In today’s fast-paced world, time is a precious commodity, leading many individuals to seek out luxurious experiences that can be enjoyed without the commitment of an overnight stay. Recognizing this desire, hotels across the globe have embraced the concept of daypasses, allowing guests to indulge in their exquisite amenities for a few blissful hours.
“Daypasses allow guests to experience the property’s amenities without requiring the normal time commitment of an overnight stay,” said Brad Mills, hotel manager at The Ritz-Carlton, Denver. “As locals and travelers strive to maximize their time but still enjoy luxurious and relaxing experiences, the ‘daycation’ is a perfect alternative.”
The trend of the “daycation” has gained significant popularity, catering to locals and travelers who yearn for some relaxation, especially by a pool. This concept provides a convenient alternative for those seeking a quick getaway. It also gives hotels an opportunity to gain free publicity through social media and cultivate future business relationships.
Whether your travel plans include Miami, Dallas or Los Angeles, this list of hotels will keep you cool and content with pool passes you can use for a few hours of pure leisure.
Fontainebleau Miami Beach
Steeped in history, this iconic oceanside retreat has welcomed all kinds of illustrious guests and even made an appearance in the 1964 James Bond flick “Goldfinger.” It continues to exude timeless elegance and allure.
At this distinguished Miami-area hotel, you’ll find an impressive selection of 11 unique pools with luxurious cabanas, top-notch amenities and awe-inspiring views. From family-friendly options like small shallow pools and a pool with a waterslide to serene free-form pools and lively social spaces like the poolside Arkadia Day Club, Fontainebleau Miami Beach caters to a wide range of preferences.
Several daypass cabana options are available from $375 for two people.
Related: The best Miami Beach hotels
The William Vale
A modern retreat in Brooklyn’s cool Williamsburg neighborhood, The William Vale attracts trendsetters seeking stunning surroundings both inside and out.
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The property’s Vale Pool offers spectacular views of New York City, allowing visitors to bask in the Brooklyn sun while enjoying the city’s longest outdoor hotel pool, measuring 60 feet in length.
Various daypass options are available, such as the entry-level terrace pass for $160 and the more exclusive cabana pass for $675, which grants access to a luxurious, private poolside cabana that can accommodate up to six guests for the entire day. Alternatively, guests can opt for a comfortable reclining bed accommodating up to three guests for $475 or a poolside plush sofa for two for $325.
Related: The best hotels in New York City, from luxury stays to points properties
W Hollywood
Bask in Los Angeles’ abundant sunshine at Wet Deck, the gorgeous rooftop pool of the stylish W Hollywood. From this vantage point, you can relish expansive views of the Hollywood Hills and downtown Hollywood while unwinding by the pool.
During your visit, treat yourself to handcrafted specialty cocktails, refreshing beverages and delicious bites at the pool bar. A drink in hand is the perfect way to relax in the pool’s chic setting.
W Hollywood offers a daypass for $35 per adult. You can also reserve a daybed, fire pit table or private cabana starting at $50, should you want an extra touch of luxury and comfort.
Related: The 27 best hotels in Los Angeles for your next visit
Fairmont Scottsdale Princess
The Fairmont Scottsdale Princess is the longest-running AAA Five Diamond-awarded hotel in Scottsdale, Arizona. So, it’s no surprise that people near and far would want to take advantage of its top-notch hospitality.
You’ll find several eye-catching spots to visit here. However, the six on-site pools are particularly noteworthy, each offering a unique experience. Sonoran Splash Pool is a family-friendly oasis with a zero-entry pool deck. Princess Pool features picturesque views of the lush lagoons and TPC Stadium golf course. Sunset Beach provides open-air serenity under swaying palm trees. Sonoran Landing Pool serves as an exclusive adults-only area with oversized daybeds, floating bean bags and a lap lane.
The basic daypass starts at $70 for adults and $21 for children. For the use of a daybed or cabana during your visit, expect to pay at least $175 for two people.
Related: 9 beautiful hotel pools across the US
Mirage Las Vegas
Escape the bustling atmosphere of the Las Vegas Strip and indulge in a serene poolside retreat at the Mirage Las Vegas. You can find the perfect oasis for your relaxation needs thanks to the property’s array of options.
By the main pool, you’ll find 10 cabanas, plus six more in a secluded area surrounded by lush tropical plants. There’s also the Bare Pool if you prefer an adults-only atmosphere.
Daypass access to the Private Oasis area ranges from $25 to $60 per chair and $125 to $300 per daybed. You can also reserve one of 16 private cabanas, each of which can accommodate up to four people.
Related: The best hotel pools in Las Vegas
Hilton Anatole
Hilton Anatole’s JadeWaters pool complex is the top resort pool area in Dallas. The facility offers a range of exciting activities for the entire family, plus a beautiful pool, thrilling waterslides and a relaxing lazy river where you can unwind.
When you need some sustenance, treat yourself to delicious poolside fare at JadeWaters Bar & Grill. Or, head straight to the swim-up bar for a tropical drink.
Multiple daypass options are available, including one that also covers the use of the resort’s fitness and spa facilities. A standard daypass for two starts at $90, while upgraded options that include reserved seating like in-water lounge chairs, daybeds or cabanas start at $179 for two people.
Related: The best Hilton hotels in the US, from luxury to budget stays
Kona Kai San Diego
Experience an island getaway at Kona Kai San Diego, which conveniently sits in the heart of the city.
Relax by the pool with a stunning bay view, savor local delicacies at Vessel Restaurant + Bar or enjoy tropical cocktails at the main pool’s Tiki Bar. You’ll have two pools to choose from: the family-friendly Tiki pool by the property’s private beach and an adults-only Paloma pool with its own bar.
The basic daypass, which costs $89 for adults and $45 for kids, grants you access to the main pool and a hot tub. For an elevated experience, opt for a daypass with a private cabana at either pool. Starting at $250, the cabana daypasses, which are for use of private cabanas capable of accommodating up to eight people each, come with snack buckets filled with various nonalcoholic beverages and snacks.
Related: The best hotels in San Diego
The Perry Hotel & Marina
Upon arrival at The Perry Hotel & Marina, guests can find solace at the outdoor heated pool and sun deck, where they are welcomed with a complimentary drink. The Salty Oyster Dockside Bar & Grill provides convenient poolside food and drink service, ensuring a hassle-free relaxation session.
Unwind in a hammock, taking intermittent dips in the pool to beat the heat. The laid-back island atmosphere truly complements your desire for tranquility.
For access to the property’s pool without staying overnight, purchase a daypass for $35 per adult (kids daypasses start at $15 each). Should you seek a touch of luxury, choose a cabana daypass, which includes access to a cabana stocked with a complimentary bottle of Champagne and bottled water for $125 for two people.
Related: Battle of the Key Largo beachfront hotels: Baker’s Cay and Playa Largo
While a vast majority of U.S. hotels are attached to a big brand like Marriott or Hilton, that doesn’t mean boutique and independent hotels are losing their luster everywhere in the world.
Just look to Australia, where the boutique hotel business is booming — and the big brands are clearly trying to get a slice of the pie.
A Coldwell Banker Richard Ellis (CBRE Group, Inc.) report cited by Skift’s Daily Lodging Report notes boutique hotels in Australia overwhelmingly outperformed large, luxury hotels attached to international hotel conglomerates by a wide margin since the beginning of the pandemic in 2020. Australia’s boutique hotels commanded average daily rates that were 27% higher than the major brands, while occupancy rates were 21% higher.
Part of this stems from Australia’s lengthier, stricter travel restrictions that fueled more domestic travel even when other parts of the world began to reopen for cross-border travel. The strong base of leisure-minded Australians during the national lockdown favored more curated travel experiences, per the CBRE report.
It’s highly likely the return of business and international travel will balance the scales back toward the biggest brands. However, it’s clear the major brands see an opportunity in courting travelers who favor a boutique hotel during a vacation. This means you don’t necessarily have to sacrifice earning points and enjoying loyalty benefits when you book a boutique hotel stay.
That’s good news for travelers, as it means points hotels operating in the boutique space can end up saving you money by redeeming for awards nights instead of forking over the heftier nightly cash rates.
The big brands go boutique Down Under
Paris-based Accor made moves earlier this year to further its boutique-style hotel offerings by including two Australian properties in the launch of the Handwritten Collection. This is a mid-priced collection of boutique hotels still affiliated with Accor and its Accor Live Limitless loyalty program.
Wonil Hotel Perth was the first Handwritten Collection hotel to open in Australia, and the Hotel Morris in Sydney quickly followed. Another Accor collection brand of boutique hotels, the upscale MGallery Collection, also has properties in Australia.
It’s not just Accor getting into the boutique business, either.
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Marriott Bonvoy members have options via Marriott’s Autograph Collection and Luxury Collection of hotels. Hilton’s Curio Collection also has a presence in Sydney.
