
The wisdom of never leaving your hotel room - 80mph
https://popula.com/2019/08/05/the-wisdom-of-never-leaving-your-hotel-room/
======
areoform
When I'm rich enough to afford it, I want to live in a hotel. A beautiful,
luxurious hotel, where I don't have to worry about interior decorating - other
than switching out the bland art for more tasteful pieces. Or cleaning. Or,
keeping the fridge stocked. Or scrounging up healthy food in the morning. Or
getting a good meal at any hour. Or paying the utility bills. Or worrying
about the electrical wiring of my house. Or dealing with water storage in a
drought. Or dealing with water at all. Or dealing with the home owner's
association. Or thinking about home security. Or procuring the subtle
furnishings that make a home a home. Or dealing with hiring the occasional
cleaning lady or service. Or doing home repairs etc etc.

No, I want to outsource all of that.

I want to be able to wake up. Get to work on a dedicated high-speed internet
connection. Yawn a bit. Go down to the lobby in my pajamas. Grab a good
healthy breakfast buffet. Sit down next to the pool. Pull out my Kindle or
iPad, read a textbook or Iain M Banks. Get a work out in by swimming around
after I'm bored. Go back to my workstation in my suite. Do a few emails.
Shower in the gorgeous bathroom. Dress in something comfy. Sit down, get some
serious hours in. Have a keto snack or two brought to me for when I'm peckish.
Go down for dinner. Enjoy the hub hub of people. Go behind the bar (something
no one else can do). Pour myself a small drink. Talk to the chef about what
he's into that night. Have a tiny portion of that for dinner. Go to swim in
the pool again. Go back up, read a book, and then fall asleep.

It's a seamless frictionless lifestyle. And when I have enough money that I
don't have to worry about money. That's what I want. I don't want fancy cars
or planes and stuff — just a life where I can think about the better things in
life.

Having your own house is overrated. I would settle for a good suite at the
Ritz.

~~~
obiefernandez
You can create most of this for yourself at a modest cost in Mexico City, in
fact, it's what I did for the last 2 years. For the cost of my mortgage in
suburban Atlanta, I rented a very large luxury condo in the heart of the
hottest urban neighborhood, including service suite. Earthquake proof
building, with just a few very rich neighbors (including a novella actor and
expensive airbnb). 24/7 security and valet.

For about $600/month, I hired a live-in cook/head of household named Maria.
She handled all the shopping and cooking, including fresh fruit every morning
when I woke up, and a large mid-day meal. She made my bed every morning once I
was up, and reminded me to do things that needed to be done by me.

Maria was only about 6 years older than me, but fit easily into a mom role. A
mom that was never judgmental, and always sweet and accommodating. A true
friend, who I could pour my heart out to if necessary. In the evenings, she
played guitar and sang, which made it easy to forgive her for listening to the
same pop female playlist on youtube almost every day.

For another few hundred per month, I got Denise, who would come in 3 days a
week to handle all the laundry and cleaning, and help with meals and shopping.
I tasked Maria with managing Denise so I didn't have to, including making her
schedule and making sure she was doing what she needed to do.

During those 2 glorious years, during which I worked from home, from the time
I woke up in the morning to the time I went to bed at night, I didn't have to
do anything at all at home other than work or have fun. My meals were
provided. My bed was made. My house was always spotless and sparkling. The
fruit in the morning was always fresh, and the food in the afternoon was
always delicious.

I'm constantly surprised that more people in my kind of position don't
relocate to Mexico.

After a couple years I got fed up with the pollution and decided to do the
digital nomad thing for awhile, which is why I've been in Europe all summer
and headed to Bali and China in the fall.

