We asked what you thought about hotels charging their guests to access Wi-Fi. As the subsequent influx of tweets and story comments showed, the issue generates strong and often divisive opinions.
If you book hotels online, it's time to face facts: Your favorite travel website probably isn't cutting it. In the past decade, some of the best-known travel sites have lost their fastball.
Hotels have reached new heights of "hos-pet-ality," offering perks like gourmet treats, designer dog beds, scratching posts, chew toys and pet massage. But that level of pampering isn't essential to a great getaway for you or your pooch. Pick the right place to stay, select a few outdoor-table restaurants, choose some dog-friendly outings and there's no reason Fido has to spend your next trip at the kennel.
Walk into a room on the 17th floor of Copenhagen's Bella Sky Hotel and you'll be greeted by soft rose and burgundy toned colors, fresh flowers, fruit smoothies, fashion magazines, and a bathroom stocked with exclusive products, including day and night moisturizers.
If the best architecture aims at eternity, to paraphrase famed English architect Christopher Wren, then these new hotels are bound to be immortal.
You aren't heading to the gym anymore. That balanced dinner with veggies and grains seems not so appealing. And those New Year's resolutions? Who can remember what they are, let alone what you have failed to keep doing?
An extra day once every four years doesn't really give travelers much more time to play, but it's an excuse for the hospitality industry to create special Leap Year travel offers. (Each year is actually 365 days plus about 6 hours. An additional day is added to the calendar every four years to keep the calendar in sync with the seasonal year.)
I was recently given the option of paying about $20 more for a hotel room in New York City with a skyline view. It put me at eye level with the Chrysler Building, and as the sun went down and the city lights began to twinkle, I savored every beautiful minute knowing I'd made a smart choice in paying just $20 for a million-dollar view.
It looks like New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady underestimated Buffalo when he took a jab at the upstate New York city's hotels Wednesday.
If the Patriots beat the Giants in Super Bowl XLVI, should Tom Brady be considered the greatest quarterback of all time?
As families head home after the holidays and children return to school, New York City is on sale for travelers willing to brave the cold temperatures in exchange for lower prices.
With all the signs pointing to travel costs rising in the New Year, what's the money-conscious traveler to do? You can still cut expenses if you strategize ahead of time, whether your travel dates and destinations are fixed or not.
There's nothing like soaking in the hot springs while soaking in the culture of a place that loves its bathing. If you're traveling first class, why not head to Japan or Iceland to enjoy a country whose people celebrate the waters and can pinpoint their various healing properties?
Two years after a 7.0-magnitude earthquake leveled Haiti's capital, a deal brokered by former President Bill Clinton's charitable foundation will add new lodging for aid workers and other travelers to Port-au-Prince -- in the form of a $45 million hotel.
HLN Money Expert Clark Howard and Jennifer Westhoven talk about Black Friday 2011.
Go bargain hunting on the Friday and Monday after Thanksgiving and it could be the start of a beautiful vacation.
Hotel room prices, on average, are up 5% over last year, but these destinations are shaping up to look like real deals in late December.
When Americans think of "five star" hotels, they conjure up images of on-site spas, white-gloved service, and pillow menus. That's no surprise, given that the dominant rating systems in the U.S. are two of the most trust-worthy on the planet -- Forbes and AAA.
I'm really late to the Priceline party.
Sites like Priceline and Hotwire are known for deals but how do you know you're getting one? CNN's Alison Kosik reports.
• Justin Bieber and dad Jeremy enjoyed some father-son bonding time in Las Vegas, where the guys headed up to the penthouse suite at the Paradise Tower inside Sin City's Hard Rock Hotel & Casino. They were in town for the UFC figh - and they must have worked up quite an appetite together. Afterward, they ordered up lots of room service, including pizza, chicken wings, garlic knots, churros and more.
No matter how many times he steers the 450-passenger Seabourn Sojourn through Norway's Lofoten Islands, captain Hamish Elliott eagerly anticipates his favorite point: the entrance to Trollfjord, a fairytale-like landscape with towering cliffs on either side.
Think you can't swing a stay at a hotel with Egyptian cotton sheets, a chocolate on the pillow, and round-the-clock concierge service?
In only two weeks, an estimated 600,000 people will descend on London for one of the most anticipated royal events -- the wedding of Britain's Prince William to long-time love, Kate Middleton.
Each year around this time, golf clubs are summoned from cold garages and basements into living rooms while their owners begin plotting a new season in the sun.
If hell is other people, maybe you can find heaven where other people aren't.
Starbucks said Tuesday that it will begin offering ground coffees for use in hotel room brewers as part of a plan to expand its presence in the "single-serve" market.
Want to get away and get fit? Try one of these luxury spa resorts.