Redeeming Accor Live Limitless, Marriott Bonvoy or Hilton Honors points can save the day in making your next boutique hotel stay Down Under all the more affordable.
For comparison’s sake, weekend nights later this month at Pier One Sydney Harbour — part of Marriott’s Autograph Collection — go for roughly 40,000 Marriott Bonvoy points per night or a cash rate that hovers around $400 per night.
Rooms at the West Hotel Sydney — part of Hilton’s Curio Collection — start at 46,000 Hilton Honors points per night or a cash rate starting at $224 per night.
It’s not just an Australian phenomenon: A Truist Securities report out Monday also noted the strength of U.S. independent hotels and soft brands, especially considering operating issues occurring at higher-end hotels coming out of the pandemic.
Gregory Miller, vice president of lodging and experiential leisure equity research at Truist Securities, explained it TPG via email:
“While some travelers understandably stay at branded hotels to earn or redeem their loyalty points and essentially ‘know what they are going to get’ when they book a stay at a globally recognizable hotel brand, there are plenty of reasons why independent and boutique hotels also have great appeal to travelers and can perform very well as Asia-Pacific travel rebounds. We are in a time when discretionary spend for experiential international travel is up materially as the world reopens and where independent and boutique hotels can be really desirable for vacationers.”
Why do guests and companies like soft brands?
Whether it’s Accor’s MGallery and Handwritten Collections, Marriott’s Autograph Collection or Hilton’s Curio, there has been a boom regarding these so-called soft brands in the hotel ecosystem.
Take it as a sign the major hotel chains know travelers want to experience more independent-feeling hotels rather than stick to “hard brands” like Westin or Hilton that rely more on business travel. That’s especially true in a climate with more leisure travel than business travel.
Soft brands run with more independence when it comes to things like food, drinks and design. That doesn’t mean they are of any less quality than the hard brands, though.
“We try to keep it as flexible as possible, but there are certain standards when it comes to quality that need to be complied with,” Alexander Schellenberger — Accor’s chief marketing officer for premium, midscale and economy brands — told TPG earlier this year ahead of the Handwritten Collection launch. “We want to at least create some form of consistency around the quality for guests to experience, but for the rest, it’s a soft brand.”
So, while a soft brand may not have all the standardized branded bells and whistles of a Marriott or Hilton, you can sleep easy knowing they’re still getting heavily vetted for quality and customer satisfaction.
Four days a week, Leticia Ortega de Ceballos sleeps in her car so she can pay for a house more than 100 miles away.
Her workweek begins with the Sunday night shift at Loews Hollywood Hotel, where she cleans the hallways and lobby. When she finishes, exhausted, there’s just an hour until she starts her second job cleaning hotel rooms at the Hilton in Glendale.
Then she has six hours to shower, eat and sleep before she starts all over again. Loews, Hilton, shower, eat, sleep. The 56-year-old sees the house in California City and the family within it on weekends.
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Gladis Ávila, 39, can spend more than two hours in traffic commuting to her job at the W Hollywood Hotel from her new house in Victorville, a 90-mile drive away. Some nights she gets home just as her youngest children are getting ready for bed.
“At the end of the day, when I’m heading home,” Ávila said, “I wonder if it’s worth it.”
The women, both hotel workers, grapple with all the difficulties of the housing market in California today, the high prices that push first-time buyers increasingly far from work, the scarcity of anything they can actually afford.
Housing concerns have been at the forefront of contract negotiations for hotel workers. Thousands of workers recently went on a three-day strike, demanding higher pay and better benefits. It was the first wave of walkouts anticipated this summer after contracts expired.
But Ortega de Ceballos and Ávila are looking for more than just shelter.
Sure, they want a home to live in now. But they also want to one day give their children the financial footing they themselves never had. The key is more than just hard work and a savings account with a laughably low interest rate. The key is a house, the kind of investment that can grow over time.
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Investing in a house is their way of building the kind of generational wealth that has long been out of reach for Black and brown families in the United States. The typical white family in the 21st century has five times the wealth of the typical Latino family and eight times the wealth of the typical Black family, according to the 2019 Survey of Consumer Finance.
And while homeownership represents an important component of wealth, there is a significant divide in who is able to achieve it. In California, in 2021, the Latino homeownership rate stood at 45.6%, compared to 64.5% for white families. The Black homeownership rate stood at 35.5%, according to census data analyzed by the Public Policy Institute of California.
The typical route to owning a home is to rent first and eventually save enough for a down payment. But with rising rents and wages that aren’t commensurate, that dream has become increasingly out of reach.
“Traditionally, owning a home has been the way that most families accumulate wealth,” said Marisol Cuellar Mejia, a research fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California. “That has happened for many years, and that was in some ways a manifestation of the American dream.”
Ortega de Ceballos, who emigrated from Mexico in the 1980s, started working two jobs, in part so she could help her sister back home study at a university. The two were orphans. Ortega de Ceballos wanted her sister to follow her dream.
She started a family while living in North Hollywood, but as it grew she moved to Sun Valley to find a larger place. Then she moved even farther away, to Lancaster, where she rented a house for a decade and raised her three children. That’s when she started sleeping in her car to save time and money on gas.
Ortega de Ceballos has juggled both jobs for more than 20 years. At the Hilton, rooms can go for more than $200 a night. At Loews, they go for around $300. Ortega de Ceballos earns $22 an hour.
It wasn’t until four years ago that she was able to finally accomplish her dream of buying her own home. The only catch — this time the house was even farther north, in California City, about 105 miles from her jobs in Hollywood and Glendale. Although it has a population of around 15,000, to Ortega de Ceballos it’s a “pueblito,” a small town. The typical home price is less than $300,000, compared to nearly a million in L.A.
She shares the three-bedroom home with her husband, who is disabled, and her youngest son, who is 29 and studying nursing. The home, severely damaged when the couple bought it, has now been renovated. When Ortega de Ceballos is home, she tends to her trees in a garden out back.
Owning her own home helped Ortega de Ceballos secure a better future for herself in addition to her children. She knows whatever retirement income she receives won’t be enough to pay rent in L.A.
“When I retire, I’m not going to be worried about all of these costs. I’m not going to be worried that I’m going to have to rent and I’ll be without money to eat or anything to live,” Ortega de Ceballos said.
The trade-off to accomplish her dreams has been brutal. The grueling, almost three-hour commute back home would be impossible, so she doesn’t return from Sunday until Friday. She sleeps in her red Kia more often than she does in her own house. She’s endured heat waves and at times feels as if she’s homeless.
Sometimes she goes out to eat, but often she relies on food she can get from the hotel, where she also showers. She drinks hotel coffee morning and night to keep her going.
On Fridays, her husband drives to Lancaster and then takes the train to his wife so he can to drive her home and prevent her from falling asleep at the wheel.
“It’s cost me a lot of sweat and tears,” Ortega de Ceballos said, her voice choked with tears. “Everything requires sacrifice. I’ve had to make sacrifices to get to where I am.”
“The most important thing is that my kids feel secure that they’ll have something one day,” she added. “For their future.”
Ortega de Ceballos has thought about finding work closer to home, but it’d be much less pay. It’s a cruel irony, where the income is better in L.A. — just not enough to live there without throwing the bulk of her paychecks at the rent.
That fact has become a major focus as the hotel workers’ union Unite Here Local 11 tries to negotiate new contracts for its members. Thousands of workers at hotels across Southern California walked off the job over the busy Fourth of July weekend.
In a Unite Here Local 11 survey, 53% of workers said they had either moved in the past five years or will move in the near future because of housing costs. Hotel workers reported commuting hours from Apple Valley, Palmdale, California City and Victorville.
In contract negotiations, the union has proposed creating a hospitality workforce housing fund, in addition to better wages, healthcare benefits, pensions and safer workloads. The hope is that an additional tax on hotel bills could go toward the construction of workforce housing for hospitality workers, said Kurt Petersen, co-president of Unite Here Local 11.
“I think every working person in Los Angeles is struggling to afford to live in Los Angeles,” Petersen said. “Our position is that those who work in the region’s most important and prosperous industry — tourism — need to have the ability to live in Los Angeles.”
On the Fourth of July, around 30 people, including housekeepers and cooks, picketed outside of the W Hollywood Hotel, where rooms go for more than $300 a night. They twirled noisemakers, banged on pots and pans and used megaphones to amplify their chants. At times, onlookers threw eggs at them.
Ávila was among those picketing. She usually commutes from Victorville to Hollywood from Sunday to Thursday. She has been a housekeeper at the W for 11 years, but she hasn’t worked at the hotel for the last few months as she helps organize her colleagues in her capacity as a union steward.
When Ávila first arrived in L.A. in 2009, she squeezed into a studio apartment with her parents, sister and her young son. After she started her own family, she rented a one-bedroom in Hollywood for $1,700. She, her husband, Armando Guzmán, and their three kids shared the room, splitting up among bunk beds.