~~~
mandeepj
> I'm constantly surprised that more people in my kind of position don't
> relocate to Mexico

> After a couple years I got fed up with the pollution

You addressed your surprise

~~~
cgag
Not everywhere in Mexico or everywhere cheap is polluted. I don't even think
most Americans know that Mexico City has a lot of pollution. That's definitely
not the reason.

------
Arete314159
Some people are saying that this sounds like a parody. It's not. I totally
understand where the author is coming from. Also, bear in mind that he is a
writer, and writers need very specific things to function. Many writers do
great work in hotel rooms. JK Rowling famously checked into a hotel room to
finish Harry Potter. Maya Angelou used to check into hotel rooms for weeks at
a time to finish her books. There is something very helpful about removing all
of the known objects of your life, each with its own history in your brain,
and replacing the functions (bed, desk, bathroom) while clearing out the
connotations. Now you can focus on your interior story without having it
compete with the running to-do list that, say, seeing your drippy faucet might
spark.

~~~
perl4ever
"Writers in hotel rooms" makes me think ineluctably of Barton Fink. And The
Shining.

------
surfsvammel
I actually do this once a years. Inspired by John Carmack. I leave my kids and
wife at home—or wherever they want to spend that particular weekend—and lock
myself into a hotel room. I bring food, my own coffee grinder and a laptop and
just spend the whole weekend programming, playing chess, read or write.

It’s the best weekend of the year and I spend the rest of the year looking
forward to it.

~~~
pablasso
Where can I read more about this Carmack?

~~~
GuiA
If you can post on HN you can surely use Google/Wikipedia :)

The particular anecdote GP is referring to is here though:

[https://m.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=211040872252...](https://m.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=2110408722526967&id=100006735798590)

HN discussion:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16518726](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16518726)

------
gregoriol
It seems to me that the person who wrote this article might be too much tired
and not in a good healthy environment in their everyday life: that would
explain why they enjoy the calm and order of an hotel room, they don't have
"free" space in their mind to discover new stuff, they just need to rest and
quietness... This is a bit sad.

~~~
gregoriol
Also snacking all the time just to stay awake is so NOT healthy

~~~
scotty79
That was surely joking exaggeration.

------
devit
On the opposite side, I wish there was an efficient hotel market for people
like me who don't care at all about the aesthetics or size of the hotel room,
room service or amenities but do care about having a single room, pitch black
and silent during the day, and with a comfortable bed.

~~~
ravenstine
Motel 6?

~~~
devit
Generally most hotels fail on the pitch black during the day requirement
because they only have curtains (only roller shutters, aluminum foil on the
window or having no window can block all light), they aren't very good at
being silent (no soundproofing, room service with carts at morning, road in
front without properly insulated windows, etc.) and you generally don't get an
high-quality mattress and bed unless you go for an high-end hotel (with lots
of useless amenities) and often the bed is not even acceptable (too small, no
wood foundation, bad mattress, sheets that aren't big enough to always stay
tucked in, or even sheets that can't be tucked in at all).

~~~
kweinber
You might be interested in checking yourself and a bed into a storage
facility. It fits your requirements perfectly.

~~~
noodlesUK
I don’t know if this is a serious suggestion, but I’m quite confident you
can’t just live in a storage space in most parts of the developed world, it’s
definitely not legal.

------
dijit
I guess the author and I are polar opposites. I detest light drenched streets
and much prefer controlled spats of nature that you see in cities.

I also prefer things being dimly lit, with many low luminance lights scattered
around.

However I do prefer sticking around my hotel room rather than spending a lot
of energy being in public. Navigating crowds drains me emotionally and I
usually need time to recover from a vacation.

Conversely I don’t like being the “lazy” type of tourist that just stays on
the beach and eats. But that’s my personal prejudice. :/

------
maltelandwehr
„I find this city too full of nature and open spaces“

I feel kinda sad for the author. How can one come up with a concept line that?

~~~
phendrenad2
I'm also perplexed by it, but to instinctively assume that your perspective is
better makes me sad for you. </irony>

~~~
phendrenad2
Ahh too bad I can't delete comments after N minutes. I always feel bad when
one of my comments gets downvoted, and I realize it was unnecessarily hostile
and/or vapid. Maybe I need to make a Hacker News proxy which lets me post
things and then change my mind later...