Wouldn't it be great if your next big vacation could include your entire family -- as in, three or four generations?
There was a "little explosion" Thursday at the Post Hotel Morosani in Davos, Switzerland, which is hosting the high-powered annual World Economic Forum this week, police there said.
The actress denies she's looking for a new place away from Samantha Ronson
So much for an economic downturn.
Archaeologists have uncovered an ancient Roman landscape beneath a park in west London, with a Roman road, evidence of a settlement, and unusual burials among the finds.
Mexican officials make their case for arresting Bruce Beresford-Redman in his wife's April death
The Hilton hotel chain has reached an agreement with the federal government to make changes in about 900 hotels nationwide to further accommodate guests and visitors with disabilities, the Justice Department announced Tuesday.
It's a story that originated from a single, unnamed sourced in India -- but it quickly gained momentum, spreading like wildfire among critics of the Obama administration in the United States and eventually, the airwaves.
We scoured the globe for the 20 best new boutique hotels under $150. You'll meet the owners; you'll kick back on your own private balcony; you'll eat homemade granola each morning; you'll never want to leave.
To ensure a happy hotel guest, offer excellent service, provide a comfortable bed and never, ever underestimate the power of a free bagel: After a good night's sleep, many travelers these days are expecting -- and receiving -- a good breakfast.
CNN's Al Goodman previews U.S. first lady Michelle Obama's upcoming visit to Spain.
U.S. first lady Michelle Obama and her youngest daughter, Sasha, 9, arrived Wednesday on Spain's southern Mediterranean coast for a vacation with friends at a luxury hotel here.
Frederick Shilmover was surfing the web for the perfect vacation when he made the impulsive decision to buy a trip out West on luxury deal site Jetsetter.com.
Orla Duffy brought her three daughters to Orlando for a "girls' weekend" but they weren't planning to ride a single roller coaster, or even set foot in a theme park.
There's an unwritten rule in travel journalism that any story about pets on planes must contain at least one Chihuahua anecdote. I know, because I've written many of them. So let's get right to Charlotte Coan and her travel companion, Cricket.
There's good news and bad news for Americans itching for a change of scenery in 2010.
A 5.6-magnitude earthquake shook Cuba on Saturday.
Michael David Barrett posted a nude video of the ESPN reporter and DWTS contestant on the Internet
Golf is a game which lends itself to luxury stays in swanky resorts, so not unnaturally the accommodation offered in its hotels and clubhouses is often of the highest standard with cutting edge architecture and design to the fore with no expense spared.
Kate Ryan's fiancé will not let her live down the fact that she chose a hotel for their weekend getaway from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to New York based on the teenage drama "Gossip Girl."
It took an elephant ride and a ring hidden in flowers in India to do the trick
This week's news of the Northwest Airlines pilots who overshot their Minneapolis destination by 150 miles because they were reportedly using laptop computers is only the latest aviation story to captivate audiences.
When Erin Hott checks into her hotel, she's shown to a room with an unmade bed. When she asks for clean sheets, an employee tells her they can't change her linen until the next day. And if she doesn't like it, she can find another hotel, but she'll still have to pay for her room. Whatever happened to customer service?
Nicholas Czapor books four Hilton hotel stays through a double points promotion. But the points never show up in his account, and now Hilton is offering him only a fraction of the promised award. Can it do that? And what recourse, if any, does Czapor have?
The changing leaves are just one lure for outdoor adventurers during the fall season. The tourist crowds of July and August have dissipated, and in many spots, the blistering summer heat has passed. And happily, an abundance of premier tour operators offer ready-made autumn adventures that are relatively easy on the wallet. They bring expert guides and top-quality gear and arrange all meals and accommodations -- you just bring your thirst for adventure.
CNN's Gerri Willis introduces us to a bed and breakfast town on the rebound, thanks to help from fellow businesses.
Travel to Litchfield County, Connecticut, and you'll find a community dotted with bed and breakfasts like the one Dean and Jean Marie Johnson purchased five years ago in the town of Norfolk.
Donna Savic thinks she has a reservation at the Barcelo Maya Palace in Cancun, Mexico. She's wrong. Orbitz booked her at a smaller, lower-rated hotel on the same complex. What now?
Touchscreen technology is having a golden moment.
Next time you order breakfast at a Marriott, you may notice something new about the bacon. Instead of being served in identical six-inch strips, it now comes in an assortment of sizes. That's because senior executives of Marriott, after sampling four or five varieties of bacon in a blind taste test, found that an irregular cut, which costs less, tastes just as good as the rectangular slices traditionally served in the company's hotels.
The following five sites have proven the most consistently useful for the editors of Budget Travel, who do thousands of searches a year.