A year and a half ago, she and Guzmán found a five-bedroom house in Victorville where her children — ages 17, 9 and 7 — could each have their own room. They pay $2,000 a month toward something of their own.
The two-story house has a pool, where the family spends weekends. She has space for exercise equipment, which saves her money on a gym. Although her oldest son had been reluctant to leave L.A., she said, he was happy to have a room of his own.
To stay awake on drives that can sometimes last three hours, Ávila keeps candy and gum in her car. She rolls down the windows and calls other hotel workers throughout the commute.
Guzmán, a construction worker in L.A., will sometimes stay the night with his mother or sister on days where the sun has beaten down and left him too drained to drive home.
Ávila thinks about how much she struggled in life and how she wants to ensure a better future for her children.
“I know that one day, when I’m not here,” Ávila said, “my children can have this home and know, ‘my mother made a sacrifice for us.’”
“Where are you from?” It’s a common question when you meet someone new while traveling. And it’s an easy question for most people. But for me, it’s complicated if I want to give more details than “the United States.”
After all, my husband and I gave up our Austin, Texas, apartment in June 2017, sold or donated most of our belongings and then set out as digital nomads on July 2, 2017. So, excluding some extended time living with family early in the coronavirus pandemic, we’ve traveled full time while working remotely for the last six years.
In 2020, I wrote about my first three years as a digital nomad. But in this story, I’ll look back at the past six years. In doing so, I’ll discuss how I became a digital nomad, some of my travel statistics and how travel has changed for me during the past six years.
How I became a digital nomad
On a bus from Aguas Calientes to Machu Picchu in Peru in 2013, I first heard of a gap year or sabbatical year. I hadn’t gotten into points and miles yet, but my husband and I loved the idea of taking a year off to travel after I finished graduate school. Well, fast forward four years to 2017, when it was time to leave on our “gap year.” By this time, we were already working as writers in the award travel space.
So, we hit the road as digital nomads instead of taking a gap year. And we quickly fell in love with the freedom and flexibility of the lifestyle. I appreciate experiencing different cultures, landscapes, experiences and cuisines daily. And I’ve found that frequently visiting new destinations inspires me.
I also enjoy using the topics I write about — points, miles, credit cards and elite status — on a daily basis. We make award redemptions most weeks (and often multiple times a week), and we’re constantly traveling. So, I know many of the airline, hotel and credit card programs I write about from personal experience. And I’m personally invested when these programs change or devalue their rewards.
Points and miles certainly fuel some of our travel. But we also book paid flights and nights when it makes sense. After all, we only have a finite amount of points and miles, and we’ve found that paid partner-operated premium-cabin flights are often the best way to earn airline elite status.
Related: 6 ways award travel and elite status pair well with my digital nomad life
1,121,959 miles on 575 flights
Over the last six years, I’ve taken 575 flights on 62 airlines to 180 airports in 58 countries. I’ve taken so many flights in the last six years that my flight map is difficult to read.
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I flew 1,121,959 direct flight miles in the last six years, with an average flight distance of 1,951 miles (about the distance from Atlanta to Los Angeles). My longest flight was 9,532 miles, from New York to Singapore. And my shortest flight was just 11 miles from Tahiti to Moorea in French Polynesia.
But my most memorable flight was on Sri Lanka’s Cinnamon Air from Polgolla Reservoir Aerodrome (KDZ) to Koggala Airport (KCT) on a Cessna 208 amphibious caravan.
I frequently fly American Airlines and often use Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL) when visiting family. So, it’s not surprising that my three most frequent routes by flight segments are between American Airlines’ hubs and Atlanta. Here’s a look at my top 10 most frequent flight segments over the last six years:
New York’s LaGuardia Airport (LGA) to/from ATL: 15 flights
Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) to/from ATL: 11 flights
Charlotte Douglas International Airport (CLT) to/from ATL: 10 flights
Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KUL) to/from Kualanamu International Airport (KNO): 10 flights while I earned Malaysia Airlines Enrich Gold status in 2019
Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) to/from ATL: Nine flights
Las Vegas’ Harry Reid International Airport (LAS) to/from LAX: Eight flights
DFW to/from LGA: Six flights
London’s Heathrow Airport (LHR) to/from LAX: Six flights
Hong Kong International Airport (HKG) to/from Da Nang International Airport (DAD): Six flights booked during Cathay Pacific’s New Year’s deal in 2019
DFW to/from LAS: Five flights
And my loyalty to American Airlines AAdvantage and its Oneworld partners shows when you look at the airlines I flew most by flight segments:
American Airlines: 224 flights, including reviews of American’s A321T business class, 787-9 business class, 777-200 business class with B/E Aerospace Super Diamond seats, 787-8 Main Cabin Extra, 757-200 Main Cabin Extra and 757-200 business class
United Airlines: 31 flights, including reviews of United’s 787-8 economy class and 757-200 economy class
Southwest Airlines: 29 flights, including a review of Southwest’s 737-800 from Oakland, California, to Newark
Malaysia Airlines: 26 flights
Qatar Airways: 23 flights, including reviews of Qatar Qsuite on a 777-300ER and Qatar Qsuite on an A350-1000
Delta Air Lines: 22 flights, including when I was one of the first American tourists to fly to Italy on a COVID-19-tested flight
British Airways: 20 flights, including a review of British Airways’ A380 economy class
Cathay Pacific: 17 flights
Japan Airlines: 14 flights, including a review of Japan Airlines’ 777-300ER premium economy
Qantas: 12 flights
However, if you look at the airlines on which I flew the most mileage, the ranking is a bit different due to some mileage runs:
American Airlines: 404,296 miles
Cathay Pacific: 104,481 miles
Qatar Airways: 89,630 miles
British Airways: 53,357 miles
Delta Air Lines: 49,603 miles
United Airlines: 42,237 miles
Singapore Airlines: 36,176 miles, including a review of Singapore Airlines’ A350-900ULR premium economy
Japan Airlines: 33,756 miles
Air Canada: 30,792 miles
All Nippon Airways: 28,938 miles
I track all my flights in OpenFlights. So, although it’s relatively easy for me to gather statistics on my flights, I don’t have a simple way to determine the amount I paid in points and cash for my 575 flights during the last six years.
Related: The best credit cards for booking flights
1,103 nights in hotels
I’ve spent over half of the last six years living out of hotel rooms. In particular, I’ve spent 894 nights at 75 major hotel brands within the last six years. And I’ve spent 209 nights at other brands and independent hotels.
Here’s the breakdown of my stays by loyalty program and brand over the last six years, including notes about my favorite programs.
390 nights at 15 IHG brands
Holiday Inn Express: 120 nights
Holiday Inn: 66 nights
InterContinental Hotels & Resorts: 51 nights, including five nights at the InterContinental Hayman Island Resort in Australia, four nights at the InterContinental Phuket Resort in Thailand, four nights at the InterContinental Phu Quoc Long Beach Resort in Vietnam, three nights at the InterContinental Danang Sun Peninsula Resort in Vietnam, three nights at the InterContinental New York Times Square in New York and two nights at the InterContinental Fiji Golf Resort & Spa in Fiji
Candlewood Suites: 28 nights
Hotel Indigo: 26 nights, including five nights at the Hotel Indigo Austin Downtown-University in Texas and four nights at the Hotel Indigo Birmingham Five Points South – UAB in Alabama
Staybridge Suites: 22 nights
Crowne Plaza Hotels & Resorts: 19 nights, including three nights at the Crowne Plaza Beijing Wangfujing in China and three nights at the Crowne Plaza Times Square in New York
Holiday Inn Resort: 19 nights, including 10 nights at the Holiday Inn Resort Kandooma Maldives in the Maldives
Voco: 11 nights, including six nights at Voco Gold Coast in Australia
Regent: Nine nights
Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants: Eight nights
Six Senses: Six nights, including four nights at Six Senses Laamu in the Maldives and two nights at Six Senses Yao Noi in Thailand
Atwell Suites: Two nights at Atwell Suites Miami Brickell in Florida
Avid: Two nights at Avid hotel Oklahoma City — Quail Springs in Oklahoma
Even: One night
Over the last six years, I’ve stayed 161 paid nights at IHG properties for an average of $152 per night. The least I paid was $48 per night at the Holiday Inn Express Berlin — Alexanderplatz in Germany. And the most I paid was $1,564 per night during a review of the InterContinental Maldives Maamunagau Resort in the Maldives.
Meanwhile, we redeemed IHG points for 209 nights over the last six years, including 36 fourth-night-free rewards. On average, we redeemed 15,591 IHG points per night. We also redeemed 20 anniversary nights over the last six years, including at the InterContinental Bora Bora Resort & Thalasso Spa in French Polynesia and the Kimpton De Witt Amsterdam in the Netherlands.
