Texas – Staying at a Roadside Motel

I’ve learned a lot about traveling over the past 20 years of business travel. One that sticks out in my mind is the difference between “hotel” and “motel.”

If you Google “hotel vs. motel”, this is one of the first things that popped up for me:

Hotels and motels differ in layout and construction. Hotels can contain hundreds of rooms and several floors; they generally have staircases, elevators and internal corridors that lead to the rooms. Motels commonly have a one- or two-floor layout and guests access their rooms directly from the parking lot.

I wish I had known this when I was traveling to Georgetown, Texas. At the time, I was early on in my business travel career and hadn’t really thought about the difference. I flew into Austin late and, instead of driving all the way to Georgetown that night, I had booked a room about halfway between Austin and Georgetown.

When I arrived, red flags fired in my head. The lobby was locked up earlier than I would have expected (I arrived around 11 pm) and the lobby was incredibly dingy. If you watch movies where the person manning the lobby comes wandering from a back room where a TV is blaring its sound, and the guy is eating a horrible looking piece of pizza…. well, that’s what I encountered here!

I was tired though and ready to get to my room. After checking in and getting my key, I drove my car around the side, noticing that all the doors were exterior doors (red flag!). One of the more experienced consultants had told me always to get rooms with interior doors because they’re safer. It was too late now!

I hiked up 2 flights of stairs with my suitcase (no elevator), walked along a walkway that was shielded with bars (RED FLAG!), and found my room. The walkway and motel overlooked a truck stop right next door.

Turning to my door, I was horrified to see a great big slash across the door (OMG RED FLAG!). It was a couple of feet long and angled across the door. I should have stopped right there, gone back to the lobby, and checked out. But no, I was tired and just wanted to sleep. I entered the room and it was a normal motel room. It looked clean and everything seemed to work. I quickly unpacked a few things, got into bed, and turned off the lights. The icing on the cake at this point was that there was about a 2-inch gap at the bottom of the door that I hadn’t noticed before (WTF!).

Looking back on this experience, I should have never booked this in the first place. And there were multiple times where I should have just turned around and found another room elsewhere. The company I worked for was very supportive and vocal that if you stayed in a room where you didn’t feel safe, you should leave and find another room. But this was really the first time this had happened to me and I wasn’t sure what to do. So I stayed the night. I slept for a few hours (listening to the trucks rolling in and out of the truck stop next door) and kept an eye on that huge gap at the bottom of the door.

I survived, I slept, and I made it safely to the customer the next morning. When telling the customer a little about the place I stayed, they were horrified and immediately hooked me up in a much better hotel closer to their location.

Lesson learned… hotel vs. motel can make a big difference! To this day, I have not stayed at that hotel brand again.