8 ms·

‘No Vacancy’ Signs Are Vanishing from America’s Highways

87 points by spking 10y ago

coldcode 10y ago
The average US hotel is 70% full for tonight, the only night that matters. Not sure why people put these signs up other than maybe bringing people in with more neon.
- Johnny555 10y ago
  But people don't stay in the "average hotel", they stay in the hotel wherever they happen to be, and that area may have low vacancy due to seasonal demand or special events. Though I haven't just pulled into a random hotel in years, I look up hotels on my smartphone so I can not only look at vacancy but also ratings.
- pessimizer 10y ago
  So are you trying to say that tonight 7 out of 10 hotels are completely full and 3 out of 10 are completely empty, or any of an infinite range of other things?
  - krallja 10y ago
    It's not infinite. There are a discrete number of rooms available in the world, and the number of permutations is therefore finite.
codazoda 10y ago
I've never been able to find a room last minute by stopping in a hotel and asking to stay the night. They always say they're full.
- jbuzbee 10y ago
  Huh - I've done that tons of times. Out in rural Australian and even at a castle in Germany using part of my three-word German vocabulary - "Zimmer?"
- mikestew 10y ago
  I'd be curious to know the difference between your experience and mine. U. S. here, and its rare that a motel turns me away. Now, there are several distinguishing characteristics of my travel. First, mostly by motorcycle, and second is that because I'm on the bike I'm probably in some out-of-the-way place and not downtown SF. My mode of travel is important, I think, because sometimes I think they feel sorry for me (especially when my wife's with me). Who wants to turn away a biker when it's 10C and pissing rain? (Never mind that I'm perfectly content to put my tent up if I don't find a room.) Anyway, I'll bet I'm turned away from ad hoc hotel stops 10% of the time at most.
  - krisroadruck 10y ago
    Same. I do multi day trips up and down both coasts as well as cross country trips. I generally drive until I'm tired then let the gps find me a hotel along my route. I've never tried to book ahead and never had any problems with the drop in. If a place is full (rare) I drive another 20 minutes down my route and do that one. Easy peasy and I travel by car.
  - Grishnakh 10y ago
    >(Never mind that I'm perfectly content to put my tent up if I don't find a room.) Just curious: where exactly do you pitch a tent in a situation like that? It doesn't seem like it's that easy to find some open ground where some cop won't harass you for trespassing or something.
    - mikestew 10y ago
      There are several phone apps that will tell you where the campgrounds are. Personally, I've never tried to camp where I'm not allowed (I don't count sleeping on a picnic table at a rest stop). One can often (usually?) find a campground either actually in town, or a few miles down the road. To my knowledge, I've never been turned away with a tent; there's always a 10x10' spot of grass to rent me. Alternatively, if you're in a U. S. National Forest and can find a spot off the road, you can camp anywhere you want. It's how we do the majority of our camping in our VW Westfalia, where in Washington there are a plethora of spots 90 minutes from our house (no, I'm not telling <g>). But that's for my mode of travel, which is usually off the beaten path. If you're looking for a place to stay in SF during WWDC, my advice will do you no good. OTOH, I rode to a conference in San Diego, had some room trouble and found a campground smack in the middle of SD a few miles from the hotel. So, I dunno, there might even be a campground in SOMA I don't know about. :-) (EDIT: curiosity got me: there's one out by Candlestick Recreation Area, if you don't mind paying $89/night!)
- shawndellysse 10y ago
  In the last year and a half, I've driven the Baltimore <=> San Diego route three times, and I've never planned ahead for a motel room, nor have I had a problem getting a room. Maybe I was lucky.
  - hammock 10y ago
    Wow. What causes you to have to drive so much?
  - pavel_lishin 10y ago
    I've done the Dallas, TX -> New York drive twice over the past six years, and we've never pre-booked anything either. Maybe my traveling companions and I never seemed like the "100% trouble" type like cgvgffyv suspects.
- planteen 10y ago
  Interesting. I rarely have a reservation when driving on a multi day trip. Instead, I use the fact that it's already late as leverage to get a lower rate. I'm about 50/50 on getting that to work. I'm not the best sales person, so I bet someone who is more persistent would be more successful. I have the best luck when the hotel clerk is younger. I tend to drive mostly in the western US, specifically Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, the Dakotas, or Nebraska. Where are you trying it?
  - rbritton 10y ago
    There's an industry term for that. It's called the Fade Rate, and it's offered at a large portion of hotels if you arrive very late and ask about it.
    - sandworm101 10y ago
      Fade rates, or manager's rates, are becoming a problem. Some big online booking schemes require "best available rates" be given to online bookings. Ad-hoc discounts to late night walk-ins are thought a violation of that agreement unless they are also made available to the online scheme. A manager's ability to turn away horrible bookings is also undermined. That group of drunken fratboys have now booked through a smartphone app. Try to pull the "we are overbooked" routine with them and you will be downrated very quickly, likely triggering action from your chain. A while back I read a fun article about how online booking contracts were "unchristian". The christmas story sees a hotel manager make available a sub-standard room at a discount rate to a desperate walk-in family. Do that today and travelocity will be on your back about not publishing that "best rate" online.
