It is already dark out by the time I pull off the highway. I turn into the parking lot of my hotel and park my economy rental sedan. It is the second week of July and I am in San Diego extending my time in California after attending a wedding in San Francisco. I will only be here for three days but I researched hotels like I am staying in Namibia for a month.
During that process, my computer screen had dozens of tabs opened to different travel and review sites. I compared endlessly trying to make sure I was getting the most value for my dollar. I vacillated between reserving the cheapest hotel and splurging for something on the beach.
I struggled to commit to a hotel. I opened more tabs, redid the same searches to see if new results arrived, and hunted for discounts. I finally settled on a national chain with a three-star rating and a good deal.
Now, parked outside that hotel I hoped it would be adequate. I get out of the car, grab my suitcase, and walk to the side entrance. That’s when I see them: A man and a woman in their early 30s coming from the other direction, approaching the same door.
They are a mirror image of each other; A passed out toddler clad in Seaworld gear in one arm, head nuzzled into the crook of their parent’s neck, and a rolly suitcase with a bag propped on top of it dragged by the other.
They are beautiful.
They are a little closer to the door so I trot ahead of them.
I’ll get this, you don’t have a free hand.
Oh, thank you so much.
Did they have fun?
They had a blast, the absolutely loved it!
I hold the door as their tiny caravan gingerly maneuvers themselves into the hotel. After they have passed I pause a minute, lost in the moment.
I am almost positive my parents had been in the exact same position decades before. And it seemed apropos I would see this family, at this hotel, at this exact moment in my life. Instantly, the guilt I had been feeling on and off all year returned.
In the six months before that moment, three weddings, and three business trips had me staying in hotels all over the country, hotels I spent a lot of time thinking in, and about.
There was the hotel in Atlanta. Similar to my San Diego lodging, it was a budget business hotel, basic in its appearance. Faux hardwood floors in the room, and generic products in the bathroom. Utilitarian but functional.
However, the free amenities of the hotel were actually quite substantial for the price. An abundance of movie channels, wifi, use of the computers in the business center plus faxing. A shuttle that drove you anywhere within 3 miles of the hotel, and a buffet breakfast complete with omelets, bread, and fruit. There was even an outdoor pool.
It was especially impressive when contrasted with the fancy hotel I had stayed at in downtown Phoenix months before. That hotel, with its floor to ceiling windows and intentionally fragranced lobby, charged exorbitantly for all the same amenities minus the pool.
Budget business hotels haven’t generally been my first thought when taking a vacation, but they were the kind of hotel I stayed in on family trips when I was a kid. In fact, they were the kind of hotel I absolutely loved.
I didn’t know the word amenities when I was a kid. When it came to hotels I only cared about three things: pools, buffet breakfasts, and arcades. If a hotel had two of those it was great. If it had all three, it was nirvana.
My father traveled a decent amount for business so he was familiar with the major hotel chains. He knew which were ideal for a young family traveling on a budget.
I didn’t know if we were at a one star or a five-star hotel. I didn’t care what the brand was but I remember the names of the hotels I loved; The Doubletree with free warm cookies in the lobby, or The Pickett with unlimited breakfast cereal plus a phone and a six-inch TV in the bathroom.
Those simple pleasures were more than I could fathom in advance, and we still talk about them as a family today.
But at this point in my life, my awareness of luxury makes me want to stay at the nicest properties I can, and technology has made it possible to preview nearly every element of a hotel before arriving.
While I really love researching and planning trips, the infinite amount of options overwhelms my brain; the trivial differences between properties, the hundreds of reviews available for consumption. It has made me greedy, spoiled, and incredibly critical. I instantly dismiss hotels with poor reviews or noise complaints.
It’s exhausting. And in the end, I end up spending at least 300% more time on the process than I should, with no noticeable gains for my extra efforts.
At that business hotel in Atlanta, I was sitting at a table and reading the back of a milk carton trying to discern if it came from antibiotic-free cows when I noticed two little kids at the buffet. They were bouncing around, peering into the dishes, looking at what they wanted to eat, and asking their parents a hundred questions.
And I felt tremendous guilt.
Sitting there, reading a free paper, with a free breakfast, in a hotel paid for by my client, I was evaluating the food to see if it met my standards while the little kids next to me couldn’t contain their excitement. I had been those kids once.
The contrast made me feel pretentious and ungrateful.
I work hard on gratitude but still battle internally with this desire for more. It is a tension of opposites I have not done well at managing. And it is that tension I felt when booking my trip to San Diego. I spent two nights obsessing over reviews until I finally realized… it didn’t matter.
I was traveling by myself and would have a car so location wasn’t really important. Who was I trying to impress? I was caught up in the perceived lifestyle I wanted to be living instead of an honest one. My hotel in San Diego had everything I would have wanted as a kid.
It was exactly the kind of hotel my parents worked their ass off to afford so my sister and I could have a nice vacation. It was the kind of hotel I never thought twice about. I enjoyed it more as a child but appreciate it more now.
And it’s the kind of hotel that, if I am lucky, I will be excited to return to with my family at the end of a beautiful day, my wife next to me, a passed out child in one arm and a suitcase in the other.
Grateful.
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