------
petercooper
I enjoyed this! It's the first time I recall reading an article about travel
that obsessed over the local neighborhood of the hotel (including the hotel
itself) rather than jetting here and there across the wider city.

I find so many delights in becoming familiar with a single building and its
surrounding mere few blocks, with their quirks, people, shops, and eateries,
than to hop around all of the busy "top" attractions. This has huge benefits
if you tend to visit smaller cities too, as you are less likely to get bored
if you engage in tourism "in the small" and don't need or want large
attractions or spectaculars to satisfy you.

Being autistic and generally obsessed about the details of things rather than
the big picture may have a huge role in my thinking, though. Clearly the
majority _do_ want to hit all of the attractions, and that's okay! :-)

Only vaguely related, John Carmack also seemed to make a habit of going on
work-trips to hotels. You can read about it in his famous .plan files. He
would drag a workstation to a hotel a reasonable distance from home and work
for a weekend or an entire week without distraction.

------
epx
It is a bit extreme but it is a valid counterpoint to vacations where people
plan to visit 65535 places per day

~~~
human20190310
I was prepared to disagree with the idea after reading the title, but the
author makes a pretty good case in the article.

------
esotericn
It's always interesting how people differ.

I pretty much have this experience. I mean, I don't indulge in most of the
luxuries, I usually go for lower end places like Airbnb, but I don't really
have to, at least not in the medium term, it's just a personal preference
because I don't like having servants.

I've discovered, over the last few years, that I need some sort of struggle to
get out of bed in the morning. Yeah, there are programming projects, I can
learn a new (spoken) language, etc, but ultimately, because it's kind of
'unforced', it doesn't give me the same level of drive.

What I actually want, and am working towards, is a stable home, on a bit of
land that's mine, that I have dominion over. Gardening, building small
structures, working on the house, learning how to provide shelter for myself
basically.

I actively don't want everything to be done for me. I think the ultimate
limiting case of that is basically to be wired in to an IV drip, with a VR
headset or something, and just wither away into nothing.

In the grand scheme of things it's no more or less pointless than anything we
do, but it doesn't sit right with me.

------
coldtea
> _Like any great invention, I stumbled upon the idea of the hotel-room
> vacation by accident, nine years ago, after Toony and I arrived in Chania,
> Crete, for our honeymoon. The “magical Venetian town” I’d read of in a
> British travel magazine turned out to be a maze of souvenir shops, Irish
> pubs, and “authentic” Greek tavernas, so described on the doors and menus.
> Our hotel room, though, was amazing._

Souvenir shops and Irish pubs aside, Chania is indeed a "magical Venetian
town", that can enchant even Greeks (who're used to all the tourist hoopla).
There are also plenty of really authentic Greek tavernas if one looks beyond
the tourist strip. And there's a whole island, of great beauty, and tons of
places untouched by tourism all around.

The rest of the article (which has its merits) aside, that the author
preferred their hotel room tells us more about them, than about the place...

Some people can find authentic places even in Las Vegas or Times square, and
some people wouldn't know authentic if they were hit on the head with it...

------
dorfsmay
This reminds an article I read years ago about airport blues, explaining that
you are baby-sat the minute you step in the airport (more so back then when
you had to to talk to humans to check in), guide to your gate, have
restaurants and shops right there, welcomed on the plane, served food, told
where you are and when you'll arrive regularly, etc... But the minute you
land, they want you out of the plane and there's nobody anywhere to even
answer basic questions, your all alone and better hope there are signs to the
luggage carousel.

------
mxwsn
The little charms of everyday life are what I find most interesting about
staying in a different country. I would find a hotel room too anonymous
though, too stifling. I'd recommend Airbnb instead, which forces one to
participate in the local neighborhood a bit more. This past summer I spent a
couple weeks working out of an Airbnb in Paris. The room had a modest
collection of art selected by the local owners, and I quickly acquainted
myself with a local patisserie for a daily almond croissant and cappuccino.

~~~
archagon
As a kid, I would go on vacations with my parents and wonder about the lives
of people who lived in all the strange little houses around Europe. As an
adult, I was fortunate enough to actually find out through a year of Airbnb
hopping. Best travel experience of my life!