      - thaumasiotes 10y ago
        > A manager's ability to turn away horrible bookings is also undermined. That group of drunken fratboys have now booked through a smartphone app. Try to pull the "we are overbooked" routine with them and you will be downrated very quickly, likely triggering action from your chain. Why not go with "we don't want you here", instead of something they know is a lie?
- cgvgffyv 10y ago
  I used to work at a hotel. 100% of late-night bookings meant trouble in one way or another.
  - protomyth 10y ago
    Was the place you worked at within sight of the interstate / highway?
  - gozur88 10y ago
    Really? As a younger man, with more stamina and less money, I'd drive as far as possible each day and check in very late, crash for seven or eight hours, tidy up the room, check out, and go. Can't imagine the hotel people weren't thrilled to have that kind of guest.
- enraged_camel 10y ago
  I'm the opposite: I can always find a room last minute. It has reached a point where I started to suspect hotels leave at least one room unbooked so that they can charge last-minute bookers through the nose for it.
- bsder 10y ago
  Yeah, I always try to book by 6-7PM. Booking at 11PM generally winds up with a lot of failure. The problem when I'm booking hotels is that: 1) I'm driving a long distance west of the Mississippi, and the stop points are very discrete and far between--so everybody wants to stop at the same point. For example, Austin to San Diego--El Paso is a bit short for the first day, so you go to Las Cruces which is a lot smaller and more likely to have fully booked up. 2) I'm doing a tourist thing which puts me in with a lot of other people.
closeparen 10y ago
It's a shame because how far you will get in a day of driving is not exactly set in stone. If you're alert and in the zone, you may wish to go farther than the hotel you booked. If you've hit bad weather, traffic, etc. then the hotel you booked couple be a couple hundred miles past when you'd prefer to stop driving for the night. It's really nice to be able to stop when you feel like it.
- Belenus 10y ago
  And even if you spend half your energy and three-quarters your fuel the whole day, there's no chance that the inn you planned to stay at is vacant.
- Retric 10y ago
  Making a booking at ~4-6pm for that night works just fine. I have even made a few bookings at like 11pm. A phone call while getting food / gas is more convent than driving somewhere. Now, you might pay more that way, but outside of city's hotel rooms are really cheap.
Belenus 10y ago
Soon, most likely, even overbooking will vanish. There might be apps that actually see if an inn or motel is actually vacant. Most likely.
Spooky23 10y ago
My parents used to do this all if the time. Sometime in the late 90s, many hotels started using drop in guests as people to be hustled. These days, you're better off finding a way to get "status" from a chain so you can cancel without penalty and book a bunch of rooms. Our last road trip, I booked 4 rooms over 300 miles and cancelled in the afternoon before stopping in.
- gist 10y ago
  > many hotels started using drop in guests as people to be hustled It all depends on the approach. Instead of saying "do you have any rooms available?" you could just say "I only have $AMOUNT and quite frankly I'd rather stay here than at my old Uncle's place down the road" (or a variation of which indicates 'price does not matter'. [1] Disclosure: I am somewhat of a paid professional negotiator so techniques like this may not work if not done properly or in every context. [1] In another business you'd be surprised at how many people simply say 'can you do any better' (which means 'you have the sale') rather even 'wow that's to high... a competitor will do it for $AMOUNT can you match that?' Edit: Emphasis on a convincing use of 'wow!'.
  - SuperPaintMan 10y ago
    Hotel FD/Auditor here, we get to deal with all sorts of backflips for lower rates late at night. We used to have rates as low as employee pricing but these were being abused and had all sorts walking in over making proper reservations. I don't negotiate, or match. Quite frankly I don't give two shits what rooms at Motel 6 are supposedly going for. If it's past AAA you're not getting it. >Our last road trip, I booked 4 rooms over 300 miles and cancelled in the afternoon before stopping in. Oh, you're /that/ guy.
    - op00to 10y ago
      Yup, the guy adhering to hotel policy.
    - Spooky23 10y ago
      > Oh, you're /that/ guy. I'm following the rules. Its obnoxious behavior, but what am I supposed to do? If I arrive late, the hotel will happily give my room to the platinum member who rolls in or some random person, and leave my family stuck in the room designed for wheelchair bound chain smokers with pets suffering from shedding disorders. If I book same day, the $99 motel turns into a $139 hotel. If I just show up, I roll the dice.
reidacdc 10y ago
I did the Chicago to San Francisco (and back) run fairly regularly in the 1990s, and we didn't depend on vacancy signs. Our solution was basically brand loyalty -- the Motel 6 people published a book with addresses and phone numbers of all their motels in the US. The scheme is, you get on the road, and some time around 7pm, you stop for dinner, and make a reservation (from the payphone) at the Motel 6 that's about 100 miles ahead, and off you go. The only time it didn't work well was one time when there was a large event in Cheyenne, Wyoming (I think it was the world square-dancing championship, but my memory is uncertain), and we couldn't get a room for love or money. We pushed on to Laramie, which was a little dangerous given how long we'd been at it, but it worked out OK.
- raverbashing 10y ago
