Aqua Hotel – Miami, FL

by Adrienne Wilson on


Big tourist flooded cities have few secrets left to be revealed and as far as I am concerned, Aqua, a boutique hotel sitting a block off of South Beach on Collins Ave is one of them. (Sssh – Don’t tell.) I’d read about the hotel last year sometime in a USA Today piece and made special note to stay during my next trip to Miami. Upon my arrival I was greeted by a tall gentleman who claimed they’d been waiting for me there.

“You have?” I asked.

Whether he was just throwing out some cheeky hospitality line from a manual or not it truly felt as if they had been waiting for me. It is low season for most businesses in the area and the hotel felt pretty quiet which is what probably led him to giving me a free room upgrade. Thanking him kindly with the key to my sweet Miami suite, I made my way to the back where my intimate tropical piece of paradise awaited. Simple, sleek, spacious and cozy easily all describe the room the before me. The interior design was beyond inviting. I wished I could stay forever.

The amenities are many. Complimetary WiFi, television, pool, kitchen, microwave, refrigerator, huge closets, continental breakfast and easy access to almost anything in South Beach’s art-deco area make Aqua a sure sale. Very reasonably priced for location, clean and superior service from all the staff will have this place hummin’ during in prime tourist season and the perfect escape in the off-season. Rates vary so check them out online or call for more information. You’ll be glad you did.

Aqua is located at 1530 Collins Ave, Miami Beach, FL 33139. Ph. 305.538.4361. www.aquamiami.com

Hotels to Smell Like Pie

by Erik Olsen on

I once stayed in a rather grungy hotel in a small town in Colorado that had an awful smell. I’m still not sure what the odor was, some mixture of rotten eggs and Lysol. A sour-sewage reek whose malodorous molecules still haunt my olfactory cortex to this day. Obviously, I will never go back to this hotel.

But what if you went to a hotel where everything smelled very pleasant? The delicious fragrance of hot apple pie wafting through the halls, the sweet whiff of begonias in your room. (Question: in Vegas, will they have pheromone-scented hallways).

Well, the folks over at adjab have posted about a new campaign by Sheraton Hotels for their Four Points chain that will intentionally introduce satisfying odors into the lobby and other points in the hotel. For example, White Tea scent will be sniffed in the Westin chain (which might mean nothing to those of us who have no idea what white tea smells like). No matter. This is all very clever, and those who orchestrated this campaign are obviously aware that they are dealing in primitive grey matter, that it is our olfactory cortex that is the oldest and in some ways most powerful sense. Freud would be proud.

Unusual Hotels

by Erik Olsen on

On the heels of my earlier post about the Yotel….here is an off-beat and interesting site about hotels came up this morning when I was StumbleUpon-ing around. The site itself is actually called unusualhotelsoftheworld.com, a mouthful to be sure, but what it lacks in brevity it more than makes up for in some really interesting information.

Take this hotel in Sweden called the Utter Inn. It is a floating, underwater hotel, where you sleep in an underwater aquarium. Look at that picture! The Inn come from the fertile grey matter of a local artist and sculptor named Mikael Genber  who has decided that art should be “for the public”, which presumably means they should be able to sleep in it. This is just one of many cool places to check out at this site, others of which might give rise to some ideas on where to stay on your next vacation.


Word for the Travel Wise (05/27/06)

by Adrienne Wilson on

Yesterday, a friend of mine was schooling me to a small chain of luxury inns located in Brooklyn, Cape May, and Washington D.C. The lucky gal went ahead and booked a much needed night’s stay at the Brooklyn mansion which looks quite lovely and like a real treat from their website. The Akwaaba Mansion in NY has been around since 1995 where owners — Monique and Glen — restored the 1860’s mansion to its original granduer so that it could operate as an upscale bed-and-breakfast. How sweet of them! Be it one night or two or whether you’re coming from afar or nearby like my friend, Akwaaba seems like the perfect home away from home with added luxury.

Today’s word is a Twi word used in Ghana:

akwaaba – welcome

I’m really uncertain about akwaaba being of Twi origin, but Twi is one of the more common of tongue from Ghana, so I went ahead and said it. (Gulp!) Please feel free to correct me on this one if needed. Their website said the name was West African from Ghana meaning welcome which made me think to make it the word of the day considering I haven’t touched this country in over two months.

Pronounced ‘chwee,’ the language is spoken by some 7 million people concentrated in southern Ghana and is a dialect of the Akan language which belongs to the Kwa language family. Wikipedia is a good place to start for the background info. Unfortunately there aren’t many Twi resources on the web so I encourage you all to make some friends from Ghana, take a trip or exercise some of these useful books and CD’s found on Amazon. You could also try My Language Exchange, but the chances of there being a fully Twi speaking person wanting to swap your language knowledge for yours doesn’t seem too bright. Sorry, but worry not. I still have my list and more words to follow.

Past Twi words: akwantuo

Youth Hostels & Hotels Abroad Step Up Their Game

by Adrienne Wilson on

America is not so cutting-edge if you ask
me, but what do I know. To be quite honest the only time I’ve ever stepped into a youth hostel was abroad, yet the kind
of things mentioned in this San
Francisco Chronicle piece by Arthur Frommer don’t quite seem to happen around these parts. Or do they? Free Aveda
hair-care products and beds made of feather pillows – at a youth hostel? (Gasp!) Sure many of you may have probably
seen or even used that orange and ginger smelling Bath & Body Works shampoo/conditioner popping up in various
hotels stateside, but think about the cost of your room. I want low cost. I want to have my cake and I would
like to eat it too, if you certainly don’t mind.

Apparently Europe, Asia and Australia seem to understand
what cheap penny-pinchers want on their holidays. They understand that backpackers want royalty, no-frills chic, and
great interior design at ridiculously low cost without the bed bugs. Not to say that any of this is new news like the
article suggests it may be for many Americans, but I can’t help wondering if the concept will ever fully catch on here.
If you’re headed away to Europe, Asia or Australia to stay and play, check out some of the following sites mentioned in
the article: