Budget Traveler Does Luxury Hotel

Shared bathrooms, shower shoes, bring-your-own towels and bedding, and bunk beds—just a few of the things I’m used to encountering in my accommodations when traveling. If you haven’t guessed what I’m referring too, I’m talking about hostels, and I’m the queen of them.

I’m someone who usually is always traveling on a budget, in fact, the only time I’m not is when I’m with my family, and my parents refuse to stay somewhere they would have to share anything. So for many years I’ve grown to like hostels. I love the community of them, I love how you feel like you’re at summer camp when you stay at them, and I like that every time you arrive at a new hostel, it is always a surprise when you open that door. So on my recent trip to BlogHouse in Milwaukee, we didn’t have an option on where we could stay. Our sponsor, Potawatomi, was not only where the 4 day workshop was hosted, but also where we all stayed.

When I first found out that we HAD to stay in the hotel, and there wasn’t a cheaper option available, I was kind of bummed out about it. I like seeing how cheap I can do things when traveling, and I’m not someone who by any means needs a hotel, especially a hotel room all to myself, but I decided I was going to embrace it.

So what did I do when I had an entire hotel room to myself? Well…

Enjoyed my king size bed

I’m used to bunk beds or my double bed I have at home, so to have the luxury of having a massive king size bed to myself, I took advantage of it and sprawled out.

Soaked in the peace and quiet

I live in a pretty quiet neighbourhood in Toronto, but there’s still always the noise that comes with an apartment building. When traveling, I stay in hostels, where usually I have multiple roomies or you can hear the noise from other rooms, the bars, or the hallways pretty clearly. For the most part my room was peaceful and quiet, I slept like a complete baby and soaked it all in.

Used all the samples

I’m usually always bringing my own shower supplies with me places, in fact, packing for Milwaukee I forgot the hotel would probably have them, and packed my own, but that didn’t stop me from smelling and using everything anyway.

Kept my valuables out in the open

People are still paranoid in hotels to leave out their valuables, but in comparison to hostels, I consider hotels pretty darn safe, so I just kept mine out in the open. I mean, when you’re not sharing your room with 4+ other people, there’s a lot less to be worried about!

Hung up my clothes

For once I didn’t actually have to live out of my backpack? I could unpack and save my clothes from being wrinkly? I could get used to this.

Used all the outlets possible

In hostels you’re lucky if you have your own outlets with your bunk, most of the time you’re all sharing between a couple outlets in your room, or you have to strategically plan what needs to be charged on your one personal outlet. So I plugged everything in and charged everything up even if I didn’t have too, just because I could!

Watched TV

I don’t even have TV at home in Toronto. Well that’s a lie; I have a TV that doesn’t get cable or anything, so really it is basically there for looks. So could you blame me when I binged watched a random show I found on TV one night while staying in a hotel?

Embraced the shower & private bathroom

I’ve learned over the years to really shower anywhere, with the weirdest and coldest showers around, but having my own bathroom while away on a vacation/trip was great! Even in my apartment at home I share a bathroom with my roomie, so it was nice to get to enjoy the privacy and cleanliness of my own bathroom, and a hot shower!

I guess staying in a hotel wasn’t all that bad… okay it was awesome, I could definitely get used to it, but I’m always going to be a budget traveler at heart, and if staying is hostels is the “sacrifice” I need to make to be able to travel, then so be it!

Other budget travel content:

• How to Save Money for Travel
• How I Save Money to Travel