Hotels are time and culture frozen. I don’t think I’d ever want to stay in one
again.

------
nilkn
My partner and I have went on several trips where we spent a good chunk of
time in the hotel room. For those skeptical, I recommend trying it before
knocking it too hard.

We decided to try it when we realized that whenever we traveled, we’d
sometimes stay in a hotel that offered so much but we’d completely ignore all
of that in order to be outside in the city. We thought it would be interesting
to take a trip where we planned nothing and didn’t even particularly care
about the destination except the hotel. It turned out to be incredibly
relaxing. It’s not really a replacement for a normal trip, but a new variation
that I totally recommend on occasion.

It’s actually great for working some too, which obviously goes against the
norm for vacations.

~~~
criddell
You might like a cruise.

~~~
techsupporter
But the hotel stay comes without being terribly bad for the environment and
(some of the) negative worker conditions.

------
graeme
Cgp grey does this, he talks about it occasionally on the Cortex podcast.

I've frequently done a version of travel working. I find it best for writing,
though it could serve to work on a single project as well.

I usually choose an airbnb though, and while I do get outside a lot, it's
often more the neighbourhood trips the author mentions. I find it deeply
satisfying to get a brief glimpse of daily life in a foreign country that way.

My most productive times have been in cuba, where their local airbnb
equivalent ("casas particulares") includes the option to buy breakfast and
dinner. So you effectively have zero daily chores or maintenance or commute
and effective have 2-3 hours freed up in a day.

------
Ayesh
I'm a full-time freelancer and I travel for about 8 months every year. I can
relate to the mindset of the author.

As much as we like to _think_ of working at a beach or next to a waterfall,
it's not really that practical. Sometimes the wifi doesn't work in the coffee
shop, the coffeeshop is busy and loud, or you don't have a power supply to
work more than a couple hours.

For me, the sweet spot is staying longer in every place I go. I sometimes take
multi-day hikes and forget about my work. I come back, order food delivered,
and get my work done at the comfort of a hotel room with good chairs and
tables. I can focus more, I am more productive, and it feels better knowing
that your next adventure is just a few days away.

"Never" leaving the hotel room is a strong word, and I think everyone doing it
should take some time to hit a nearby local restaurant, a pub, or take a walk
at the beach for some fresh air.

------
ikeboy
[https://popula.com/2018/08/08/honestly-yonatan-raz-
portugali...](https://popula.com/2018/08/08/honestly-yonatan-raz-portugali-
kinda-does-a-shitload-really-in-one-day/) looking through previous posts by
the same author

~~~
codazoda
This blog post reads like a public journal. It's kinda interesting. I wonder
if any of his posts were meant for such a large audience. Yet, they seem to
be, as he requires some Bitcoin for comments.

~~~
groundlogic
This is what "blogging" used to be like 15-20 years ago. I liked it.

------
gameshot911
Sounds delightful. After years of staying in Marriott chains for work trips, I
wasn't even aware hotels lkke these existed.

Anyone have suggestions for locating hotels like the ones in the article? I'm
not even sure how I would find one out of the hundreds that'd show up on any
city hotel search query.

~~~
telesilla
Check the 'boutique' hotel option in the hotel search engines, it will show
you the non-chain, non-corporate hotels.

------
c17r
> Each comment costs a little ETH cryptocurrency to post

First time I’ve seen something like this. I wonder if it drastically cuts down
on comments made, which could be a good thing.

~~~
_Microft
It reminded me of Amazon. They noticed that even the smallest amount of
shipping fee, in the order of a few cents, made people order less than when
shipping was completely free.

------
Ftuuky
"The places I find ideal to encamp at are the luxury hotels of yesteryear,
built around the end of the 19th century for train travelers, shabby and
dated, thinly staffed and clinging on mainly through inertia. They are easy to
find, just search TripAdvisor reviews with the words “needs urgent
renovation!” Another sure sign of a Once-Grand Old Hotel is that the bathroom
is larger than the main room. This architectural choice encourages repeated
baths, which also help in the battle to stay awake."