You might wonder how we earned so many IHG points and anniversary nights. We maximize IHG promotions to earn points on stays. And we often buy points during IHG points sales with a 100% bonus when we can do so for 0.5 cents per point. As for the anniversary night certificates, we both have multiple IHG credit cards, so we’ve each earned two anniversary nights for most of the last six years.
We frequently stay at IHG One Rewards hotels and resorts due to the high value we often get when redeeming IHG points. But, with the launch of the new IHG One Rewards program last year, we are also getting good value from the annual lounge membership you can select through IHG’s Milestone Rewards program after staying 40 nights in a year.
Related: 9 budget strategies for getting the most out of your points and miles
209 nights at other brands and independent hotels
These days, we usually stay at major hotel brands to earn and use elite status perks and benefit from the consistency provided by these brands. But we often stayed at independent hotels when we first hit the road as digital nomads in 2017. And even now, we sometimes find ourselves in a destination without major hotel brands or where staying at a property outside our brand loyalties makes the most sense.
For example, we couldn’t pass up staying in a twin cell at YHA Fremantle Prison in Australia and a robot hotel in Japan. Likewise, staying within Addo Elephant and Kruger national parks in South Africa let us maximize our time seeing wildlife in these parks.
We often book these stays through online travel agencies since we don’t have to worry about missing out on elite status benefits and earnings while staying at properties outside our primary brands. For example, we’ll sometimes book through credit card portals to use credits, like the $50 hotel credit each account anniversary year on the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card. And we’ll occasionally book through American Express Fine Hotels + Resorts to snag extra perks and use the prepaid hotel credit we get each calendar year as a perk of The Platinum Card® from American Express. We’ll also sometimes use Rocketmiles to earn American Airlines miles and Loyalty Points on our stays.
On average, I paid $83 per night on these stays. But, my least expensive night was $18 per night for a private room with a shared bathroom at Stella Di Notte in Belgrade, Serbia. And my most expensive night was $235 per night at the RLJ Kendeja Resort & Villas in Liberia during PeaceJam.
203 nights at 21 Marriott brands
Over the last six years, I’ve stayed 140 paid nights at Marriott properties for an average of $121 per night. The least I paid was $44 per night at the Four Points by Sheraton Bogota in Colombia. And the most I paid was $350 per night during a review of the Waikoloa Beach Marriott Resort & Spa in Hawaii.
Meanwhile, we redeemed Marriott points for 49 nights over the last six years, including six fifth-night-free benefits. On average, we redeemed 16,167 points per night on Marriott award stays. We also redeemed 14 free night awards we earned through Marriott credit cards and promotions over the last six years.
Related: Here’s why you need both a personal and business Marriott Bonvoy credit card
115 nights at 6 Choice brands
Ascend Hotel Collection: 54 nights, including 28 nights at Emotions All Inclusive Puerto Plata in the Dominican Republic, nine nights at Gowanus Inn & Yard in New York (no longer bookable through Choice Hotels) and three nights at Bluegreen Vacations Fountains in Florida
Comfort: 37 nights, including 19 nights in Japan
Quality Inn: 13 nights
Cambria Hotels: Four nights
Rodeway Inn: Four nights
Clarion: Three nights
Over the last six years, I’ve stayed 34 paid nights at Choice Privileges properties for an average of $93 per night. The least I paid was $54 per night at the Comfort Hotel Airport CDG in France. And the most I paid was $239 per night at Cambria Hotel New York — Times Square in New York.
Meanwhile, we redeemed Choice points for 81 nights over the last six years. On average, we redeemed 9,531 Choice points per night. I’ve found I can get excellent value when redeeming Choice points for unique redemptions and for stays in Japan, Europe and destinations that typically feature high paid hotel rates. So, as with IHG, we often buy Choice points during sales or through Daily Getaways promotions.
87 nights at 11 Hyatt brands and partners
I didn’t stay much with World of Hyatt until the program offered reduced qualification requirements and double elite night credits in early 2021. I earned Globalist status in 2021 for far fewer nights than is usually required, but I’ve prioritized maintaining it due to the on-site perks it provides.
I’ve stayed 53 paid nights at Hyatt properties for an average of $139 per night over the last six years. The least I paid was $24 per night at the Excalibur Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas. And the most I paid was $353 per night at Hyatt House New York/Chelsea in New York.
Meanwhile, I redeemed Hyatt points for 27 free nights over the last six years. I’ve found some excellent Category 1 Hyatt hotels that provide wonderful value on award stays. So, it isn’t surprising that I’ve redeemed 5,563 points per night on average and just 3,500 points per night for nine nights. Additionally, I redeemed seven free night certificates that I earned through Hyatt credit cards, Hyatt Milestone Rewards and the Hyatt Brand Explorer promotion over the last six years.
40 nights at 10 Wyndham brands
Days Inn: 10 nights
Ramada: Nine nights
Ramada Encore: Five nights
Microtel: Five nights
Club Wyndham: Three nights
Super 8: Three nights
Viva Wyndham: Two nights at Viva Wyndham Azteca — All-Inclusive Resort in Mexico
Baymont: One night
Howard Johnson: One night
Travelodge: One night
Over the last six years, I’ve stayed 29 paid nights at Wyndham properties for an average of $103 per night. The least I paid was $48 per night at the Days Inn Guam-Tamuning in Guam. And the most I paid was $200 per night during a review of the Viva Wyndham Azteca — All-Inclusive Resort in Mexico.
Meanwhile, we redeemed Wyndham points for 11 nights over the last six years. On average, we redeemed 9,068 points per night on Wyndham award stays. And we love getting a 10% redemption discount when we redeem Wyndham points as a benefit of our Wyndham Rewards credit card, as this brings an award night that would typically cost 7,500 points down to just 6,750 points.
32 nights at 6 Hilton brands
Over the last six years, I’ve stayed 18 paid nights at Hilton properties for an average of $130 per night. The least I’ve paid was $58 per night at the Hilton Jaipur in India. And the most I paid was $168 per night at the Hilton Niseko Village in Japan.
Meanwhile, we redeemed Hilton points for eight nights over the last six years, including one fifth-night-free benefit. On average, we redeemed 46,250 points per night on Hilton award stays. We also redeemed six Hilton free night certificates that we earned through Hilton credit cards over the last six years for excellent value at the Conrad New York Midtown, the Conrad Maldives Rangali Island and the Hilton Maldives Amingiri Resort & Spa.
The average amount we redeemed per night with Hilton Honors is significantly higher than with other hotel loyalty programs. This, combined with my struggle to get more than TPG’s valuation (0.6 cents per point) when redeeming Hilton points, is why I don’t frequently stay at Hilton brands despite having Hilton Diamond status through a Hilton credit card.
19 nights at 4 Accor brands
Ibis: 12 nights
Mercure: Four nights
Grand Mercure: Two nights
Ibis Budget: One night
Over the last six years, I’ve stayed 19 nights at Accor properties for an average of $56 per night. The least I paid was $36 per night at the Ibis Muenchen City Nord in Germany. And the most I paid was $84 per night at the Ibis Madrid Alcobendas in Spain.
8 nights at 2 Best Western brands
Best Western: Six nights
Best Western Plus: Two nights
Over the last six years, I’ve stayed eight nights at Best Western properties for an average of $78 per night. The least I paid was $57 per night at the Best Western Amsterdam Airport Hotel in the Netherlands. And the most I paid was $147 per night at the Best Western Plus Mountain View Auburn Inn in Washington.
452 nights camping
When I became a digital nomad in 2017, I didn’t think there was any chance I’d camp 452 nights in the next six years. And even three years ago, I’d only spent three nights tent camping for a concert at The Gorge in Washington state and three nights in a rental RV doing a relocation from Las Vegas to Denver.
But, as it became apparent the coronavirus pandemic would affect international travel for more than just a few months, my husband and I tried out a six-night RV relocation rental in July 2020. Then in August 2020, we decided to buy the same RV model we’d relocated.
When we bought our Class C RV, we expected we’d sell it as soon as international travel to most destinations became relatively simple again. But, we discovered we enjoy working remotely from our RV while in the U.S. We’ve now spent 440 nights camping in our RV since buying it — 97 nights in 2020, 234 nights in 2021, 80 nights in 2022 and 29 nights so far in 2023.
Nineteen nights in our RV have been free at locations (like select Walmarts, select Cracker Barrels and businesses that participate in Harvest Hosts) that allow RVers to stay overnight upon asking permission. We’ve also spent 37 nights sleeping in the driveways of friends and family while visiting them.
