Stuck in Virginia with those hotel blues again
I should have known better. After all, I work for the country’s oldest tour operator. But there I was, on a road trip with the family, 400 miles from home and having a hard time finding a hotel. Me, a “travel professional.”
Up and down Route 95 on the East Coast there are hundreds of hotels, motels and campgrounds where travelers can spend the night. The first place we pulled into looked nice. But the woman behind the front desk, speaking in a sweet southern accent, told us there were no rooms available. I ran into the next hotel and came right out. If the lobby had such a strange smell then the rooms couldn’t have been much better. All the rooms were taken at the following hotel as well. For a long stretch every place we stopped at was either sold out, broken down or just looked a little too iffy to stay in.
Finally, we found a place to lay our heads. And after we paid too much, for a not so nice hotel and were back on the road I was laughing at myself.
This had been a glaring example of the major benefits of booking an escorted tour. Collette’s Product Managers do all the dirty work. They have found the right hotel in the right location. And our Tour Managers are with you, taking care of every last detail. On this day, I sure could have used one by my side.
After the fourth no-go it dawned on me that this is exactly what we mean in our brochure when we say Collette offers “worry-free” travel.
Imagine the challenges of trying to set up a comprehensive tour of Italy, or perhaps a vacation in China or Egypt. You sure wouldn’t want to be standing on a sidewalk in Cairo with no place to sleep.
posted by John Geysen
Collette Vacations
Tags: Hotels, Tour Manager, Traveling Well
