Before I ever set out on this writing adventure, I had two-dozen topics of conversation in mind, enough that one might think I’d have a heck of a time deciding where to begin. I didn’t. Of all the travel secrets I’ve picked up over the years, for a self-planner like me, one stands above all … TripAdvisor is the Do-It-Yourself Travel Agency’s best friend!

When planning time away from home, the most important choice you’ll make, bar none, is where to lay your head each night. Yes, you read that right. For every trip you take, the most critical decision lies not in selecting the destination of your travel, but where you’ll be sleeping once you get there. Now don’t get me wrong; destination is certainly key — Iceland’s no good when you fancy the tropics, and you will, after all, need to know which plane to board at the airport. To be sure, your destination will likely be settled well before you ever begin the trip-planning process. But it’s not the traveler’s most important decision, not by a long shot. No matter where you go (except maybe Vegas), if you can’t get a decent night’s sleep in a clean, comfortable room along the way, you will not have a good time. You might enjoy much of what you do with your days, but you won’t look back on the experience with warmth and fondness down the road. And for some trips (like the resort vacation Christine and I recently took to Fiji), the lodging IS the destination, the very reason for selecting the particular city or island or country for your visit.

For many people, some of them my closest friends, lodging is never an issue. They know precisely where they’re staying every time they leave home — in a Hyatt, or a J.W. Marriott, or a DoubleTree — and this is fine. It’s a perfectly legitimate, and safe, way to travel. But for some of us, particularly me, and particularly when there are more than two travelers involved, those options are unsatisfying at best, and quite often they’re prohibitively expensive. Parents in one double bed and children in another is just fine when the kids still need help going to the bathroom. But when they’re teenagers? And six-feet tall? When mom & dad (or mom & mom, or dad & dad) would really like some time alone? In these moments, the “whole family in a hotel room” thing just doesn’t work. That room becomes two rooms. Double the price. And for a brand-name chain, particularly one in an entertainment mecca like NYC or Chicago or San Francisco, this can be prohibitively expensive. Or, perhaps, in a culture-rich city like New York, where every neighborhood has a distinct personality and its own attractions, the marquees bearing the logos you recognize are simply in the wrong part of town. You’d rather be on the Upper West Side or in Greenwich Village than in East Midtown or (god forbid!) Times Square. Or else, as is the case for some of us, the name brand is simply … unsatisfying. The rooms are too sterile, too generic, too devoid of the charm and culture that attracted us to this destination in the first place.

Sometimes, you just need to be creative in your lodging selection. But as you step away from the familiar, how on earth do you know what you’ll get? In a sea of boutiques, how do you know which one to choose? That, my friend, is where TripAdvisor comes in!

TripAdvisor (or, more appropriately, TripAdvisor.com) is an online travel-planning resource like no other. Set up to help research and book just about every aspect of a travel itinerary (from hotels to flights to restaurants to entertainment), TripAdvisor is particularly useful as a source of open, honest and often cutting insight into the quality of the places to stay. I use a wide variety of resources in searching the universe of available room & board for each trip I plan (more on that another day), but I ALWAYS turn to TripAdvisor — and particularly to the reviews submitted by its users — before zeroing in on a lodging choice.

To illustrate, let’s look at one hotel in particular that hit my radar for an upcoming college visit to NYC. Hotel Belleclaire is a boutique hotel on New York’s Upper West Side, just a short walk from Lincoln Center, that turned up in a search I ran on another favorite site, Quikbook.com (again, more on that another day). Searching only for hotels in certain parts of town, as well as those with quarters large enough to afford my nearly-adult daughter her own sleeping space, I spotted Hotel Belleclaire on the list, sporting a price significantly lower than its peers. Why might this be? What skeletons might lie in the closets? What ghosts might drive me away? Or, on the other hand, what amenities or unheralded qualities might reward me for choosing this place?

