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Are you planning a road trip, but aren’t sure how to find the best hotel?
This article will show you three easy steps to plan hotels for your road trip.
Step 1: Decide how long you want to drive each day
This is a personal decision, depending on the length of your trip. If you are simply trying to cover a large distance in a short period of time, such as driving from Chicago to Houston, I recommend capping each driving day at 8 hours. If you have time and a leisurely pace, it can be fun to limit driving and maximize sightseeing. For the purpose of this article, we will assume the first scenario.
To find a well-priced, comfortable place to sleep on your journey, your best bet is to stay away from larger cities and look for hotels along your route.
Step 2: Take a look at your route on Google Maps.
Using the Chicago to Houston example, we see the distance is around 16 hours.
Zoom into the halfway point of your route and look for a city name. I identified Walnut Ridge, Arkansas as a possibility.
I entered Walnut Ridge as my new destination in order to double check the distance and was happy to see it was just under eight hours.
Step 3: Use the map feature at hotels.com
Many people are familiar with hotels.com, but their handy map feature makes finding road trip hotels a breeze. Enter the location into the search bar, select your dates and number of rooms needed, then press search.
When the search results come up, click on the map.
With the map tool, I look for my route through Walnut Ridge. I’ll be driving down highway 67, so I see that Walnut Ridge doesn’t have any options, but Poplar Bluff and Newport have quite a few.
From here, I can click on each hotel displayed to read reviews and view its rating. I chose Poplar Bluff since it makes my driving day a bit shorter. Before booking, I typically head over to Tripadvisor.com to verify the reviews. It’s important to choose “Traveler Ranked” instead of “Best Value”.
I like to choose one of the top reviewed hotels, depending on the prices offered. In this scenario, I would choose the Hampton Inn Poplar Bluff. It’s the number one reviewed hotel in Poplar Bluff and the reviews are mostly positive.
The next step is to reserve the hotel. Depending on your preferences, you can do that through Tripadvisor or directly with the hotel. If you are planning to earn points through a loyalty program (Hyatt, Choice, Marriott Bonvoy, etc.), be sure to book directly with the hotel. And there you have it! A comfortable place to rest at the end of a long day of driving. Happy travels!