Honestly, I’m a pretty flexible traveler, but I still have my dreams. The following are the things that I look for most when choosing a hotel. Again, they’re not mandatory criteria, just priorities.

1. Free wireless Internet that ALSO works with Macs: I can’t even begin to count the number of times I’ve checked into a hotel with „free wireless Internet“ and when I try to get on the web with my lovely little Macbook, it’s a no-go. I need my email all the time, as well as my free NYTimes. Love that David Brooks. If there’s no free wifi, the hotel had better at least have a business center. And God forbid they try to charge me for that.
2. Location, location, location: I’m not one to want to stay in the middle of tourist lala land. I don’t consider overpriced restaurants a must. All the same, some parts of town, you just don’t want to end up in, especially as a younger, somewhat vertically-challenged woman.
3. Fitness Center: Even if I don’t use it, a fitness center in my hotel makes me feel a little less guilty about that extra round of Kaiserschmarn: “I’ll work it off in my fitness center!” Right. Important though: gotta have the sweat-wipey cloths. Nothing worse than a drippy Treadmill to kill your fitness motivation.
4. Clean Swimming Pool: I’d honestly rather have no pool than the green monsters I’ve experienced in some hotels (see Hotels in LA).
5. Cheerios at Breakfast: I have to admit, it doesn’t matter how bad they are, I always get really excited about the complementary breakfasts. I’m a breakfast person. Muffins, bagels, pancakes….I could it breakfast 3 meals a day every day (see: Fitness Center)
6. Clean: I used to work as a room cleaner in a hotel in Concord, NH to help pay for college. Some guests are just dirty. (Note: Tip your room cleaners well. It’s a brutal line of work).
7. Open Minibars: Not that I ever take anything from the minibar, but sometimes I like to put in my own food or bottled water. It’s also obnoxious when the minibar is locked and you can’t find the key. Case in point: around 2am last March, my boyfriend got food poisoning in our five-star Mexican hotel (“Don’t drink the water,” I told him). Anyway, the minibar was locked with the key nowhere to be found. Obviously the boy needed to drink, so I spent the rest of the night sterilizing water using the in-room coffee pot. Never again.

Hope that helps any of you out there trying to figure out what to look out for in your next hotel. For the rest of you, I hope it was at least mildly interesting, entertaining or maybe even both.

Burj Al Arab Hotel in Dubai

There can only be one…

By which I mean, it’s unusual that there is more than one of the brand-name hotel I check into in any given metropolis (like Hong Kong).

OK, so the Four Seasons Hong Kong offers all kinds of complimentary perks, but I want to know the details – like are the masseuse’s hands big enough. Of course the Rome Hotel in Berlin is luxurious, but does the staff change out every 12 hours?

Here are just a couple of points in checklist form – this is what you need to know if you want to feel like you’re being taken care of and not just put up:

1. Private Concierge/Butler – there’s nothing more annoying than having to deal with constantly-changing personnel.
2. Complete Silence – It is SO annoying when the AC or the Minibar makes noise. That’s a killer-criteria for me – I need it quiet in my room.
3. Pool temperature should be less than 21 degrees Celsius… I want a swim in the mornings, not a warm bath. The WORST is when the pool is less than 15 meters – I’m 1 meter 90… so why would I even bother getting into a 15-meter-long pool?
4. Brand name soap… I let two things touch my skin: water, and quality soaps. Please, no cheap Chinese imports.
5. A decent level of exclusivity amongst the other guests, please. Watch out for luxury hotels which offer package deals to common tourists. That’s always unpleasant. You want hotels where you can network and rely on your network to stay exclusive.
6. Masseuses with really small hands… I’m not kidding, it creeps me out. I can’t help but think of them as some kind of Asian forced laborers.
7. High-end Stereo System – Bang & Olufsen at a minimum. It needs a jack for my iPhone 3GS. And I need an integrated marble shower – not some clunky tub. A decent sink design is necessary, too.

I’ve been in basically all the cities worth going to in the world, and I can tell you from experience it’s not so easy to find a place with just a passable level of class. I mean, is it possible to see it any other way? I don’t think so, do you?

P.S. Don’t forget, you’ll want a hotel with a decent limo service – by which I mean a long Mercedes S-Class or higher. There is one hotel in Dubai where they get it right: the Burj Al Arab. If you’re looking for an excellent butler, I mean they have one. He’s London old-school – they just don’t make them like they used to.