These days, it's not unheard of for hotels to charge $15 for a mini-bar diet Coke, $40 for access to the gym, or $45 for rush laundry service. (Alas, these are actual fees on T+L editors' receipts.) But there's good news ahead: the extra charges are expected to decrease by six percent this year as hotels and resorts compete to attract guests.
Before his shocking death, the actor appeared happy and "full of life" while in Thailand
A group of students and teachers from a Maryland private school have been quarantined in China because of swine flu concerns, a school spokeswoman said Thursday.
Mexico's tourism industry has endured some brutal punches this year.
Short on cash, people are offering to paint houses and balance books in exchange for a free room or flight. Here's how three creative travelers pulled it off.
New York authorities indicted seven people accused of running a prostitution ring on the Web site Craigslist, the state's attorney general announced Wednesday.
Waving and cheering like survivors of some kind of disaster, 200 guests of a Hong Kong business hotel who were confined for a week due to a swine flu scare left the building Friday.
Hotel guests are relieved to be freed after being quarantined due to the swine flu outbreak. CNN's Pauline Chiou reports
Known in salon circles from the time she was 18, Sally Hershberger got the country's attention when she was asked to style First Lady Hillary Clinton's hair for a Vogue photo shoot. Ever since, Hershberger and her scissors have tamed the manes of Donna Karan, Nora Ephron, Jerry Bruckheimer, and even George and Laura Bush.
Class-action lawyers are offering cash-strapped municipalities a new way to fill their dwindling coffers: sue online travel companies like Expedia, Hotels.com, Orbitz, Priceline and Travelocity.
In the world of business -- where book titles like "Only the Paranoid Survive" thrive -- successful executives hope for the best but plan for the worst.
From luxury hotels in colossal tower blocks to traditional "ryokan" and functional capsule hotels, there's plenty of variety in Tokyo's hotel scene.
London's newest hotelier Mark Fuller is showing commendable bravado for someone about to open a luxury hotel during a global recession.
A year ago, employees at Boiron, a medical manufacturing company, wined and dined at the Ritz-Carlton Golf & Spa Resort overlooking the picturesque bay in Rose Hall, Jamaica, for their annual retreat.
In the lodging world, green has gone mainstream. Once chided for being wasteful, the big hotel chains are now constantly trying to one-up each other with smart eco-design upgrades and stringent water and energy conservation policies.
Hours after G-20 leaders agreed to a trillion-dollar bailout of the world economy in chilly London, one of the world's most flamboyant hoteliers opened his latest luxury hotel in sunny South Africa.
Threatening to take "preventative measures," the Idol champ condemns people calling his hotel room
Watching Jean-Georges Vongerichten working out the kinks on the afternoon before he opens his latest restaurant, you might think Market by Jean-Georges was his first. As the chef walks through the kitchen, perched above Vancouver, British Columbia, in the new Shangri-La tower, his team is stirring sauces and filleting whole fish. The restaurant's manager swings by to report on the servers' uniforms. "I had to send them back," he says. "The shirts were too translucent."
In an attempt to be frugal amid the economic downturn, Karl Stetson and his family in Seattle, Washington, planned to skip their annual trip to Hawaii.
What would you expect to pay for accommodations in a palatial, elegantly decorated suite in one of London's most famously posh neighborhoods?
Fire engulfs a 40-story luxury hotel in Beijing. CNN's Emily Chang reports.
Enwei Lien's job title belies the unusual duties he has performed in the past few months.
A Chinese television station has apologized for Monday's massive fire at an unoccupied luxury hotel that killed a firefighter and wounded seven other people.
A massive fire engulfed a newly constructed, unoccupied luxury hotel in central Beijing on Monday night as crowds watched a nearby fireworks display marking the end of Lunar New Year celebrations.
iReporter Cameron Hammond shot this video of fire engulfing the newly constructed Mandarin Oriental hotel in Beijing.
A trip to Vegas might sound like a gamble, but deep discounts make it a better bet than it's been in years.
Leave behind the mainland and sneak away to these heavenly hideaways.
Thanks to a vibrant design culture and growing tourism industry, Spain now has some of the best boutique hotels on the continent -- including a recent wave of hotel chains that's making chic accommodations affordable.
Accommodation in London is extortionate, with a dearth of decent budget options. But once you've resigned yourself to paying top dollar, you'll find there is no shortage of quality hotels.
There's a good range of accommodation in Seattle, with an emphasis on hotels geared towards the business traveler. With Microsoft's HQ based just across Lake Washington, Seattle has long been at the forefront of new technology and unlike most cities, many of its hotels offer free wi-fi.
From modern comfort to budget hotels, there are several options for centrally-located accommodation in Malmo.
The iPod dock, yoga charts and branded scents may come and go, but one item has remained constant in hotel rooms worldwide: the Gideon Bible.
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