tips help you.
Q: What's the first thing you do when you start planning where to stay?
A: Before we do anything, we go to YouTube and look for travelers who have already been to the location. We get a feel for the different areas and sights we’ll want to visit.
Q: Why book through your airline's hotel program instead of somewhere like Expedia?
A: Sometimes it’s a little more expensive than Expedia, but you can get upwards of 15,000 miles for one hotel stay. The return on investment from the miles outweighs the extra cost.
Q: Do you ever choose AirBnB or VRBO, or do you always stay in hotels?
A: Hotels. We like the miles.
Q: How do you figure out what neighborhood to stay in?
A: We use Google Maps to look at the city and the different neighborhoods, plus the public transportation system. Being close to public transportation is important to us. Once we decide on a neighborhood, then we go to Advantage Hotels and look for hotels in that area. Once we pick the hotel, we build everything else around it.
Q: Do you look for the touristy area or somewhere more local?
A: Generally, we don't want to be in the tourist destinations. In Chicago, for example, we wouldn't stay on Michigan Avenue. We'd go more into the Gold Coast or Old Town. We like to choose neighborhoods that have more character.
We like to be near the city center. Close to the action but not loud. And not too far out. In Chicago for instance, we love the Andersonville neighborhood. But we wouldn't recommend staying there for most of our clients because it’s it’s too far from downtown.
Q: Does it matter if it's your first time in a city?
A: Yes. Our first time in Mexico City, we stayed near the Zócalo. It's fun to experience the energy and see the flag raised and lowered every day. Staying in the center of a city is great for a first-time visit. Once you get oriented, you can branch into other neighborhoods, like La Condesa. 
Q: Do you prefer big chain hotels or smaller boutique-style places?
A: Smaller hotels. We like to get to know the team that works there and build a relationship with them. Smaller hotels tend to often have more history to them, and the customer service tends to be more detail oriented.
Fun fact: most people think “boutique hotel” means small or independent, but it was originally meant to describe a hotel of any size that offers a personalized experience rather than something standardized like you find in chains. It’s no surprise the terms have blended though, because we have yet to meet a small hotel that isn’t unique and personal. Read more about boutique hotels (and what makes them so special) here.
Q: What's a favorite boutique hotel you've found?
A: Boga Mexico City by Lumina. Small, modern, sleek, but the rooms were big. It’s in Roma Norte. There was a separate sitting and living area, a dining room, and a kitchen. It was about $205 a night. AMAZING!
Also, we love The Bailey's Hotel in Kensington.
It’s been around for 150 years and was one of the first hotels in South Kensington. It’s got this Victorian feel and an incredible staircase, like something out of the Titanic. It’s close to everything and there’s a Tube station right there.
Q:
How much do you budget for a hotel?
A: We try to stay within the $200 to $300 per night. We'd rather spend our money on great food, and insider tours with a local guide than on an expensive hotel. We don’t need to stay at a Four Seasons that we're not there enough to justify it anyway. We like nice hotels, but we don’t need luxury level, and we don’t look for that.
Q: What amenities really matter to you in a hotel?
A: There are a few non-negotiables:
- A walk-in shower: it’s better for safety for Frank’s mobility issues and aphasia. Getting in and out of a tub has a higher risk of falling.
- Air conditioning
- An elevator
Those are required for us. And then there are “nice to haves”, like a fitness center or at least access to a gym nearby. We also like to find hotels that have a convenience store nearby for sodas.
“Look. I'm not paying $3 for a hotel soda when I can get one for $.50 at the store! In London, we like to stay at The Baileys Hotel. One of the reasons we love it is that there’s a Tesco a minute away so I can grab my diet drinks! Most hotels have a refrigerator now, and that matters too.” - Edwards Buice, Frank’s partner
Also, we like a room with decent natural light. We don't like interior-style rooms.
We stayed in a lovely room in Cleveland once that was beautifully decorated. Just gorgeously furnished! But it was an interior room with no natural light. Courtyard-ish. It really affected Edwards’ mood. For some that wouldn’t have been an issue, but for us, the lack of light ruined the experience and we’ll never stay there again.
What’s really important to us overall — a central location (city-center adjacent is how we describe it), in a walkable neighborhood with shops and restaurants, that’s close to transit.
Q: What do you NOT need from a hotel?
- A restaurant attached to the hotel. We prefer eating at local spots rather than being surrounded by other tourists.
- A great view from our room. It’s nice to have, but not a priority for us.
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Complimentary breakfast. We never use it. Why stay in the hotel and connect with other tourists when you can sample local coffee shops? Mornings are such a great time to feel the pulse of a destination!
What’s ideal for us is not for everyone. That’s why we start with a series of specific questions for all of our travel consulting clients. Cookie-cutter advice of “this is the best hotel in London” is not how we roll.
Q: What about front desk hours?
A: It's nice to have someone at the front desk 24/7. We've stayed places where they go home at 5pm and there's only a helpline for emergencies. That's not something we’re comfortable with and we avoid booking those hotels, especially if we don’t speak the language of that country.
Q: Do you usually book a standard room, a suite, or something else?
A: Whenever possible, we book a one-bedroom suite over a standard room. Our sleep patterns are different, one of us gets up early or goes to bed later. “I'm always doing work (Edwards), so it's nice to go into the next room and work instead of getting dressed and going down to the lobby. It gives each of us space when we want to be doing different things at different times.”