But we usually find paid RV campsites with power and water. We’ve paid for campsites on 393 nights as follows:
171 nights at city and county campgrounds ($32 per night on average)
133 nights at U.S. Army Corps of Engineers campgrounds ($27 per night on average)
66 nights at state park campgrounds ($34 per night on average)
37 nights at private campgrounds ($52 per night on average)
Four nights at national park campgrounds ($48 per night on average)
On average, we’ve paid $33 per night for our RV campsites. The highest we paid was $104 per night at Orlando / Kissimmee KOA Holiday in Florida. And the least we paid was $17 per night at Shady Grove Campground in Cumming, Georgia, during a half-off promotion.
Related: The cheapest place to stay at Disney World is a tent — so I tried it
443 nights with family and friends
One aspect my husband and I appreciate about being digital nomads is seeing our family more than when we lived in one place. Here’s a breakdown of our nights with friends and family over the last six years:
July 2 to the end of 2017: 32 nights
2018: 90 nights
2019: 83 nights
2020: 167 nights
2021: 29 nights
2022: 27 nights
So far in 2023: 15 nights
We spent significant time with each of our parents in March through August of 2020 as much of the world locked down. However, the nights since August 2020 are lower than pre-pandemic since we now stay in our RV (either in the driveway or a nearby campground) while visiting most friends and family members.
Related: 43 real-world family travel tips that actually work
104 nights in transit
Over the past six years, I’ve spent 101 nights in flight or sleeping in airports. I typically avoid overnight flights, but sometimes overnight flights are unavoidable (and they’re enjoyable if I book a lie-flat seat or luck into a row to myself in economy).
If I have an overnight layover at an airport, I’ll book a hotel if the layover is long enough and I can find a modestly priced hotel on-site or with a free shuttle. But sometimes the layover is too short, or it just doesn’t make sense to get a hotel. In these cases, I’ll usually sleep in a lounge — ideally one with a sleeping area or at least lounge chairs — or in a Minute Suites (or a similar type of space) that participates in Priority Pass.
I’ve also spent three nights on trains, including two on the Amtrak Empire Builder from Portland, Oregon, to Chicago and one on a Trans-Mongolian train from Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, to Hohhot, China. I thoroughly enjoyed both experiences, so it’s surprising that I haven’t taken any other overnight trains in the last six years. However, low-cost flights on many routes served by overnight trains often make flying a more convenient and less expensive alternative.
Related: 11 of the most scenic train rides on Earth
90 nights in vacation rentals
Vacation rentals are the accommodation of choice for many digital nomads, especially those who stay in each location for at least a month and appreciate having their own kitchen. And I spent 39 nights in vacation rentals in 2017 after becoming nomadic July 2.
However, one particularly bad Airbnb experience in 2018 and an increasing interest in hotel elite status caused me to switch most of my nights to hotels instead of vacation rentals. I stayed in vacation rentals for 17 nights in 2018 and 20 nights in 2019. I only stayed in one vacation rental each in 2020 (for three nights), 2021 (for two nights) and 2022 (for two nights). And so far, I’ve only stayed in one vacation rental (for seven nights) in 2023.
On average, I paid $53 per night for vacation rentals across my six years as a digital nomad. My least expensive vacation rental was $17 per night for a private studio apartment in Da Nang, Vietnam, that I booked through Airbnb. And my most expensive vacation rental was $129 per night for a waterfront apartment in Auckland, New Zealand, through Hotels.com.
I’ll still stay in vacation rentals when they’re my best option. But I generally prefer to stay at hotels for consistency and to earn and use my elite status perks.
Related: When a vacation rental makes more sense than a hotel
259 cities in 52 countries and territories
Finally, let’s talk about destinations. Over the last six years, I’ve visited 259 cities in 52 countries and territories. Here’s a look at the number of nights I stayed in each:
1,253 nights: United States of America (including 318 nights in hotels or vacation rentals)
88 nights: Germany
69 nights: Japan
56 nights: Australia
54 nights: South Africa (including 32 nights in or near South African national parks)
36 nights: Dominican Republic
27 nights: Maldives, Thailand
24 nights: Spain
22 nights: Hong Kong, Malaysia
21 nights: New Zealand, Serbia, Vietnam
20 nights: Canada, Colombia, Italy
19 nights: India
18 nights: Netherlands, United Arab Emirates
16 nights: Singapore
14 nights: Bahamas, French Polynesia, Indonesia
13 nights: Fiji, South Korea
11 nights: Brazil, Mongolia
10 nights: China
Nine nights: Bulgaria, England, France, Pakistan
Eight nights: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Latvia, Liberia, Mexico, Sri Lanka
Seven nights: Greece, Guam
Six nights: Turkey
Five nights: Belgium, Marshall Islands
Four nights: Sweden
Three nights: Argentina, Chile
Two nights: Panama
One night: Ethiopia, Finland, Ireland, Northern Mariana Islands, Taiwan
As you can see, I would have spent the most time in the U.S. even if the coronavirus pandemic hadn’t kept me in the country for much of 2020 and 2021. And interestingly, even my most visited country outside the U.S. (Germany) accounted for just 88 nights across the last six years.
I also visited 14 other countries and territories before becoming a digital nomad. So, although I’m not striving to visit every country in the world, I’ve visited 66 different countries and territories so far. My husband and I are trying to visit a few new-to-us countries each year while also returning to some of our favorite destinations like Germany, Japan, South Africa, Australia and Hong Kong.
Related: The 18 best places to travel in 2023
Bottom line
I feel incredibly thankful for the last six years I’ve spent as a digital nomad. I’ve grown significantly as a person and content creator while traveling full-time.
And I’ve had some amazing experiences, including swimming with manta rays in French Polynesia and the Maldives, watching a sea turtle dig a nest and lay her eggs on a Florida beach, staying at some awesome resorts (Six Senses Laamu, Six Senses Yao Noi and Alila Fort Bishangarh immediately come to mind), and overnighting in second-class hard bunks on a Trans-Mongolian train.
But it’s not these epic experiences that keep me on the road. After all, I could enjoy many of these experiences on vacation. Instead, the daily things like being surrounded by languages I don’t know, enjoying delicious local foods and exploring new cities and neighborhoods on foot keep me attached to the digital nomad lifestyle.
If you want to save up to 50% on a Disney hotel stay, it doesn’t take a fairy godmother or a magic wand. All it takes is knowing how to rent Disney Vacation Club points.
One of the easiest ways to quickly save a potentially significant amount of money on a Disney vacation — without sacrificing much of anything — is to stay in a Disney Vacation Club villa using rented Disney Vacation Club points.
You can find these villas at Disney resorts such as Bay Lake Tower at Disney’s Contemporary Resort, Disney’s Animal Kingdom Villas, Saratoga Springs or even Disney’s Aulani Vacation Club Villas in Hawaii.
The best part? You don’t have to be a Disney Vacation Club owner (or even know one) to rent Disney Vacation Club points and save money on a Disney vacation. There are services that match those looking to rent with those who have points up for renting.
Related: Guide to renting Disney Vacation Club points
Save up to 50% by renting DVC points
Some pretty big online companies essentially act as the middleman between owners of Disney Vacation Club points and those who want to rent them for a specific trip.
These companies will link Disney Vacation Club point owners with prospective renters so they can spend less money when renting anything from a one-room studio to a three-bedroom villa or even an overwater bungalow.
When you do this, you still get all the perks of staying on-site, such as early entry to the parks each morning and the opportunity to buy individual Lightning Lanes starting at 7 a.m. without paying full Disney prices.
We’ve rented Disney Vacation Club points numerous times in the past to save money on our family’s trips to Disney, both from other Disney Vacation Club owners and from a company called David’s Vacation Club Rentals.
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The name implies a mom-and-pop shop (or at least pop). It is a family-owned business, but the new reality is much more advanced; it has a few dozen team members listed on its site and frequent mentions on almost all Disney-related sites.
Here’s how it works: A Disney Vacation Club owner (Disney’s version of a timeshare) can use their points to book a stay for anyone at one of these resorts:
Disney’s Animal Kingdom Villas
Bay Lake Tower At Disney’s Contemporary Resort
Disney’s Beach Club Villas
Disney’s BoardWalk Villas
Boulder Ridge Villas at Disney’s Wilderness Lodge
Copper Creek Villas and Cabins at Disney’s Wilderness Lodge
The Villas at Disney’s Grand Floridian Hotel
Disney’s Riviera Resort
The Villas at Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel & Spa
Disney’s Polynesian Villas & Bungalows
Aulani, A Disney Resort & Spa
Disney’s Old Key West Resort
Disney’s Saratoga Springs Resort & Spa
Disney’s Vero Beach Resort
Disney’s Hilton Head Resort
Related: These are the best hotels at Disney World
If an owner doesn’t plan to use their entire Disney Vacation Club points allotment for the year, they can make some or all of the points available for rent via a service like David’s. David’s Vacation Club Rentals pays a rate to the points owner (often $16 – $18 per point) and then charges more to the renter (often $21 – $23 per point). The company’s profit lies in the difference.
