Good Ol' Dependable Motel 6

Aug 25, 2000 Write an essay on this topic.

Most of the time, my requirements for a motel while I'm traveling are very basic. Generally, I don't want to spend a lot of time in the motel room anyway. If I'm visiting friends, places, or events, I'd rather use the motel for sleeping and showering, and as a base to leave my stuff while I'm enjoying what I actually traveled to experience. So the idea of paying through the nose for a fancy room that I'll only sleep and bathe in doesn't really make sense. Enter Motel 6.

The Motel 6 experience is as stripped-down and no-frills a hotel stay as possible, without giving up cleanliness or comfort. For under $60, usually.

This is not to say that I don't enjoy the fancy hotel experience, too. I stay in Bed & Breakfasts and I adore swanky hotels . . . when I'm going to hang out around the hotel. But if all I'm looking for is a bed, a shower, a phone, a TV with HBO to fall asleep to, air conditioning (or heat), and a sturdy lock on the door, then I don't see what a higher-range hotel stay provides that I need.

And it's not like Motel 6 is in the least bit seedy or scary. I've stayed in dozens of Motel 6 rooms in nearly 20 states across the country, and they're all basically the same. (The McDonalds of motels.) The rooms are always clean, the other guests are usually tourists like myself, nearly all the cars in the parking lot are rentals, and I've never felt a second of tawdriness or sleaziness. Bland efficiency, sure, but never seediness. Even the art on the walls is inoffensive to the point of invisibility. And there's often a clean, heavily chlorinated pool.

They usually provide decent towels, soap, little plastic cups, and ice and an ice bucket. But note: no shampoo! So bring your own.

I choose Motel 6 everywhere across the country because they've had the best track record in my experience�besides the fact that there is a Motel 6 in nearly every destination I've ever wanted to visit. All the other chains have failed me in some minor or terrible regard. I've gotten dirty towels (Days Inn), bad no-pressure showers (La Quinta), horrific spider webbing everywhere (Super 8), hair on the sheets (Best Western), no remote control for the TV (Red Roof), a broken door lock (Super 8 again), a putrid smell (Ramada), and bloodstains on the walls (Howard Johnson's). Of course I'm not saying that every one of the motels in those other chains has such problems . . . all I'm sure about is that Motel 6 almost always has no problems. The only difficulty I've encountered was a lack of towels altogether when I first arrived, but that was quickly remedied with a phone call to the desk.

I have noticed that the Motel 6 staff often seem a little dazed and confused, especially when interacting with their computers, so I call the national hotline when making reservations. They're always helpful and courteous on the hotline, and it's quite useful to make plans for a cross-country trip with one phone call.

Also, Motel 6 is very often the most affordable of the chains. Of course, for the lack of luxury amenities, they could hardly charge more.

I highly recommend Motel 6 on your vacation trips where you only need a motel for a place to lay down your head. And to not worry that there's anything icky on the pillow.

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