  Looks like an Adventure. How long did it take you each way? 3 days? 12h/day (and something like 500Mi per day?)
  - reidacdc 10y ago
    Yes, about three days. We didn't stop for much, really just gas and dinner, so you can do 10-11 hr days and also get some sleep.
- Symbiote 10y ago
  I travelled that route (and back) with my parents a couple of times around the same time, as tourists. I think I was 13 the first time, and 15 the second time. Although we had a mobile phone, we didn't phone ahead, we simply turned up somewhere. Perhaps once we had to drive further than we wanted (until midnight or so), and a couple of times I think the cost was a little higher than we wanted, but considering this was a family of 5 it worked out nicely. My parents found some interesting places, too. I've not met anyone else that's been to see the Mitchell Corn Palace. (I've only met a few Americans who've seen as much of their own country as I have, which is a pity.)
  - selimthegrim 10y ago
throwaway98237 10y ago
Last summer I bought a motorcycle in Duluth, MN and rode it down to Austin, TX (ok, well, to Oklahoma City from where it hitched a ride in a U-Haul, hey it's a road trip and it was a used bike off Craigslist). I was mostly unplugged apart from the maps app (which is not how I plan on doing it next time, next time I plan on having physical maps, maps that can't die on you, move to an irrelevant portion of the trip, or otherwise randomly turn from a navigation device to a screen saver). "No Vacancy" signs were absolutely welcomed sights. They also just made it all the more visceral. Could I have pulled over, opened an app, and reserved a room online in less time and perhaps at a lower price, absolutely. Then, I could have followed the "map's" directions directly to this place and called it a day. Instead, I had to keep my eyes peeled, take in the city, maybe figure out where the main drag was. We need to stop pushing efficiency and start making space for discovery. My trip down the middle of our country, that deep red cut of Trump support, I got to see it all. I was a Hillary voter, but, can honestly say I understand a bit of the reasons those states went the way they did. Riding an old motorcycle through the heart of our country, and then using an app to make my hotel reservation, or staying at some cookie cutter hotel instead of the local places I chose, that'd just have been a non-sequitur. I might as well not even have made the trip. I would have missed the camp grounds, the fellow motorcyclists helping me with engine trouble, the welder that fixed my chassis, finding out that Nebraska is basically one big corn field, the super-hero of a motel clerk that let me sleep at the indoor pool when i showed up at 1am soaked and freezing and there were actually zero rooms left in the small town, the motorcycle club (shout-out to the Amber, OK Outsiders!) that put me up for a very drunk night after electrical issues, and the many other folks I met. But I didn't. It was awesome.
- MAGZine 10y ago
  I've found navigating by sign much easier by any sign anyhow. Maps can break down at the most critical points: multiple exits happening in quick succession, exits followed by forks, the GPS reading you the entire sign contents which just serves as a distraction more than anything, etc. Not to mention now there is a screen you have to pay attention to! If you know where you're going and the general route to get there (i.e. which highway to get onto), following by sign is much easier. Cities are exceptionally well marked. It's a low-tech solution that just works. And yes, no worries about the signs dying or losing signal or crashing.
jordache 10y ago
wow author really reaching here.. How's the no vacancy sign any different than the Open/Close sign at the front of every business front? "First, some quick historical context. It’s not clear who came up with the ingeniously simple pairing of “Vacancy” and “No Vacancy,” which allows the motel operator to simply toggle the “No” on or off, but it was probably sometime in the 1930s or before. "
- blacksmith_tb 10y ago
  Well, I agree that it exaggerates the importance of the (No) Vacancy sign, but it is different in precisely the sense the author is talking about - you have an on/off switch for NO, and another for VACANCY. While presumably no one wants or needs to turn on OPEN and CLOSED simultaneously.
  - jordache 10y ago
    Open+CLOSED doesn't me anything. NO+VACATION = there are no more rooms available.
nickthemagicman 10y ago
This is powerful metaphor for me. Before cell phones you were truly disconnected from life if you took a road trip. Primitive technology like this and talking to people was the only way to really find out about your surroundings. You were pretty isolated.
jtfairbank 10y ago
I just sleep in my car in walmart parking lots. Saves money, and there's almost always a walmart within a reasonable distance.
PhasmaFelis 10y ago
> “The chains [...] want you to walk in not knowing whether a room is available. So if they’re full, they can send you to another one of their properties in the vicinity and keep the business in-house. It’s a strategic decision.” In addition, Rogers said, omitting vacancy indicators allows for overbooking (“If it’s late and you’re fully booked, but someone with a reservation hasn’t shown up, you can sell the same room twice”) and gives managers wiggle room when sizing up questionable customers. [...] “Without the sign, you can just say, ‘Sorry, we’re full,’ even if you’re not.” It's weird to me how blasé Rogers and the article writer are about this abusive, anti-customer behavior.
debt 10y ago
"If people come in asking for a room, and you think they look like trouble—rowdy college students, say—if you have ‘Vacancy’ out there, you’re kind of obligated to give them a room,” to put it another way, the "no vacancy" sign makes it more difficult to discriminate