Q: Do you switch hotels a lot during a trip, or stay in one place?
A: Once we decide on a hotel, we stay there until we leave. If we take a day trip or an overnight trip to another city nearby, we keep the hotel room rather than checking out and back in. It's more efficient to pack a smaller suitcase for the side trip than to drag everything back and forth.
Plus a 7 or 10-night booking gets you a better price than breaking it into separate stays.
Q: Any tips around overnight or red-eye flights?
A: When we have an overnight flight to Europe, we book the hotel for the night before, pay the extra price, so when we arrive, we already have the room. They just need to give us the key, and up we go up instead of having to wait till 3 o'clock in the afternoon. It’s worth it for us to pay for the extra night so we can go straight to the room after we land.
Same on the other end: if our flight leaves at midnight or 2 am, like a lot of flights from the Middle East or India, it's better to pay for that extra night and stay in the room as long as you can instead of checking out at 3pm with 12 hours to kill before your flight.
We’re strategic about where we spend money and where we save.
Yes to restaurants, history, local guided tours, experiences.
No to paying for luxury hotels, no overpaying for the hotel sodas.
Yes to public transportation – we learn so much on the bus or Tube! We like feeling immersed.
No to a private driver or anything that gets us away from the local flavor and culture.
Q: Any other small details you look for in a hotel?
A: Yes. We have preferences that we generally request.
- A room on a high floor, never the ground floor.
- A king bed with at least two pillows apiece.
- An extra luggage rack. There are two of us, so why is only one rack even a thing?
Q: If you visit the same city, do you stay at the same hotel each time?
A: We like different things so we trade off.
“Frank likes to stay at a new place every time, I like having already scoped out where to go the best pastries, a convenience store, and a church for Frank’s Sunday Mass routine, etc. I also like seeing the same staff members and having that connection. So we take turns - sometimes booking the same hotel and sometimes experimenting with a new area and a new hotel.”
Q: What's a travel mistake people should watch out for?
A: Most travelers never think of it, but being careful with taxi fares has saved us a TON of money!
For instance, what happened in Istanbul:
- We came off an overnight flight, exhausted
- Grabbed the first taxi waiting outside the airport
- By the time we pulled up to the hotel, the fare felt way too high
We’re thinking…do we just pay it and move on, jet-lagged and ready to be done?
That's what most people would do. And it was tempting, since we really wanted to be in a nice cozy bed as soon as possible.
What do you do when you think you're being overcharged?
First, don't argue with the driver. Walk inside and talk to the hotel staff instead.
Wait, they'll get involved even if it's not their cab?
Yep. The gentleman working the front desk that morning spoke both English and Turkish. He walked outside, talked to the driver directly, and told him flat out he was overcharging us.
The price came down immediately. No big drama or awkward back and forth in a language we didn't speak.
A dicey cab fare shouldn't be the reason you start a trip stressed! Just walk inside and let the front desk handle it, they deal with local drivers every day, and they'll fight for you. Yet another reason we prefer smaller, boutique style hotels.
We do the same when we book a cab from our hotel. We ask the staff to book it for us, and we confirm the price with the driver before we get in.
Q: How do you spot a bad hotel before you book it?
A: The price. Eight times out of ten, if the price is extremely low, I'd question the hotel. We once stayed at a big chain hotel in San Jose, California that was $93 a night. Looking back, that should have been a red flag. We booked a suite and get this, the room had a couch jammed against the bed and that qualified as a suite. The bathroom was filthy. For the most part, a very low price is a warning.
Q: Do you read online reviews before booking?
A: Not really. We have our own system that we use and we know it works. And after so many trips, it comes down to more of a gut sense at this point.
Q: Any hotel horror stories?
A: The Jolly Rancher Fiasco comes to mind. In Baltimore, we stayed at a “Big Hotel Brand Name You’ve Definitely Heard” but I won’t name. The staff was surly and the breakfast was terrible. True story: the woman at the desk had a bowl of Jolly Ranchers in front of her candy. She yelled at me for taking a piece of candy that was sitting out in plain view on the counter. "I didn't give you permission to take my candy!" It wasn’t like I jumped over the counter or anything. It was literally right in front of me!
Q: Anything else you want to add?
A: The lesson is this: guidelines, not rules. Knowing your non-negotiables. What’s most important for YOU when looking for a hotel? What matters to Frank and Edwards may not be important for you. We start working with clients by asking a series of specific questions. a hotel for YOU, that’s what matters. An important part of D&D and our travel consulting is that we ONLY help clients with travel to cities we know well, places we’ve visited often and know very well. Our job is to help you travel in a way that works for YOU.
Outro:
After countless hotels across dozens of countries, we know the right hotel isn’t about luck and it’s rarely found on a generic “Top 5” list. It’s about knowing yourself, having a system that you trust, and being clear about what really matters to you.
Start with the map. Use price as a clue, book the extra night when it makes a difference, and always, always choose a hotel that helps you, not one that adds stress. Where you stay MATTERS and travel is personal. The best hotel is the one that lets you experience the world YOUR way.
If you want help figuring out where to stay on your next trip, or want a plan built specifically around your needs, that's what we do. Reach out and let's talk it through.