McGarvey’s Words

I apologize for my absence from your computer screen for the past couple of months but a cross-country move from Tucson to Jersey City has occupied me and, in this process, I have learned multiple lessons – mainly about travel where my love affair with the cheap American motel has only deepened, but also about anger management..

First the motels. As the Mayflower van pulled away with our 11,000 pounds of, well, stuff, we climbed in the Subaru and headed cross-country. This road trip covered about 2500 miles and saw us spending four nights in motels – in New Mexico, Oklahoma, Illinois, and Pennsylvania. Most mornings, in the free breakfast rooms, I saw salesmen (always men for some reason) checking their appointments calendars and making last-minute calls to try to line up new meetings. I was bone-frazzled from 10 hour driving days, they were jittery from too much coffee and too many rejections in strange towns, but we were all benefiting from what has got to be the western world’s most wonderful travel bargain: motels that offer clean rooms, hot water, free breakfast buffets, and sometimes even high-speed Internet connection, usually for under $100/night.

The most I spent on any room – always inclusive of free breakfast – was $116.53 and that was in Elk, OK at a Holiday Inn which happened to be hosting a high school sports tournament. Doubtless I could have saved $50 if I’d climbed back into the car and driven to the next exit. But…why? I was tired, the hotel looked remarkably good (it’s an old Holiday Inn but pristine, kind of a museum of oldtime hotel thinking), and the quoted price still was a pittance. I paid, just as I paid $83.39 at a Holiday Inn Express in Lordsburg, NM and $66.35 at a Comfort Suites in Effingham, IL.

In Breezewood PA, I spent $72.89 at a new Holiday Inn Express that also provided free high-speed Internet access! This was a spacious, immaculate room and motel staff were cheerful, congenial, helpful and even a little proud that their motel ranks as one of the best along the Pennsylvania Turnpike. There was a pleasant restaurant a half-block away -- and, next morning, a thick snow started to fall just as we drove out of a town that was becoming very pretty indeed under its white blanket. Look at that price again – under $75. You’d spend that much for a light breakfast for two at a swank Manhattan hotel.

Speaking of which – when forced to camp in a hotel for a week awaiting the Mayflower truck, I put down roots in a Doubletree in Jersey City, NJ. Right in the heart of the town’s gentrifying Gold Coast, the Doubletree cost a good third less than the more publicized Jersey City Hyatt (which, admittedly, has a prime waterfront location – but the Doubletree isn’t more than a block away from the Hudson). Rooms feature a sizable work area as well as a tiny refrigerator. Price tag for seven nights -- $1160.19 and that includes all taxes, high-speed Internet ($10/daily), and parking ($10/daily). What about proximity to restaurants? From the Doubletree you are within an easy walk of very good Italian, Indian, pizza, and an American-style cafe with Guinness on draft. And of course all these places carry Jersey City price tags, not New York's. And in Jersey City you have stunning lower Manhattan views as a freebie.

Why spend more when the value-conscious American hotel business delivers so much for so little, particularly when you flex a little on location?

Here, in this paragraph, there was supposed to be a rant against Verizon's landline operation (the polar opposite of the courteous, professional Verizon wireless folks) -- but another lesson I've learned is that even when a hectic travel schedule has us way over the edge, there's no good in sinking to meanness, even when the too often under-trained, low-paid employees with whom we so frequently deal on the road are themselves mean, surly, stupid. But if I become that in response, who's lost more? So the Verizon rant is deleted -- but just maybe this is a more important thought to ponder because of course for "Verizon" you could easily substitute "Delta" or "Hampton Inn" or "Hertz."

Ah, America, you gotta love it. I am sitting a mile from the Statue of Liberty (which of course you know is in NJ). I walk by her most days, and, certainly, she would keep her chin up when tangling with the unwashed masses who toil in our service sector jobs. Yes she would.

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About Robert McGarvey

Author of How to Dotcom (Entrepreneur Press), and a onetime columnist for BizTravel.com, McGarvey is a frequent contributor to dozens of magazines, ranging from American Legion to Selling Power, American Way, and Rutgers. He has also contributed to Harvard Business Review. For the past five years, he has served as "The Ombudsman" for PORTHOLE Cruise Magazine. Still curious about McGarvey? Read up on him here.

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