The best way to use David’s Vacation Club Rentals, or any other similar site, is to first familiarize yourself with the Disney Vacation Club points charts; also, familiarize yourself with the online availability search tools to learn how much something costs and whether it is likely to be available on your dates.
Across Disney Vacation Club, rooms start at just 7 points per night and go as high as hundreds of points per night, so there’s a wide spread of points costs.
If you paid $21 per point to rent a room that costs 7 points per night, your costs would be $147 for that night. In fairness, rooms that cost that amount of points are few and far between, but they do exist.
Let’s look at a booking available right now. If you want to stay two nights at Animal Kingdom Lodge in a Kidani Village Studio with a standard view from Dec. 21 – 23, that booking is available for 28 total points. Since that date range is already within seven months, it would cost $21 per point, or $588 total, for the two-night stay if booked with points rented at that rate from David’s Vacation Club. There are no additional taxes or fees due on Disney Vacation Club stays.
If you booked that same room directly from Disney, it’s selling for $589 per night, which is $1,326 for the two-night stay with taxes and fees. That’s more than twice the cost of renting the points.
It’s important to know that some Disney Vacation Club rooms, especially the cheapest ones, can and do sell out well in advance.
You want to book as far in advance as you can. The Disney Vacation Club booking calendar opens 11 months before your check-in date. If you book seven or more months in advance, you may pay a $2 per night “home resort” premium at David’s, as only those owners who own points at a particular resort can make reservations more than seven months in advance. Within seven months, owners can use their points at any of the available DVC resorts (with a few caveats).
Related link: Rent DVC points via David’s Vacation Club
How to use David’s Vacation Club rentals
Once you know where you want to stay and verify there is availability for your dates (here’s the tool I use), it’s time to ask David’s Vacation Club Rentals to make the booking. Note that availability is dynamic, and you don’t want to delay once you know what you want.
To rent using David’s Vacation Club, complete its reservation form and make a $105 deposit that is applied to your final rental price using a Visa, Mastercard or Paypal. (I recommend using a card with no foreign transaction fees since David’s is based in Canada.) If they can’t book what you want, that money is refunded.
Once you submit your request, you wait. It’s not a live availability booking process — it’s manual.
We have waited as little as an hour to be informed via email that our request could be fulfilled. We were then given a link to pay the balance of our reservation (minus the $105 deposit), and then the booking was secured. Within a few more hours, the entire process was complete, and we had a reservation in our names with a Disney confirmation number.
The booking should code as travel, so use a card like the Chase Sapphire Reserve that awards a bonus on travel.
This Disney confirmation number you’ll get is a big deal because that’s what you’ll need to link the booking to your Disney account and unlock the perks of staying on the property.
In all of my stays, I have been able to successfully link the reservation to my online Disney account and easily check in under my name. Everything about my stays has been smooth. Once, we lived it up in a three-bedroom Grand Villa within walking distance to The Magic Kingdom for one night, thanks to renting Disney Vacation Club points. You can read our full Disney’s Bay Lake Tower review here.
Most recently, we rented a two-bedroom suite at Disney’s Animal Kingdom via David’s Vacation Club for a total of $840. The two individual bedrooms we would have otherwise needed would have cost more than the points than required to get the whole two-bedroom with the living room and kitchen. That particular resort is inching toward requiring a bit of a renovation to put it on par with some of the resorts more recently spruced up, but that’s true whether you booked with cash or Disney Vacation Club points.
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Downsides to renting DVC points
My experience and other online reviews show that David’s has the Disney Vacation Club rental process down to a science. However, there are downsides.
First and foremost, cancellations and changes are not permitted. This will be a non-starter for some folks. For others, look into travel insurance or be sure to use a credit card with built-in trip protections that might help you as a method of last resort.
Also, know that stays booked via the Disney Vacation Club do not come with full housekeeping (er, “mousekeeping”) the way that standard hotel rooms would (though only deluxe Disney resorts booked with cash get guaranteed nightly housekeeping).
Rooms booked via Disney Vacation Club get “trash and towel” service on the fourth night. If your stay is more than eight days, you get a full cleaning on the fourth night. Housekeeping also inspects rooms daily and may remove trash during that time.
If you want more housekeeping services, you can pay for additional cleaning at rates that range from $30 for a studio villa to $75 for a three-bedroom villa.
Look for last-minute specials
If you like the idea of renting Disney Vacation Club points to save as much money as possible, keep an eye out for last-minute specials where you can save even more. These reservations tied to a specific resort and date are currently available for as little as $16 per point. This can happen when Disney Vacation Club members have points they really need to rent out as soon as possible or risk letting them expire and go to waste.
Bottom line
I’ve rented from David’s Vacation Club Rentals multiple times since 2018. The site has a prompt online chat option for quick questions during working hours, and I’ve had real success renting DVC points to save money over cash rates at Disney World and beyond.
Read on to continue your Disney vacation planning:
Minimum-wage workers shouldn’t bother trying to find a two-bedroom apartment — anywhere in the U.S.
According to a new federal report, “in no state, metropolitan area, or county in the U.S. can a worker earning the federal or prevailing state or local minimum wage afford a modest two-bedroom rental home at fair market rent by working a standard 40-hour work week.”
The “Out of Reach” report reveals in stark terms the financial challenges facing renters, particularly in California.
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A California renter needs to make $42.25 an hour to afford a two-bedroom rental unit, the highest figure in the nation, according to the new study. The mean hourly wage for California renters, by contrast, is only $33.67.
Hawaii, Massachusetts, New York and Washington were the next four most expensive states after California, with renters needing to make at least $35 hourly to afford a two-bedroom apartment.
In California, Cristian Morales, 33, is an example of the struggle facing hourly wage earners to secure decent housing.
He makes $21 an hour as a laundry attendant at the Hilton Pasadena. The job, which he has held for nearly five years, can be stressful. “We have to be moving all the time and sometimes there’s not time to get our 10-minute breaks,” he said.
The hotel is frequently short-staffed, Morales said, which sometimes means that a 14-story chute gets packed with linens “all the way to the sixth floor” before he can get to it.
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Along with his wife and five children, Morales lived in a rental apartment in North Hills until 2020, when they could no longer afford the apartment. “Rent in L.A. went up, it’s super up. Groceries are up,” he said.
The family moved in with Morales’ in-laws in Baldwin Park, where three of the kids live in the front house, with their grandparents and the rest of the family living in the back house.
“Of course, I want my own place,” Morales said. “It’s not the same living with your father- and mother-in-law.”
The eight most expensive counties for renters in America were all in California, including Santa Barbara and Orange counties in Southern California, according to the report from the National Low Income Housing Coalition.
In the four most expensive counties — Santa Cruz, Marin, San Francisco and San Mateo — a renter needs to make more than $60 an hour to afford a two-bedroom unit.
Santa Cruz County, where the mean renter income was estimated at $22.39 an hour, had the biggest discrepancy between actual income and the income required to afford a two-bedroom. The mean renter only made 34% of the income necessary to afford such a unit, according to the study.
“The affordable housing crisis worsened over the past few years as the COVID-19 pandemic, unusually low housing vacancy rates, skyrocketing rental prices and record-breaking inflation exacerbated the financial insecurity of low-income renters,” the report states.
California is the most renter-heavy state in the country, with 45% of housing units occupied by renters. Within the state, Los Angeles and San Francisco counties, where the rates are 62% and 54%, respectively, stand out.
Apartment owners are also speaking out about rents.
“We have been screaming for years and years that the lack of supply and construction of new housing is leading to this increase,” said Fred Sutton, a spokesperson for the California Apartment Assn., a group representing the rental housing industry.
“The costs of operating housing have skyrocketed over the last several years,” he said, noting that rent control, inflation and operating costs are factors in adjusting rents.
“Housing is becoming more and more scarce in the state, and some of the local municipalities have made it ever-increasingly harder to obtain,” Sutton said. He argued for reduced regulations on housing construction.
In all but three of California’s 58 counties, the mean wage for renters was not enough to afford a two-bedroom rental. The three counties where wages were high enough were all high-rent locales in the Bay Area: San Francisco, Santa Clara and San Mateo.
The report states that “renters are facing the effects of a long-standing trend in which rents have risen faster than wages.” Between 2001 and 2021, according to the report, median rents increased 17.9%, while median household income went up 3.2%.
In Arkansas, the nation’s cheapest state for renters, a renter can afford a two-bedroom unit with an hourly income of $16.27. That’s about one-third of the cost in California.
The Dakotas, Mississippi and West Virginia, all with hourly wages between $16 and $18, rounded out the five least expensive states. Minimum wages in all five states are far below California’s $15.50 rate: Arkansas’ is the highest, at $11, and North Dakota and Mississippi are the lowest, benchmarked to the federal level of $7.25.
For Morales, affordable housing for his family is a pipe dream. “In reality, we checked about a year ago, but it’s too expensive. It’s not like we can move to a single — I’ve got five kids.”
