Wow. Some stories. Out of the country, I've gathered a few of my own.
Like the time in a coastal Venezuelan town that only had one place to stay.(Most visitors had a home there) The shower head was long gone, the pipe had rusted away. I looked at the bathroom mirror and it had "fringe" around the outside of it. The antennae of all of the roaches behind it. We stayed, as there was no way that we were taking the long drive through the rain forest again to seek something a little better.
In this country, one of the worst was a well known, supposedly higher end grade chain place outside of Philly. Some substantial genetic material on the blanket, right up where the top sheet folds over. How the maid didn't notice that, is beyond me. Just what we needed after a long drive/day for a family funeral.

First year I went to west central S. Dakota with a group of 5 other guys to prairie dog hunt. 4 of us were were active LE & between us we had enough guns & ammo to start or end a small revolution. (This was a second trip for the other guys.) We stayed at a "motel" in a little Native American Reservation town that consisted of 2 trailers placed end on end with 3 rooms in each trailer. Each room had 2 single beds with 6 inches of space on each side. There was only 1 working light bulb in the room and the a/c wasn't working when we arrived. The next day I took the completely plugged up filter out and flushed about a pound of dirt out in the shower. The shower was round and just slightly larger than a hot water heater, (of which there was none). (If you dropped your soap, you literally had to get out of the shower to pick it up.) The little town had 2 bars, a school, a gas station/pizza/chicken shop, Reservation medical co-op, grocery store, Rodeo arena and a Fantastic little diner.
Upon our late night arrival at the "motel", (we drove 22+ hrs straight thru from OH) we moved all our rifles and luggage into our cramped rooms and collapsed immediately to an exhausted sleep of the dead. A couple hours later, my roommate and I were immediately awakened to someone cussing and banging on the door then forcing the door to the room open. To this day I don't know how we both kept from shooting the guy that forced his way into the room, as both of us rolled out of our beds simultaneously with our edc pistols in hand pointed directly COM. A couple of things quickly became apparent, the intruder was highly intoxicated, he was actually entering the wrong room and the locks on the doors were just there for decoration.
Unfortunately this "motel" was the only place we knew about for almost 60+ miles and it was close to our hunting area. We wound up staying at this "motel" for a couple more years during our annual trips until the place finally collapsed in on itself.
I've slept in pop up travel trailers that were like the Trump Tower compared to this "motel".

In a Hyatt hotel now, on another surgery "vacation", pre-op Covid19 nose stab completed. Immaculate property, and friendly staff attentive to our needs. Would definitely stay here again.
Our "view" is 18 Lanes of highway outside our room window.


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Slava Ukraini!

I travel a lot for work in Texas and NM small towns. Mostly IHG and Hilton, hotels chains are only as good as the franchisee.

My first "odd" hotel experience was in 1974-75, when my parents took me to visit Duke University when I was checking out colleges. We stayed at the Ramada in Durham, and the dormer over the door was riddled with bullet holes.

During my teaching career, with the exception of school sponsored trips, all of my hotel stays were linked to traveling to Camp Perry, where I either stayed in a PW but of barracks. Those were usually Econo Lodges or Comfort Inns, and they were clean and serviceable.

Since retiring and becoming disabled, most of my hotel/motel stays have been linked with pistol matches. Last year when I was at the Sig Academy for the Adaptive Defensive Shooting Summit, I stayed at a "Patel Hotel" in Kittery, and the cabin was nice. Last year I stayed at a Model 6 in Seaford Delaware, and that stay tried to redefine "Spartan". Last month I went to a Glock match in SW Virginia, and the Model 6 had amateurish repairs from a door frame that looked like it had been kicked in. This past weekend I was in Gadsden Alabama for the Annual Glock Match, and the Rodeway Inn was quite pleasing. Unfortunately I have to go the economy route being on pension and disability, cheap/affordable mandates not much more than $50 a night, less is even better!

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Judge control not gun control!

My son and a friend went to Las Vegas to watch a couple games of spring training..they stayed at what appeared to be a very nice motel with security and a gated entrance. Everything looked great on their website, so they booked a room for two nights. As they were taking their luggage to their room, they were approached by a couple of rough looking characters wanting to know if the wanted some drugs. That should have been the first sign to get out of there but they went into their room..the two gentlemen were just outside the door shooting up. They went into the room and found the bathroom door hanging by one hinge. They paid several hundred for two nights. Good lesson learned. My son told me later he was surprised there wasn’t a chalk outline of a body on the carpet.

...they were clean and reliable (even though they were all pretty dirty. The standards have dropped.

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

I traveled a lot on business, pre retirement. Had some terrible hotels in Russia and some South American towns. And had a lot of hookers calling and knocking on the room door. These were in small towns, not big cities. Here in the states, I’ve rarely had an issue.