Roaming Tales

Here are a couple of handy tools that I stumbled upon today:

• The Universal Packing List: Select your dates and answer some basic questions and the Universal Packing List will generate a packing list for you. It’s a good idea but it could be more customised - I put in the details for my upcoming trip to Krakow and it told me to bring beach gear. It would be great if it could generate a specific packing list for different types of holiday - city breaks, beach holidays etc. Or even better, if you could just tell it where exactly you are going and it figured it out for you. Obviously it’s just a tool and you will need to customise the list further but it’s handy for reminding you to pack things you might otherwise forget, such as camera chargers.

• Daylight Map: This map of the world visualises day and night in different countries. It’s handy for travellers but probably even more handy for expats wanting to call home at an appropriate hour. Of course, if a country is in darkness it doesn’t tell you if it’s 7pm or 3am. You’ll just have to figure it for yourself. I like the way it looks though.

• Travel Guide Map: Darren at Travel Rants has created a cool map with visual links to destination guides around the web. My guide to Bruges is there, though it’s a little hard to click on because it’s so close to another guide to nearby Ghent.

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In Washington DC we stayed in Hotel Rouge, a luxury boutique hotel about 10 minutes’ walk north of the White House. I found the hotel online via searching on Google and the New York Times, checked out the reviews from other travellers on Trip Advisor, and then booked via the hotel website. It’s a good example of how much of my travelling life is now organised online - I didn’t even realise until we had already checked in that the place was also written up in my edition of Lonely Planet USA.

What I was looking for in a hotel was a combination of amenity, personality, price and location. I didn’t want a faceless chain hotel decked out in boring beige and I didn’t fancy slumming it in a hostel when it was meant to be a romantic break for two, yet I also didn’t want to spend a fortune. Fortunately, a few things worked in my favour. Firstly, of course, the US dollar is at an historic lowpoint and I came armed with British pounds. Secondly, winter in Washington DC, even the week before Christmas, is low season. Thirdly, booking direct through the hotel’s website gave me access to web specials. The room was $98 per night plus tax, which is only about £50 or £25 per person - excellent value for a nice hotel in the centre of a capital city.

The hotel had all the amenities you might expect. Our room was huge, with a king-size bed, two arm chairs, a desk with a TV, a closet and a large en suite bathroom. Downstairs there was a bar, a gym, and I believe there are car parking facilities for guests. There is broadband internet - with a wireless service throughout the hotel and the added option of an ADSL cable on the desk. My experience was that the internet was reliable and fast and also, importantly, it was free. One of my pet peeves is when a hotel markets its wireless broadband and it turns out to be something that you have to pay for. It always makes me feel like I’ve been hoodwinked, especially if it was a deciding factor in choosing the hotel. To me, it’s like charging to use the hotel pool.

It also had buckets of personality. Far from being bland and beige, the hotel décor is a deep red, as per the “rouge” moniker. One quirky extra is the cold pizza and - continuing the red theme - Bloody Marys served free in the lobby every day. However, since this is served between 11am and midday and we were generally out and about sightseeing by this time, we never had the chance to partake. I enjoyed the atmosphere in the small, red-decorated bar, and sampled a couple of drinks from the cocktail list. I found the serving staff, at both the reception and in the bar, to be friendly and knowledgeable.

The location was excellent. Apart from anything else, it turned out to be directly opposite the Australian Embassy, so I guess it would have been convenient had either of us needed consular assistance! As well as being walking distance to the northern side of the White House and a slightly longer walk down to the Mall and the memorials, it was a 10 minute walk in the other direction to Dupont Circle and Massachusetts Ave, which has a number of good cafés and shops. From here, you can use the Metro service to get to anywhere you want to go - to Union Station for inter-city Amtrak services, down to Chinatown for food, to the Smithsonian Institute, or up to the National Zoo.

As for price, well I must admit the bill came to more than I had anticipated. Our bill included three nights’ accommodation, one day’s breakfast for two people, one night’s dinner and drinks for two people, and telephone calls to New York, plus tax and tips. The total bill was $513.48, or £266.70. This translates to £88.90 per night, or £44.45 per person. The main reason was that they really stung us on the telephone calls. I made quite a few calls but they were all very short and the minimum charge for a call to New York was about $8 - double that if the call lasted more than a couple of minutes. I was aware that hotels generally charge a premium for telephone calls, however I thought that it would still be cheaper than using my UK mobile telephone (cell phone). In actual fact, I think the mobile would have been cheaper, which just goes to show how much of a rip-off this was. The other reason was the bar bill - two light meals (we both had a salad), two alcoholic drinks and one soft drink, plus a 20% tip came to about $70. The drinks were nice but the food was quite ordinary and we could have eaten better and more cheaply downtown.

I would definitely recommend Hotel Rouge as a place to stay in Washington DC. It’s fun and funky, it’s extremely comfortable and well located, there’s a gym and free internet, and you might even get a free Bloody Mary if you sleep late. My advice would be to book online, go elsewhere for food and avoid the telephone.

This hotel was reviewed anonymously and paid for in full.

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