“It’s super hard to even find a place that we can all fit and have a little freedom,” he said.
Higher wages could make a difference. Morales belongs to the Unite Here Local 11 hotel workers’ union, and plans to go on strike this weekend alongside thousands of others, calling for higher wages.
“We’re ready, we’re motivated, and we believe that we deserve what we’re asking for,” he said.
It’s summer, which means people are headed to the beach, to their favorite city destinations and to every type of hotel on the way and in between.
Like always, we’re constantly trying to provide you with the most up-to-date hotel news, including the latest on the lawsuit regarding Marriott and “junk fees,” Marriott launching its 32nd brand and the top destinations Hilton Honors members are traveling to this summer.
In between those big stories, some hotel news gets bookmarked to share in this monthly news roundup so you can feel informed and knowledgeable about what’s happening in the hotel space. From new hotel openings to one-of-a-kind suites, here are some of the most exciting hotel updates you might have missed in June.
Move over Barbie — Ken’s taking over the Malibu DreamHouse
Airbnb is well known for its over-the-top, once-in-a-lifetime pop-up stays — and now Barbie’s Malibu DreamHouse is back. This time, it’s been totally revamped with Ken playing the role of host.
To celebrate the July 21 premiere of the new “Barbie” movie, two lucky guests will get the chance to spend the night in the pink pad. It’ll be complete with Ken’s wardrobe, a dance floor with a disco ball, a pool with a waterslide, and even yellow-and-pink rollerskates and surfboards.
The chance to book happens July 17 at 10 a.m. PDT at the house’s dedicated website.
Dolly Parton’s opening a new hotel — and reservations are now open
Here at TPG, we’re big fans of Dollywood, whether we’re visiting the theme parks or spending the night on Dolly’s retired tour bus. While the park and its DreamMore resort are practically perfect, it’s all about to get better: HeartSong Lodge & Resort, an all-new place to stay, will open in the Smoky Mountains.
Set to open to guests Nov. 23, the new resort will feature 302 rooms, including rooms with bunk beds and fun themes. The property will also offer a full-service restaurant, indoor and outdoor pools, priority access and free transportation to Dolly’s parks, and Dollywood TimeSaver passes to skip the lines.
You can reserve a room now — and you know we’ll be there when it opens to share the experience. If it’s half as good as DreamMore and Dollywood, you know it’ll be perfect. Until then, check out what Dolly herself recently shared with TPG about the future of her “Tennessee Mountain Home.”
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JW Marriott’s heading on a Tanzanian safari
Marriott Bonvoy loyalists who have been dreaming of a points-based safari better save some dates in 2026. That’s when an all-new JW Marriott is set to open in Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park. Right now, the details of the camp are light (and there are no renderings yet), but we know that it will feature 30 private suites, including two presidential suites, all with private pools.
This isn’t JW Marriott’s first foray into safari lodges. Marriott recently opened the JW Marriott Masai Mara Lodge in Kenya, where you can book award nights starting at 77,500 points.
Related: How to choose a sustainable African safari
This NYC Pride-themed hotel suite is sticking around until September
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MARIO IOZZI
Pride month may have come to an end, but travelers to New York City can still experience a suite-turned-art gallery at the Innside by Melia New York Nomad.
In collaboration with the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art — a space dedicated to LGBTQI+ artists — artist Tura Oliveira transformed a suite into an out-of-this-world, science fiction-themed suite centered around “queer futurity.” Oliveira painted murals, dyed textiles and curated books, furniture and other interesting objects to bring the space to life. (Not to mention, the suite has a massive deck with beautiful views of the Uptown skyline.)
Rates for the suite — which is available through Sept. 23 — start at $399 per night and come with tickets to the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art.
A new designer hotel is finally open in Rome
There’s no place like Rome, the Eternal City — and few cities have such a booming hotel scene.
The city recently celebrated the opening of Bulgari Hotel Roma. The hotel, in Campo Marzio near the Tiber, has 114 rooms and suites in a 1940s building that has been updated and restored. The hotel, part of Marriott, has a Bulgari Spa, an indoor swimming pool, Italy’s first Bulgari sweets shop, a rooftop terrace bar with breathtaking views of the city and the brand’s signature restaurant, Il Ristorante — Niko Romito.
Believe it or not, you can go to Disneyland when it’s not crowded.
If you’ve been there, this may not seem possible — especially if you’ve visited only on the weekend or during summer. But there are ebbs and flows to crowds at Disney parks. Depending on how you like to travel, whom you’re traveling with and what your budget is, the best time to go to Disneyland will differ.
Let’s look at when’s best for you, no matter your travel situation.
For first-timers
As you may expect, Disneyland Park is the original; it opened in 1955. The park contains Sleeping Beauty Castle and fan favorites such as Pirates of the Caribbean, Space Mountain and Haunted Mansion.
Disney California Adventure Park, meanwhile, opened in 2001. Originally modeled after the various landscapes you’d find within California, the park has since seen significant retheming and now contains a land dedicated to the “Cars” movie, one focused on Marvel movies and a pier based on Pixar’s films.
If this is your first visit, you’ll want to do your best to experience everything. We recommend a minimum of two days: one for each park.
You’ll want to consider nonpeak periods when the resort is less crowded to maximize your time. Generally, Disney is extra busy and crowded during the following periods:
Spring break: typically late March and April.
Holiday weekends: Memorial Day and Labor Day.
Summer: mid-June to the end of August.
Halloween and weekends in October.
Thanksgiving week.
Winter break: second half of December through New Year’s Day.
Though you may find periods that are busy outside these windows, these are the big ones you’ll want to avoid. It will be difficult to deal with the crowds, and you’ll probably pay a premium for hotels and accommodations.
For families
If your children are school age, you may be limited as to when you can visit Disneyland. This means you may end up at the parks during peak periods.
Though it’s not possible to avoid crowds, there are still times that can be better than others.
This is thanks to some of the special events Disneyland puts on. These include Princess Nite and the Oogie Boogie Bash, both of which take place after the park closes (the park closes early to accommodate these parties).
The Oogie Boogie Bash is especially popular for kids because of the unlimited trick-or-treating. There are also character meet-and-greets, a special parade and the ability to ride all the standard rides.
For crowd-haters
Listen, we dislike crowds, too. There’s a reason entire websites are dedicated to figuring out when Disneyland will be crowded. If this is you, do yourself a favor and visit only during the offseason.
Though it isn’t often that you’ll find hardly anyone at the Disneyland Resort, there are some times when it will be as close to empty as possible.
This includes many weekdays throughout the year, especially during January, February and March.
It’s also relatively empty at the end of August before Labor Day weekend brings huge crowds. September as a whole is also empty, as is the two-week period after Thanksgiving before winter break starts.
For the frugal traveler
A visit to Disneyland can be pricey, especially if you need to travel in from out of town. Disneyland operates a dynamic pricing structure that’ll charge you from $104 to $179 for a one-day ticket.
To find the cheapest days, you’ll want to check out the price calendar. Typically, periods of least demand — those with the lowest ticket prices — also coincide with the lowest cash prices for flights and hotels.
You may also want to consider using points and miles to keep costs down. Several chain hotels are within walking distance of Disneyland, including Hilton, Hyatt, Marriott and IHG, which makes redeeming your points easy.
Disneyland is near six airports in Southern California, making it easier to find flights on all major airlines. With so many options, it shouldn’t be difficult to find a way to redeem your miles.
For adults
Disneyland isn’t just for children. Though many of its attractions are meant to appeal to little ones, Disneyland also has adult-oriented activities. Disney California Adventure is a great example, with refined eateries and plenty of different drinks to sample.
The park also offers a rotating selection of festivals throughout the year, featuring pop-up pavilions. These pavilions provide limited-time food and drink offerings and are popular with adult parties.
Disneyland also offers nighttime events that are great for adults, including Sweethearts’ Nite, Throwback Nite, Pride Nite and Star Wars Nite.
The best time to visit Disneyland, recapped
The best time to visit Disneyland will depend on whom you’re traveling with, your preferred travel style and your budget. After all, you’re not going to be looking for the same entertainment options with your adult friends as you would if you’re traveling with your children.
No matter when you decide to travel to Disneyland, you’ll be in good company. Just don’t forget to grab yourself a churro.
(Top photo courtesy of Disneyland Resort)
How to maximize your rewards
You want a travel credit card that prioritizes what’s important to you. Here are our picks for the best travel credit cards of 2023, including those best for:
Before having kids, my husband and I loved to travel. When our family grew, we agreed that we wanted to continue to prioritize exploring the world as much as we could. Unlike it may seem on Instagram, no one comes with a magic wand and whisks us away on vacation — we make sacrifices to design these experiences, and we work hard to make them happen.