87 points by spking 10y ago

The average US hotel is 70% full for tonight, the only night that matters. Not sure why people put these signs up other than maybe bringing people in with more neon.

Johnny555 10y ago
But people don't stay in the "average hotel", they stay in the hotel wherever they happen to be, and that area may have low vacancy due to seasonal demand or special events. Though I haven't just pulled into a random hotel in years, I look up hotels on my smartphone so I can not only look at vacancy but also ratings.
pessimizer 10y ago
So are you trying to say that tonight 7 out of 10 hotels are completely full and 3 out of 10 are completely empty, or any of an infinite range of other things?
- krallja 10y ago
  It's not infinite. There are a discrete number of rooms available in the world, and the number of permutations is therefore finite.

codazoda 10y ago

I've never been able to find a room last minute by stopping in a hotel and asking to stay the night. They always say they're full.

jbuzbee 10y ago
Huh - I've done that tons of times. Out in rural Australian and even at a castle in Germany using part of my three-word German vocabulary - "Zimmer?"
mikestew 10y ago
I'd be curious to know the difference between your experience and mine. U. S. here, and its rare that a motel turns me away. Now, there are several distinguishing characteristics of my travel. First, mostly by motorcycle, and second is that because I'm on the bike I'm probably in some out-of-the-way place and not downtown SF. My mode of travel is important, I think, because sometimes I think they feel sorry for me (especially when my wife's with me). Who wants to turn away a biker when it's 10C and pissing rain? (Never mind that I'm perfectly content to put my tent up if I don't find a room.) Anyway, I'll bet I'm turned away from ad hoc hotel stops 10% of the time at most.
- krisroadruck 10y ago
  Same. I do multi day trips up and down both coasts as well as cross country trips. I generally drive until I'm tired then let the gps find me a hotel along my route. I've never tried to book ahead and never had any problems with the drop in. If a place is full (rare) I drive another 20 minutes down my route and do that one. Easy peasy and I travel by car.
- Grishnakh 10y ago
  >(Never mind that I'm perfectly content to put my tent up if I don't find a room.) Just curious: where exactly do you pitch a tent in a situation like that? It doesn't seem like it's that easy to find some open ground where some cop won't harass you for trespassing or something.
  - mikestew 10y ago
    There are several phone apps that will tell you where the campgrounds are. Personally, I've never tried to camp where I'm not allowed (I don't count sleeping on a picnic table at a rest stop). One can often (usually?) find a campground either actually in town, or a few miles down the road. To my knowledge, I've never been turned away with a tent; there's always a 10x10' spot of grass to rent me. Alternatively, if you're in a U. S. National Forest and can find a spot off the road, you can camp anywhere you want. It's how we do the majority of our camping in our VW Westfalia, where in Washington there are a plethora of spots 90 minutes from our house (no, I'm not telling <g>). But that's for my mode of travel, which is usually off the beaten path. If you're looking for a place to stay in SF during WWDC, my advice will do you no good. OTOH, I rode to a conference in San Diego, had some room trouble and found a campground smack in the middle of SD a few miles from the hotel. So, I dunno, there might even be a campground in SOMA I don't know about. :-) (EDIT: curiosity got me: there's one out by Candlestick Recreation Area, if you don't mind paying $89/night!)
shawndellysse 10y ago
In the last year and a half, I've driven the Baltimore <=> San Diego route three times, and I've never planned ahead for a motel room, nor have I had a problem getting a room. Maybe I was lucky.
- hammock 10y ago
  Wow. What causes you to have to drive so much?
- pavel_lishin 10y ago
  I've done the Dallas, TX -> New York drive twice over the past six years, and we've never pre-booked anything either. Maybe my traveling companions and I never seemed like the "100% trouble" type like cgvgffyv suspects.
planteen 10y ago
Interesting. I rarely have a reservation when driving on a multi day trip. Instead, I use the fact that it's already late as leverage to get a lower rate. I'm about 50/50 on getting that to work. I'm not the best sales person, so I bet someone who is more persistent would be more successful. I have the best luck when the hotel clerk is younger. I tend to drive mostly in the western US, specifically Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, the Dakotas, or Nebraska. Where are you trying it?
- rbritton 10y ago
  There's an industry term for that. It's called the Fade Rate, and it's offered at a large portion of hotels if you arrive very late and ask about it.
  - sandworm101 10y ago
    Fade rates, or manager's rates, are becoming a problem. Some big online booking schemes require "best available rates" be given to online bookings. Ad-hoc discounts to late night walk-ins are thought a violation of that agreement unless they are also made available to the online scheme. A manager's ability to turn away horrible bookings is also undermined. That group of drunken fratboys have now booked through a smartphone app. Try to pull the "we are overbooked" routine with them and you will be downrated very quickly, likely triggering action from your chain. A while back I read a fun article about how online booking contracts were "unchristian". The christmas story sees a hotel manager make available a sub-standard room at a discount rate to a desperate walk-in family. Do that today and travelocity will be on your back about not publishing that "best rate" online.
    - thaumasiotes 10y ago
      > A manager's ability to turn away horrible bookings is also undermined. That group of drunken fratboys have now booked through a smartphone app. Try to pull the "we are overbooked" routine with them and you will be downrated very quickly, likely triggering action from your chain. Why not go with "we don't want you here", instead of something they know is a lie?
cgvgffyv 10y ago
I used to work at a hotel. 100% of late-night bookings meant trouble in one way or another.
- protomyth 10y ago
  Was the place you worked at within sight of the interstate / highway?
- gozur88 10y ago
  Really? As a younger man, with more stamina and less money, I'd drive as far as possible each day and check in very late, crash for seven or eight hours, tidy up the room, check out, and go. Can't imagine the hotel people weren't thrilled to have that kind of guest.
enraged_camel 10y ago
I'm the opposite: I can always find a room last minute. It has reached a point where I started to suspect hotels leave at least one room unbooked so that they can charge last-minute bookers through the nose for it.
bsder 10y ago
Yeah, I always try to book by 6-7PM. Booking at 11PM generally winds up with a lot of failure. The problem when I'm booking hotels is that: 1) I'm driving a long distance west of the Mississippi, and the stop points are very discrete and far between--so everybody wants to stop at the same point. For example, Austin to San Diego--El Paso is a bit short for the first day, so you go to Las Cruces which is a lot smaller and more likely to have fully booked up. 2) I'm doing a tourist thing which puts me in with a lot of other people.

closeparen 10y ago

It's a shame because how far you will get in a day of driving is not exactly set in stone. If you're alert and in the zone, you may wish to go farther than the hotel you booked. If you've hit bad weather, traffic, etc. then the hotel you booked couple be a couple hundred miles past when you'd prefer to stop driving for the night. It's really nice to be able to stop when you feel like it.

Belenus 10y ago
And even if you spend half your energy and three-quarters your fuel the whole day, there's no chance that the inn you planned to stay at is vacant.
Retric 10y ago
Making a booking at ~4-6pm for that night works just fine. I have even made a few bookings at like 11pm. A phone call while getting food / gas is more convent than driving somewhere. Now, you might pay more that way, but outside of city's hotel rooms are really cheap.

Belenus 10y ago

Soon, most likely, even overbooking will vanish. There might be apps that actually see if an inn or motel is actually vacant. Most likely.

Spooky23 10y ago

My parents used to do this all if the time. Sometime in the late 90s, many hotels started using drop in guests as people to be hustled. These days, you're better off finding a way to get "status" from a chain so you can cancel without penalty and book a bunch of rooms. Our last road trip, I booked 4 rooms over 300 miles and cancelled in the afternoon before stopping in.

gist 10y ago
> many hotels started using drop in guests as people to be hustled It all depends on the approach. Instead of saying "do you have any rooms available?" you could just say "I only have $AMOUNT and quite frankly I'd rather stay here than at my old Uncle's place down the road" (or a variation of which indicates 'price does not matter'. [1] Disclosure: I am somewhat of a paid professional negotiator so techniques like this may not work if not done properly or in every context. [1] In another business you'd be surprised at how many people simply say 'can you do any better' (which means 'you have the sale') rather even 'wow that's to high... a competitor will do it for $AMOUNT can you match that?' Edit: Emphasis on a convincing use of 'wow!'.
- SuperPaintMan 10y ago
  Hotel FD/Auditor here, we get to deal with all sorts of backflips for lower rates late at night. We used to have rates as low as employee pricing but these were being abused and had all sorts walking in over making proper reservations. I don't negotiate, or match. Quite frankly I don't give two shits what rooms at Motel 6 are supposedly going for. If it's past AAA you're not getting it. >Our last road trip, I booked 4 rooms over 300 miles and cancelled in the afternoon before stopping in. Oh, you're /that/ guy.
  - op00to 10y ago
    Yup, the guy adhering to hotel policy.
  - Spooky23 10y ago
    > Oh, you're /that/ guy. I'm following the rules. Its obnoxious behavior, but what am I supposed to do? If I arrive late, the hotel will happily give my room to the platinum member who rolls in or some random person, and leave my family stuck in the room designed for wheelchair bound chain smokers with pets suffering from shedding disorders. If I book same day, the $99 motel turns into a $139 hotel. If I just show up, I roll the dice.

reidacdc 10y ago

I did the Chicago to San Francisco (and back) run fairly regularly in the 1990s, and we didn't depend on vacancy signs. Our solution was basically brand loyalty -- the Motel 6 people published a book with addresses and phone numbers of all their motels in the US. The scheme is, you get on the road, and some time around 7pm, you stop for dinner, and make a reservation (from the payphone) at the Motel 6 that's about 100 miles ahead, and off you go. The only time it didn't work well was one time when there was a large event in Cheyenne, Wyoming (I think it was the world square-dancing championship, but my memory is uncertain), and we couldn't get a room for love or money. We pushed on to Laramie, which was a little dangerous given how long we'd been at it, but it worked out OK.

raverbashing 10y ago
Looks like an Adventure. How long did it take you each way? 3 days? 12h/day (and something like 500Mi per day?)
- reidacdc 10y ago
  Yes, about three days. We didn't stop for much, really just gas and dinner, so you can do 10-11 hr days and also get some sleep.
Symbiote 10y ago
I travelled that route (and back) with my parents a couple of times around the same time, as tourists. I think I was 13 the first time, and 15 the second time. Although we had a mobile phone, we didn't phone ahead, we simply turned up somewhere. Perhaps once we had to drive further than we wanted (until midnight or so), and a couple of times I think the cost was a little higher than we wanted, but considering this was a family of 5 it worked out nicely. My parents found some interesting places, too. I've not met anyone else that's been to see the Mitchell Corn Palace. (I've only met a few Americans who've seen as much of their own country as I have, which is a pity.)
- selimthegrim 10y ago

throwaway98237 10y ago

Last summer I bought a motorcycle in Duluth, MN and rode it down to Austin, TX (ok, well, to Oklahoma City from where it hitched a ride in a U-Haul, hey it's a road trip and it was a used bike off Craigslist). I was mostly unplugged apart from the maps app (which is not how I plan on doing it next time, next time I plan on having physical maps, maps that can't die on you, move to an irrelevant portion of the trip, or otherwise randomly turn from a navigation device to a screen saver). "No Vacancy" signs were absolutely welcomed sights. They also just made it all the more visceral. Could I have pulled over, opened an app, and reserved a room online in less time and perhaps at a lower price, absolutely. Then, I could have followed the "map's" directions directly to this place and called it a day. Instead, I had to keep my eyes peeled, take in the city, maybe figure out where the main drag was. We need to stop pushing efficiency and start making space for discovery. My trip down the middle of our country, that deep red cut of Trump support, I got to see it all. I was a Hillary voter, but, can honestly say I understand a bit of the reasons those states went the way they did. Riding an old motorcycle through the heart of our country, and then using an app to make my hotel reservation, or staying at some cookie cutter hotel instead of the local places I chose, that'd just have been a non-sequitur. I might as well not even have made the trip. I would have missed the camp grounds, the fellow motorcyclists helping me with engine trouble, the welder that fixed my chassis, finding out that Nebraska is basically one big corn field, the super-hero of a motel clerk that let me sleep at the indoor pool when i showed up at 1am soaked and freezing and there were actually zero rooms left in the small town, the motorcycle club (shout-out to the Amber, OK Outsiders!) that put me up for a very drunk night after electrical issues, and the many other folks I met. But I didn't. It was awesome.

MAGZine 10y ago
I've found navigating by sign much easier by any sign anyhow. Maps can break down at the most critical points: multiple exits happening in quick succession, exits followed by forks, the GPS reading you the entire sign contents which just serves as a distraction more than anything, etc. Not to mention now there is a screen you have to pay attention to! If you know where you're going and the general route to get there (i.e. which highway to get onto), following by sign is much easier. Cities are exceptionally well marked. It's a low-tech solution that just works. And yes, no worries about the signs dying or losing signal or crashing.

jordache 10y ago

wow author really reaching here.. How's the no vacancy sign any different than the Open/Close sign at the front of every business front? "First, some quick historical context. It’s not clear who came up with the ingeniously simple pairing of “Vacancy” and “No Vacancy,” which allows the motel operator to simply toggle the “No” on or off, but it was probably sometime in the 1930s or before. "

blacksmith_tb 10y ago
Well, I agree that it exaggerates the importance of the (No) Vacancy sign, but it is different in precisely the sense the author is talking about - you have an on/off switch for NO, and another for VACANCY. While presumably no one wants or needs to turn on OPEN and CLOSED simultaneously.
- jordache 10y ago
  Open+CLOSED doesn't me anything. NO+VACATION = there are no more rooms available.

nickthemagicman 10y ago

This is powerful metaphor for me. Before cell phones you were truly disconnected from life if you took a road trip. Primitive technology like this and talking to people was the only way to really find out about your surroundings. You were pretty isolated.

jtfairbank 10y ago

I just sleep in my car in walmart parking lots. Saves money, and there's almost always a walmart within a reasonable distance.

PhasmaFelis 10y ago

> “The chains [...] want you to walk in not knowing whether a room is available. So if they’re full, they can send you to another one of their properties in the vicinity and keep the business in-house. It’s a strategic decision.” In addition, Rogers said, omitting vacancy indicators allows for overbooking (“If it’s late and you’re fully booked, but someone with a reservation hasn’t shown up, you can sell the same room twice”) and gives managers wiggle room when sizing up questionable customers. [...] “Without the sign, you can just say, ‘Sorry, we’re full,’ even if you’re not.” It's weird to me how blasé Rogers and the article writer are about this abusive, anti-customer behavior.

debt 10y ago

"If people come in asking for a room, and you think they look like trouble—rowdy college students, say—if you have ‘Vacancy’ out there, you’re kind of obligated to give them a room,” to put it another way, the "no vacancy" sign makes it more difficult to discriminate