Carlton Arms Hotel New York NY: The Weirdest, Most Wonderful Budget Stay in Manhattan I’ve stayed in a converted monastery in Portugal, a treehouse in the Thai jungle, and a basement room in Prague where the ceiling was low enough that I had a genuine daily risk of concussion. I thought I’d seen it all…

U Hotel Fifth Avenue New York NY: An Honest Look from a Budget Traveler I’ll be real with you — when a friend first texted me about staying at U Hotel Fifth Avenue in New York, my instant reaction was Fifth Avenue? That’s not exactly my shoestring territory. I’m the person who once slept in…

So there I was, standing on the Las Vegas Strip at 10pm, eating a $4 slice of pizza the size of my face, looking up at what appeared to be a full-sized roller coaster wrapping around the outside of a hotel. Just casually. As if that’s a normal thing that exists in the world. Only…

Langham Hotel New York: Is It Worth the Splurge? I’ll be honest with you — I’m the last person you’d expect to write about a luxury hotel. My entire brand is sleeping in $12 hostels and convincing you that a bus ticket beats a taxi every single time. But every once in a while, even…

So picture this — it’s my third trip to New York City, and I’ve already done the hostel thing (twice), the “budget hotel in Jersey City with a great view of a parking garage” thing, and the “crash on my college friend’s couch in Queens” thing. I needed something different. Something that felt like an…

I’ll be honest with you — when someone first told me a Riu resort had opened in Midtown Manhattan, I kind of laughed. Riu is the chain I know from all-inclusive beach resorts in Cancún and Punta Cana, the kind of place where you’re sipping a frozen drink by the pool at 10 a.m. and…

Hotel Indigo Lower East Side New York an IHG Hotel: What Nobody Tells You Before You Book So there I was, sitting in a coffee shop in Lisbon, trying to plan a quick New York trip I’d been putting off for months. I had a speaking gig in Brooklyn, two days free on either side,…

Belvedere Hotel New York: An Honest Look From a Budget Traveler Who’s Been There I’ll be real with you — I did not plan on staying at the Belvedere Hotel New York. It kind of happened the way a lot of my best travel decisions do: last-minute, slightly panicked, and with a browser tab graveyard…

Cheap Renaissance New York Midtown Hotel rates are one of those things that sound too good to be true until you actually find one — and then you feel like you’ve cracked some kind of secret code. I remember the first time I seriously looked into staying at the Renaissance New York Midtown at 218…

Cheap Wyndham New Yorker Hotel stays are not a myth — I promise you, they exist. I know, I know. The second you type “affordable hotel in New York City” into Google, you brace yourself for the disappointment. I’ve done it. Everyone who’s ever tried to plan a NYC trip on a real-person budget has…