TripAdvisor profile for Hotel Belleclaire in NYC’s Upper West Side (click to enlarge)

As you see in the graphic to the right, the TripAdvisor profile for Hotel Belleclaire lists it at 3.5 stars on the luxury scale with an overall rating (from almost 1500 reviewers) of right at four stars (out of five). It also shows that, per TripAdvisor’s review-weighting algorithm, the Belleclaire ranks 200th out of 434 New York hotels in the TripAdvisor database. So, middle of the pack. But what does that mean? How do I make anything of that ranking? I already know the place offers the right type of room in the right part of town at a price that beats just about all others. If I choose this property, how can I have any idea what type of experience I’ll get for my money?

User ratings for the Belleclaire

Cue the user reviews. Notice here that more than two-thirds of all reviewers (over 1000 of them) gave the Belleclaire an “excellent” or “very good” rating. But notice, too, that 58 people had experiences so bad that they gave only one star (“terrible”), and a hundred more rated their experiences as “poor.” Why? What’s the story? What left these people so turned off? THIS is where I always start my investigation … with a quick perusal of the property’s one-star reviews.

In browsing the user comments, I focus on just a few things: (1) What precisely is the reviewer’s complaint (or the compliment, in the case of a good review); (2) is it an issue of any importance to me; (3) what is the date on which the review was written; (4) are there more recent reviews to indicate that the problem (or strength) has disappeared? Quite often, the negative reviews carry the day in nixing an otherwise well-rated hotel — the complaints hint at on-going problems that could ruin my trip, like paper-thin walls, or long-term construction, or space that is more cramped than the gloss led me to believe.

This 1-star reviewer won’t tolerate cabbies who smoke and “loiter”

From time to time, the negative reviews have also been the very things that sealed my decision to STAY at a particular place — such as those I read several years ago, when looking for a romantic weekend getaway without the kids, that lambasted the hotel as being a horrible place for families with small children. (“What? Not a place for children? Yes!!!”)

Here you see one of the “terrible” reviews for Hotel Belleclaire. A one-star rating. What disastrous conditions did the reviewer encounter? Just one … a gaggle of limo and taxi drivers smoking cigarettes on the sidewalk outside the hotel’s entry way. Unsightly? Sure. A deal-breaker for me? Never.

And here’s another of the Belleclaire’s one-star reviews. What did this guest have to say? That the hotel offered “a really great rate for a room in its location.” That the service was “good quality.” That he “really liked the breakfast” and enjoyed the comedy show package booked through the hotel. That his “parents stayed there before and really enjoyed it.” Hmmmm …… So what was the problem? Why such a poor rating? Apparently he “froze” (in January) while getting out of the shower. Um-kay. Cold and shrunken parts are no doubt a source of discomfort and frustration, but enough to keep me away? During an April visit? No way.

Positive reviews often reveal that temporary problems are gone, while some show that many complaints are directed at the destination itself and not the hotel

In addition, quite a few recent reviewers of the Belleclaire complained of remodel construction that made the place loud and unsightly during their stays. A very legitimate concern, and one that perks my ears. That’s where I turn to the positive reviews, particularly the recent ones, to see what the satisfied customers have to say. And there I find this five-star review, written after a visit just six weeks ago: “The lobby renovation is almost completed; the only thing left is the bar. Our room was very nice and clean. The character of the building and the AWESOME location are unbeatable.” Other recent reviews confirm that the remodel is finished, and many challenge the legitimacy of other complaints, such as those about room size (smaller rooms are the norm in NYC) and road noise (some of which is unavoidable in The Big Apple, or in any big city for that matter).

So, despite a fair number of bad reviews and poor ratings, I have found what might be the perfect boutique for our upcoming trip to New York City. The price, location, amenities and positive reviews (which in this case seem much more familiar with NYC as a destination) win the day. And TripAdvisor, once again, has provided all the advice I needed in making my hotel selection.

~ JD

(Cover photo: My son, Philip, descending Mt. Meru, Tanzania, in the glow of early dawn, with the slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro looming in the distance.)