Monday Review: How do you travel?

I would suppose that there are three basic ways people like to visit other places:

1. Find a hotel

• The cheapest one (You're only going to sleep there anyway)
• The fanciest one (While we're spending money, let's get pampered!)
• The novelty choice (Something themed that made you drool while watching Samantha Brown's show on the Travel Channel... I want her job so badly...)

2. Find a Bed and Breakfast

• The one with the best view (You are here to relax away from home and enjoy the quiet.)
• The one with the best breakfast (Some serve just a Continental buffet while others have grand productions in their formal dining of delectable options.)
• The one with the most historical value (So many of these old houses are perfect for history enthusiasts.)

3. Stay with someone you know (I've heard a story here and there of people who don't go anywhere unless they can cut costs by staying with friends and family.)

That being said, I have decided that I definitely fall into the B&B category.

I like that the operation is small. The few places I've stayed, though the options vary greatly, have under ten rooms. I like this idea that, even if the place is full, I'm not completely surrounded by strangers. You also have a chance to actually meet the people who will be walking in and out of your room when you leave for the day. I've always been a little freaked out by having to leave my belongings in a hotel room not knowing what sort of people are going to come rifle through my things while "cleaning" my room. At the B&B in Woolwine, it appears that the same girl comes through to help the Inn Keepers with the cleaning... not just a number, a person trying to get by...

I much prefer the home-away-from-home feeling to the sterilized AC frozen smell of hotel rooms. I like feeling freer to wander. The last two places in which I've stayed had a number of other little rooms and tucked away places where one can read, write, watch a movie, etc. The Tree Streets Inn has a modest library and a beautiful chess set that is always out for guests. In Woolwine, there was a sitting room in which to sip the afternoon sherry or you can rock on the front porch or the second floor porch while watching the hummingbirds at their feeders or listening to the brook.

There are, of course, plenty of hotels with options attached like shopping, casinos, game rooms, pool halls, etc. It just also means there will be a lot of people with which to compete for time in these places. Obviously, if you want to shop for clothes or gamble at a conveniently in-hotel location, the B&B is not for you.

I've decided I need to consider breakfast more carefully. While visiting Woolwine, having the option to have breakfast brought to me so I could have a private morning was really very appealing. You don't have to clean up perfectly early in the morning to look presentable to others. I had the option to simply roll out of bed, brush my teeth, comb my hair, wrap a robe around me, and I was ready. At the Tree Streets Inn, there is a formal dining room in which all the house's guests eat together. They had a long table where we all sat and chose to either make small talk with one another or discreetly have our private conversations with our companions. In Woolwine, they have a dining area, too, but they also have little separate tables so that the decision to talk amongst those you know seems less... snobbish.

The Inn Keepers do tend to come out during breakfast and talk to the people. In a B&B at which I stayed several years ago in DC, they actually take their breakfast at the same table and basically lead a conversation about their guests, where everyone's from, the history of the house, etc. You history buffs... or those of you who actually like meeting people... the dining room option should work just fine for you.

But, even in those places where there's a long table for everyone, you tend to have negotiable options. At Tree Streets, a vegan athlete had come to stay and needed not only his dietary requirements met but also had to get up very early the next morning (long before the assigned breakfast time for other guests). So, the Inn Keepers chose to accommodate him by rising terrifyingly early to prepare his special meal. At Woolwine, though they give you the option of staying in your room to avoid rising with the rooster, they will also make To-Go breakfasts for their guests staying overnight on business.

Another perk, and this might be surprising, is that, once in a while, one can find a B&B, with all its cozy amenities, for less money than even a modest hotel. This past weekend for our family reunion, one of the ways in which I was able to convince Mom that we should stay at a B&B rather than a boring hotel was the price. It was about $80 less to stay at The Tree Streets Inn than at the Holiday Express. While some of our relatives paid more to pile several people into one or two rooms, we had a nice private room, private bath, midnight snacks available next to our room, a garden, a pool, a great big breakfast... yeah. I don't think I'll ever willingly go back to lazily booking the hotel nearest my ultimate destination.

There's a catalog into which the Inn Keepers of Virginia sunk a lot of money... and, according to one of them, didn't get as much as they wanted out of it. There's a way that this owner felt the catalog should be organized. The pages are lined with pictures and descriptions of each B&B in alphabetical order by city. Apparently, it used to be organized by region.

I have no complaints, but I'm from Virginia, so, I have an approximate idea of where most of these cities are located. For the places with which I am less familiar, there's a useful map in the middle of the catalog. You can find the online version here: B&B Association of Virginia

What's fun about the website is you can pick a region on the map, then a town, and a list of all the B&B locations and descriptions pop up for you. It also offers you the link to each B&B's website and a list of things they provide for you (Just like Expedia and Travelocity). For example, you can find a B&B that's pet friendly, one with a hot tub, etc. I don't know if every state has something similar, but, for kicks, I found one here for the state of Michigan: Lake to Lake

Now, don't get me wrong-- there's a place for Samantha Brown and her discoveries across the globe (If you haven't, watch her show or go to her website: I Love Samantha Brown). There's a state or two I wouldn't dream of visiting had it not been for what Samantha Brown has taught me (There's this place I'm hoping to visit someday in Arizona, for example...). But, for the regular amount of traveling I will have to do to visit family, friends, or to work, I think I'll look for the quaint, home-away-from-home option first.

So... how do you travel?