Now that we’re paying for four, credit cards play a major role in our ability to swing our travel, but perhaps not in the way you might think. We don’t rack up debt, and because we pay our bills in full each month, we don’t pay any interest. Instead, we rely heavily on the points and miles that we largely earn from credit card rewards. And with the national average domestic airline itinerary fare hovering just below $400 in the fourth quarter of last year, according to the Department of Transportation, every bit we can defray helps.
Here are some of the ways that credit cards help make our family’s travel dreams a reality — for a fraction of the out-of-pocket cost.
(Nearly) free flights
The rewards we earn from the many credit cards we hold help fly our family for almost free. Some cards are branded to a particular airline and earn frequent flyer miles that can be used for flights on that airline and its partners. Other credit cards earn rewards that aren’t locked into one brand and offer more flexibility. You can transfer those rewards to several partner airlines, which allows you to shop around to find the best flight options for your family. If you have enough miles to cover the flights, you’ll just pay a nominal charge for taxes and fees out of pocket: They start at $5.60 one way per person if you’re traveling in the U.S.
When I tell inquiring friends how our rewards pay for flights, I’m often met with skeptical stares. “Don’t they charge so many miles? I’ll never earn enough.” Though the cost of award flights in miles can seem outrageous many times, there are still values to be found. We recently booked coast-to-coast flights for our family of four for less than 10,000 miles per person one way. An average bonus for opening a new credit card is around 50,000 miles, sometimes considerably more. That means by opening one new card and paying an annual fee under $100, my whole family can jet from Baltimore to sunny California.
Plus, I have an extra “free flight trick” up my sleeve: a companion pass. Several popular airlines offer the perk for a companion to fly free or at a reduced cost — as an outright perk of holding its branded credit card or by earning enough points in a year.
Our family’s favorite airline, Southwest, has the best companion pass around: Once the pass is earned, one companion can fly free with you (you’ll just pay taxes and fees) as many times as you fly the rest of that calendar year, plus the entire next calendar year. (More details here.)
Travel ‘insurance’ and flexibility
When you’re beholden to a school calendar that dictates when you can travel, you quickly learn that availability and prices can be sky-high during spring break or the winter holidays, when everyone is taking trips. For example, more than 141 million people flew in March and April this year, compared with 118 million in January and February, according to Transportation Security Administration checkpoint travel numbers. Booking far in advance is helpful to lock in those plans. Often, you’ll find better availability and lower prices than you’ll get when you reserve closer in. And when you pay with miles or points, there’s less at stake: You’re not shelling out a bunch of cash now for a trip you’ll take next year.
Whether you’re booking well in advance or last minute, using rewards earned from credit cards can give greater flexibility should your plans change. Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, many airlines ditched the fees to cancel or change a ticket. Some of those fees are creeping back — but the policies are often more generous if you’ve booked with miles. Having a stash of credit card points and miles at the ready helps my family book trips with the peace of mind that we’ll be able to change our plans without paying big fees.
If you pay cash for your ticket, you’ll still be able to cancel — but with more caveats. In many cases, you’ll have to pay a higher fare to have that flexibility to change or cancel your ticket. Often, you’ll be refunded in the form of travel credit with that airline rather than getting your money back. That means you’ll have money tied up with that airline, which isn’t ideal if you find a better deal on a different airline for your next flights or if you need that cash for other expenses. Plus, those credits can expire.
Booking with miles, on the other hand, can allow you to cancel your tickets — even last minute — and get all your rewards back without penalty.
Perks that make it easier
“Gee, I’m so excited to wait in long lines with grumpy kids,” said no one ever. The reality is that long lines at security checkpoints, rental car counters and even hotel check-in queues can really dampen the excitement of travel for kids and grown-ups alike.
But for my family, many of the travel perks that come along with the premium credit cards we hold far outweigh the cost of the annual fees we pay. Thanks to services like TSA Precheck, Global Entry and Clear, we are able to skip out on lots of idle time spent waiting in line. The Platinum Card® from American Express comes with a hefty $695 annual fee, but it offers credits that help cover the cost of these services. We can pop into an airport lounge while we wait to board and enjoy free drinks and snacks. Terms apply.
Elite status is another benefit that the right credit cards afford us. We can skip the line at the rental counter and head straight to our car after a long flight. Thanks to the automatic Gold status we get from the Hilton Honors American Express Surpass® Card, we can go to a special queue when we check in to our hotel, and we can take advantage of elite perks like room upgrades, late checkout and daily credit to help cover breakfast. Terms apply.
‘Free money’ helps budgets stretch further
Most major credit card issuers these days offer special merchant-specific discounts when activated on your card. They’re like built-in coupons you can add to your credit card with an easy click, and they can save you very real dollars on purchases you’re already making.
I think of these offers as “free money” I earn back from my credit cards. I load as many of these coupons onto my cards as I can because there’s no penalty if I don’t use them. If I’m ordering pizza for Friday movie night, sending birthday flowers or purchasing new luggage, I’ll check my credit card offers first so I can see whether shopping at any featured merchants makes sense to save money.
Once I make a qualifying purchase, my card gets credited back the amount I saved. I like to keep track of this money in a simple spreadsheet and watch it add up: $5 back from this restaurant, $10 back from this back-to-school shopping trip. Then I put that money aside into a trip fund to help subsidize the extra costs of our travels.
By shaving off extra costs whenever I can, our family can afford to travel together more.
It’s the summer of Barbie. The movie release date is set for July 21, but the celebration of the iconic doll is going all season with pop-up exhibitions and hotel promotions.
If you want to travel to your own Barbie dream world, here are the best Barbie-inspired trips you can take this summer:
1. World of Barbie: Santa Monica, California
The World of Barbie in Santa Monica, California, is a temporary exhibition that takes people into Barbie’s world, including a real-life version of her Dreamhouse, camper van, space shuttle and TV studio. There’s also a gallery portion with vintage Barbie dolls and cars on display.
The exhibit is mainly a giant photo opportunity, with some interactive activities for kids, like a ball pit, and even a salon with real stylists on certain days. If you want a unique souvenir, consider building your own custom Barbie set from scratch for an additional fee.
Ticket prices run from $35 to $50 per adult and $25 to $32 per child. The exhibit is open through early September.
2. Malibu Barbie Cafe: Chicago and New York
Barbie apparently eats rainbow pancakes, beach burgers and candied bacon at the Malibu Barbie Cafe. The Barbie-inspired restaurant is operating in Chicago and New York with a menu by Chef Becky Brown, who was a semifinalist on MasterChef.
And there’s more to do at the Barbie restaurant than just eat. At the Chicago location, there’s a roller skating rink. Both sites have a gift shop, plus plenty of Instagram-worthy sets designed for you to have your own Barbie-inspired photo shoot.
Both restaurant locations are temporary, with tickets available through mid-September.
3. The Barbie room at The Curtis Hotel: Denver
You can book a Barbie-themed hotel room at The Curtis Hotel in downtown Denver. Though the hotel has a boutique feel, it’s actually part of the DoubleTree by Hilton brand.
This hotel has standard rooms as well as themed rooms, including one dedicated to Barbie. The themed rooms typically cost about $50 to $60 more per night than standard rooms, according to hotel spokesperson Tamara Atkin.
The Barbie room is decorated with images of the iconic dolls and has a salon chair inside. And unlike the other temporary offerings, The Curtis Hotel’s Barbie room is a permanent fixture. Though, for a limited time, guests also receive a complimentary makeup case and a voucher for a martini from the hotel bar when they book.
4. The Don CeSar: St. Pete Beach, Florida
This beachfront resort isn’t officially considered a Barbie hotel, but the Don CeSar is known as the “Pink Palace.” It exudes historical charm with a famous pink exterior.
Ron Sandel, general manager of HotelTonight, said in an email that the hotel has seen a 30% increase in bookings this year versus last.
“With Barbie mania in full effect this summer, we’re not surprised to see HotelTonight users book the pink-walled hotel,” he said. “In addition to being steps away from one of the best beaches in the country, we love Don CeSar for its 1950s-style ice cream parlor.”
5. The Ken Dreamhouse on Airbnb: Malibu, California
Only a handful of lucky people will get a chance to stay in what might be the ultimate Airbnb: Barbie’s Malibu Dreamhouse. The oceanfront mansion includes a disco dance floor and infinity pool.
Airbnb has run promotions for the glitzy house before, and this time, the vacation rental is decked out in honor of Barbie’s beau, Ken. It’s available to book for just two nights this summer, July 21 and July 22.
Anyone can request to book the Malibu Dreamhouse for a one-night stay for up to two guests each. While Airbnb says the bookings aren’t a contest, stays are free of charge, aside from taxes and fees. The booking window opens Monday, July 17, at 10 a.m. PT, so be ready to click.
(Top photo courtesy of World of Barbie)
How to maximize your rewards
You want a travel credit card that prioritizes what’s important to you. Here are our picks for the best travel credit cards of 2023, including those best for: