Are you short on cash but want to travel? Maybe you should consider traveling to Sweden for your next vacation. Beginning this month, the Clarion Hotel in Stockholm is allowing guests to pay for their hotel with artwork instead of money.
The program began because the general manager’s grandfather was an artist. In honor of him, the hotel has decided to pay tribute to creativity. For guests who submit a piece of art, they will be allowed to stay two nights free.
Unsure if your art will pass the hotel’s requirements? It will.
“Who are we to be judgmental about art?” explains Tess Mattisson, the hotel’s marketing manager. “Accommodation is what we know and we’re happy to provide it. Everyone is welcome here, from young and upcoming artists to those that are already established.”
All works must fit on an A4 piece of paper, and be signed by the artist. Pieces should be presented upon arrival to the hotel. If you’re interested in submitting a piece, click here.
Located at 610 Main Street, The Outlaw is the oldest operating restaurant in Ouray, open since early 1969 with the same sign still hanging. It has a very “Old West” feel, with a pianist playing upbeat tunes in the corner, walls of cowboy hats and a dimly lit room littered with wooden tables. While the steaks are delicious and the cocktails strong, the biggest draw to this place is the fact you can wear one of John Wayne’s hats. It’s the one located behind the bar, above the beers. During the shooting for a film, Wayne was staying in Ouray. One day, he called up The Outlaw to order some food for pickup. The owner’s wife answered, and when he said it was John Wayne calling, she responded by saying “yea right” and hung up the phone. Wayne became so enamored with her crassness; he ended up eating there everyday during the entire movie shoot.Quirky Dessert Shop: Mouse’s Chocolates & Coffee
Not only does Mouse’s Chocolates & Coffee have unusual chocolate flavors like bacon clusters with Chardonnay salt and coconut bark with pumpkin and sunflower, it’s also home of the locally-loved Scrap Cookie. After making their chocolates for the day, the staff takes the scraps and add them to their family recipe cookie batter. When customers order a Scrap Cookie, they won’t know what they’re getting until they take a bite. One thing is for sure, though, it’ll be delicious. Local tip: Buy two Scrap Cookies and have them make an ice-cream sandwich for you. While they’ll often say they don’t do it, tell them a local told you about it, and they most likely will.
Quirky Brewery: Ourayle House
Also known as the “Mr. Grumpy Pants Brewing Company,” the Ourayle House is a bizarre experience. It resides in the garage of the cranky owner, Hutch, who takes pride in making snarky comments to customers. The place looks like it’s made of scrap wood – mainly because most of it is – and old and broken sports equipment and dirty board games litter the space. If you leave your business card you can expect a rude comment to be written on the back, and if you’re a beer snob you can expect any diva-esque quotes to be written on the board behind the bar. For example, when I was there, one customer made the mistake of saying, “I only drink IPAs and Coors Light.” Of course, this was quickly noted for all to see. Hutch even has a countdown for how many “days without a beer Madonna” have passed. It’s also fun to read the unfriendly and weird signs that adorn the walls, reading things like “Welcome to Mr. Grumpy Pants Brewing Company Cheers! ‘Welcome’ being a relative term,” and “It has always been out policy to accept game meat for beer, from good hunters and careless drivers.” Hutch makes all his beer on site, and rotates his drafts to keep things interesting. You can even order based on a brew’s “sq,” meaning “slamability quotient.”
Quirky Accommodation: The Christmas House Bed & Breakfast Inn
While most B&Bs have a certain unusual charm to them, Ouray’s The Christmas House Bed & Breakfast Inn is another animal. The old Victorian home has been around since 1889, although it officially became a bed and breakfast in 1998. For those who have read “The Painted Ladies,” the property was featured in the book. It’s a very quirky accommodation, as it’s Christmas all year long here. Along with the outside and common rooms being decorated with festive decor, each guest room features a Christmas tree with seasonal accents. Along with yuletide cheer, rooms also have saunas, Jacuzzis and cable television.
Taking budget-chic to a new level, this Scotland-based “truck-o-tel” has some unique amenities for those looking to take car camping for a test run.