Exactly my "strategy"! They usually also have nice underrated views from their
balconies.

------
0n34n7
Im sitting here in a hotel room in Leipzig for the past week and can totally
relate.

~~~
whitepoplar
How's Leipzig? I've been meaning to visit for ages, for reasons I'm still
unsure.

~~~
jhbadger
If you are into Bach at all, it is a must see. There's a museum, the church
where he worked and his tomb. Also a Mendelssohn museum. And a preserved Stasi
headquarters if you haven't seen one elsewhere in the former GDR.

~~~
whitepoplar
Thanks, good to know!

------
groundlogic
Berlin is really spread out. I agree on that part. It's like a complex of
cities rather than a city.

I can see the virtue of that as a resident but as a visitor/sightseer it's
annoying.

------
cosmic_ape
Staying in a hotel room and not going outside... But also telling other people
that you are someone else, as he mentions doing. I can understand the phase, a
kind of complete isolation. Not sure it should be instead, rather that in
addition to, other kinds of activities.

I can relate to room service being annoying. Though leaving "do not disturb"
on the door usually works, even for 5-6 days in a row. They do not knock when
they see that. Just pester you at the corridors if you pass by.

~~~
tomatocracy
They’ll call you in my experience after a couple of days to check if you want
the room cleaned. Especially if it’s an electronic sign, people tend to leave
it on by accident for longer than they meant to.

------
croisillon
Constant snacking is also my solution to not fall asleep while driving long
distances.

------
eaenki
This article is the weirdest shit I ever read. I would rather jump off a cliff
than do what’s described there- not an exaggeration. Dude!

~~~
sterileopinions
Please don't make light of suicide to display your confusion with the article.

It's not constructive and it's pretty juvenile.

~~~
huhtenberg
It's a common figure of speech that conveys an established sentiment. Don't
nitpick on trivialities.

It's not constructive and it's pretty juvenile.

~~~
sterileopinions
>It's a common figure of speech

Only for certain audiences of a particular age group.

It's not globally common. It's commonality doesn't remove the other
characteristics of it which ruins the entire point of drawing attention to how
often it's used.

Please don't be disingenuous when the conversation needs to be more
constructive in the first place.

------
eternalban
I recommend Chelsea Hotel (nyc) for a pretty vacant vacation. It's not exactly
Hotel California -- some manage to leave -- but it is pretty close.

------
MrBuddyCasino
This site reliably crashes my iOS browser. Anyone else?

~~~
leoh
Same -- iOS in both Safari and Chrome

------
Wowfunhappy
> My confinement caused me to enjoy Berlin for the first time: not going out
> into it, I couldn’t be disappointed, frustrated or cheated. From the hotel
> room, the city seemed so full of potential for adventure. Through the
> window, everything looked so interesting!

Full of potential for adventures _you 'll never have_. What good is potential
if you never act on it? Just stay at home and replace your real window with a
TV screen.

I'm clearly not the right audience for this—but I don't get it.

------
plouffy
Sounds dreadful. I don't think I've ever heard someone complain about green
spaces in a city before:

"I find this city too full of nature and open spaces, too vast for a long city
walk, and way too dark at night"

I would not like to meet this person.

~~~
criddell
I love meeting people that see the world in an entirely different way than me.

------
tramadol12
I believe one big benefit of the hotel is the lack of items in the room
compared to the average house. I keep a room in my house completely empty
(save some yoga matts and fitness balls) and it does wonders for stress
relief.

------
titzer
I'll be downvoted for this, but this is so astoundingly tonedeaf and entitled
I have trouble finding words. Fly around the world to lounge in a room all
day. In a world of climate crises, most of which arise from overconsumption
and CO2 emissions at all time highs, we need fewer people doing this. Please,
just stay home. Or at the very least, find a hotel in your area and pretend.

~~~
sunkenvicar
He’s the most efficient tourist I’ve come across.

