Location, Location, Location

Where you stay in a city will colour the enjoyment of the city itself. It shouldn’t, but it does.

Las Vegas is a perfect example of this, so bear with me:

If you go to Las Vegas, you could find a cheaper hotel somewhere on the outskirts of town. Then you need to find a bus, cab or an Uber to get you to The Strip. Unless you have set up home under a rock, you will know that The Strip is the bright lights part that IS Las Vegas. 

Now, Vegas is in the desert, so it’s hot. While you may not think twice about walking 2km to the middle of town in many cities, you would avoid walking 200m without shade in Las Vegas. 

So for many people, there will be days when they can’t be bothered going to The Strip more than once, if at all. Too hard. 

If you choose to spend the whole day on The Strip, so that you maximize your time outside your hotel room, it will be exhausting. If you are traveling with your wife, you will spend all day carrying a growing collection of shopping bags to keep track of, from shop to shop, cafe to bar. 

Once on a shopping excursion in a mall in Bangkok, I accidentally forgot to pick up one parcel when we finished at a cafe. It happened to be a pair of shoes Sarah had just bought within the last hour. We retraced our steps ( a lot of them) and asked at security, but no kind soul had handed the parcel in. I doubt that I have been forgiven yet. 

So that could happen to you if you do the full-day excursion to The Strip. Be warned. 

My advice would be to pay a little more to be on The Strip itself. Weekdays are cheaper, FYI.

You can pop out shopping for an hour, drop your parcels beck in the room, do a couple of laps in the hotel pool if that’s your thing, and be back on the strip within minutes to do it all again. 

You see so much more, you can set your own pace, and you enjoy Las Vegas so much more.

I just realised that I didn’t mention the casinos. That’s the only reason anyone goes to Las Vegas, right?

Wrong. I have zero interest in gambling, and there is so much more to do that the gamblers never see. If you have the slightest interest in theatre, it’s a smorgasbord. There’s concerts, shows only found in Vegas, and probably a dozen Cirque shows on any given evening. And of course, there's the shopping.

To be honest, those budget hotels really may be best suited to those who go for the gambling. Once they’ve got their arses planted in front of a slot machine, it doesn’t matter where their bed is. Their dream is to do so well at the tables or slots that the casino will give them a free room. And meals. And drinks. Sure.

I’d rather walk down the strip or down Fremont Street, just to experience the crazy. Warning: stay in the lit part of Fremont Street at night, unless you want to become a case study for CSI. I have written about Fremont Street on a previous trip.

Anyway…

Lazy old fat guys like me tend, by default, to wander not much more than a block from the hotel. Unless you had a specific place to see. 

How often have you come back from overseas and somebody says:

“Did you check out …?”  Nope

“Did you see …?”  Nope

“Did you go to …?”  Nope

“Did you visit …?”  Nope

Did you leave your hotel?…

Many years ago, we realised that the hop-on hop-off bus was a good counter to this embarrassment. 

Which brings us, at glacial speed, to this trip:

Many tours don’t put you in the most central hotels. So if you don’t do all of the excursions on offer, you’ll be at the hotel. So do you venture into the neighborhood, often commercial or residential, or do you catch up on Corro, using the invaluable VPN?

And my point is? Coming. 

As I said at the top, if you stay in a ‘boring’ part of town, your impression of the town can be coloured by that. Unless you have somewhere to go, sightseeing to do. A plan.

The risk you run as a tourist, is that you are always at the mercy of somebody's timetable, even if it's your own. The hotel in the next town is booked, the hop-on bus paid for. Have you MET my wife?

The other type of traveller is Tik, who books a hotel when she lands. Or if there is wifi onboard, just before she lands.

Or next level. There are a couple of girls at work travelling to a particular destination in Europe, but hadn’t decided how to get there.

Once they got to Auckland, they looked at the loadings (the joys of subload) of all flights travelling north. The one with business class, or worst case ANY class, and that will be where they’re going. Could have been via Australia, the US, Singapore or Hong Kong, and they were prepared to take a direction each, to meet up in a few days at their European destination. Plan on the fly. Book flights and accommodation on the fly.

It's like an episode of The Great Race: 'You need to be in that country, in that city, at this hotel, on that date. How you get there is up to you. Nowwww GO!'

These alternatives would give Sarah hives.

Anyway, for sane travelers, there is always a timetable. 

And timetables are affected by shit happening.

Like rain in Munich. When the weather has you doing laundry rather than exploring, our impression of the place is non-existent. We were in Munich for two days, but other than watching surfers on a river in a category 5 storm, we did nothing and saw nothing. The hotel neighborhood had little to see or do after the rain, so around the block exploring was a bust too. We did find an Indian restaurant around the corner. According to the expert, it was crap.

The hotel where we started in Spain was in a suburb of Barcelona with apartment buildings, supermarkets and cafe/restaurants. Not hard to find somewhere to eat, but it wasn't very ... Barcelona-y. It could have been anywhere.

Where we finished this tour is a different part of town, more inner city. Still not screaming "Welcome to Barcelona". It could have been anywhere.

Let's see with the hotel we are going to tomorrow after the Dr Suess house is like. Sarah spent a lot of time ingesting over this one. Booking and rebooking, till she eventually settled on one.

Madrid was different. Where we finished the last tour, was one of these quiet suburbs. No clue what was nearby.

We then moved to a central hotel of Sarah's choosing. Amazing. As I have said, plazas in all directions. That's the way central Madrid is. Brilliant. Haven't seen that type of city design in Barcelona. Who knows?

When we went to the out-of-town hotel to begin this tour, it was on Palace grounds. Very Madrid. Very Spanish.

So, after that painful and meandering trip, dear reader, I have some conclusions:

If you are going to enjoy a city, you need to find a hotel in an area that reflects the spirit of that city. For places like Spain, that will be the ubiquitous 'Old Town'. You need to be surrounded by old buildings, old statues, and lots of bars or cafes where you can watch the world go by. Oh, and a generous serving of souvenir shops means that even the discerning buyer will find an occasional item not made in Bangladesh or China, that will fill a gap either on a sideboard, or in a friendship.

If you choose a hotel based purely on cost, just understand that it's that cheap for a reason. Hotels within sight of the 'essence' of a city charge you for the privilege. Here we can call it a "Spain Tax". 

In my first example we can call it the "Las Vegas Tax".

It's a price almost always worth paying.

Sarah has booked a hotel in Prague's 'Old Town' for when we get there. I just hope we can get from the drop-off to the hotel door with our luggage. The cobblestones in these 'old towns' are hard work.

Prague Tax. First World Problem.