Inverness-shire-based owner Walter Micklethwait turned his 1950s Commer Q4 into a moving hotel of sorts, complete with beds, chairs, a gas stove and a cabinet. The adjustments, he says, cost him £1400, and the hotel is dubbed the Beer Moth, for reasons, which we do not know.
The truck was formerly displayed in its original state in the Manston Fire Museum in Kent. Micklethwait raised the roof, added an oak parquet floor rescued from a Tudor mansion, a double Victorian bed, added snooker table slate to make a heart and put in a fire escape for a staircase.
Worried about where to stay during the 2012 London Olympics? No problem if you can’t find a hotel, as taxi driver David Weekes has turned his black cab into a comfortable hotel room.
Not only does the “accommodation” come with a foam mattress, duvet, pillow with official Olympic pillow case and bedside lamp, but also a Paddington Bear teddy, solar-powered fridge, a radio and an iPad. For those interested, the taxi hotel is £50 (about $78) a night, and you can visit the Wimdu website to book.
“I’m really excited that the Olympics are coming to the city but it’s going to be a nightmare for cab drives,” says Mr. Weekes. “So when I heard that I could rent out my taxi on Wimdu, I thought it was a no-brainer – after all, who knows London better than a cabbie?”
The only stipulation is guests must be packed up and gone before Mr. Weekes starts his shift in the morning. Moreover, those staying in the taxi can choose if they would like to stay outside of Mr. Weekes’ house in north London, where they would be able to use his bathroom, or somewhere else possible by law.
Crete has it all: frozen-in-time mountain villages, unspoiled beaches, medieval churches and monasteries, the atmospheric Venetian port cities of Rethymno and Chania, and an abundance of hiking, rock climbing and other outdoor activities. The north coast of the island is also chock-a-block with hideous resorts filled with sun-starved package tourists from Northern Europe.
But it’s easy to avoid the tackiest places and, perhaps best of all, Crete is still very affordable, even in the cusp of the high season in late June. I stayed in four hotels, all priced at less than $100 per night for a family of four and can highly recommend these three establishments as great bargains.
We were staying on the outskirts of town in The Halepa Hotel, which we found to be adequate but overpriced, when we stumbled across this brand new, eight-room, family-run hotel, right smack in the middle of Chania’s unforgettable old town, just a half block from the waterfront. The Duca had just opened a couple weeks before and the large, light-filled rooms were cheaper and far nicer than the Halepa, so we decided to switch hotels and were glad that we did.Most budget and mid-range Greek hotels are pretty light on amenities – scratchy towels, razor thin mattresses and archaic plumbing are often the order of the day, but this place comes as a terrific surprise in the mid-range price category. We paid 75€ for a big, beautiful room (see photo above and video below) with a terrace and small kitchen. The Duca has super comfortable memory foam mattresses, plus very high quality sheets, pillows and towels, all very rare at this price point in Greece.
If you’re looking for a relaxed little beach town, free of big, tacky resorts with a huge, lovely sandy beach, look no further than pretty little Plakias, which is popular with families and naturists, rather than party people. Plakias Resorts offers inexpensive but very high-end, new vacation apartments right across the street from a beautiful clothing-optional beach.
We had a modern, very comfortable one-bedroom apartment with a full kitchen and three terraces, two with stunning sea views, for just 70€ per night. My kids loved the kids pool and there’s a beachfront taverna around the corner with very good grilled octopus. The only downer about this place is the dour manager who always seems to be in a bad mood. But it’s well worth enduring her moodiness for this terrific bargain.
On a three month trip around Germany, Switzerland, Italy and Greece, this was the cheapest place we stayed at just 40€ per night but I don’t think we received a warmer welcome anywhere. Yiannis picked us up at the bus station, plied us with free wine, a plate of fruit, gifts for our kids and a ride back to a car rental establishment upon departure.
We had a very nice loft with a kitchen that was fully stocked, a washing machine and a shady courtyard terrace. The bed was a bit Greek for my tastes, as in hard and uncomfortable, but at this price, I was complaining. I couldn’t figure out where Yiannis’ profit margin was but loved the bargain.