Hacker News Reader

Comment by freddie_mercury | Hacker News Reader

Hotels also provide tons of variation in quality. Just look up hotels in, say, Bangkok or Ho Chi Minh City where the options are much more than just the typical Western chains. Or compare the many non-chain "motels" in North America.

I think what you mean is "chains" tend to be pretty consistent. Which, yeah, that's always been the main value prop of a chain. You go to McDonald's in Tunisia and you have a pretty good idea what you're going to get.

View on HN

Chains consistency kills half the fun of travelling the world.

Kids enforce a filter on what sort of fun you look for. Without kids, the bottom tenth percentile hotel experiences is often a few hours of bad sleep before escaping in the morning. With them, it's hours of tantrums, desperate searches for acceptable food or sleeping arrangements, and worrying for days afterwards about the effects of smoke, mold, dust etc on their health.

>and worrying for days afterwards about the effects of smoke, mold, dust etc on their health.

I mean, that one is on you. It is possible to go on vacation even camping with kids without having anxiety attack over everything.

Also, while some kids are difficult and kids are slow and certainly limit you, hours of tantrumps every holiday and impossibility to eat are not normal.

The air usually seems pretty fresh and healthy when camping.

What about the carpets?

I’m not sure I follow the implication here, but: my point was that “camping” is generated seen as a fairly healthy vacationing option, so it seems weird to use it as the lower-bound on a spectrum that contains moldy Airbnbs and hotels.

Well, there's a reason people build homes and apartments to live in, and a reason that societies with homes and apartments are healthier than societies that sleep in tents and shacks. Dirt is... dirty.

And yes, the point being advanced in the thread is that compared to camping - which is generally healthy and not something to freak out about! - homes are going to be cleaner, occasional mold issues aside. So it's silly to freak out over the infinitesimally-slight chances of little Timmy and Sally getting dust-mold-smoke cancer-AIDS from a less-than-perfectly-sterile room.

People build houses to protect ourselves and our stuff from the elements (and other climate control reasons), for privacy, for security, that sort of stuff. They are necessary for high-density living (plumbing helps to keep poop away).

Generally though, I would expect camping to be healthier than a hotel room. Hotel rooms and airbnbs are places that many humans go through, and humans are generally the main carriers of human pathogens. The only germs on your camping gear are your own ones.

There tend to be a lot of dust. Less hygiene then in hotel.

Sure. I've camped at a festival with a 1 yr old. Even stayed in a campervan at a festival when they were 6 weeks old. I'm just explaining why parents might prefer the safety of well-known chain hotels vs whatever "fun" darkwater was referring to.

Going to a local place doesn't necessarily mean going in shitty places, even with family. I traveled in many countries, especially Europe and Asia, with my 2 daughters and while they do throw the usual tantrum for their ages, we always find something local they like to eat, and they don't really mind one room or another to sleep, as long as they are in the same room with at least one of us.

Yeah for sure, normally it's fine and more fun. But the potential 10th-percentile scenario can be much worse. I don't for a second judge parents that decide based on that.

I don't judge parents either, my initial comment was more global, plenty of tourists with no kids in international fast-food chains for example. For hotels also the "chains sample" is usually skewed. There are basically no low/mid-range chains outside their core country or region. You just find high-end hotels (Hilton, Radisson, Sheraton, Four Seasons etc) all over the world.

And the other half being a disappointment?;)

For food and drinks, I agree, but when I’m ready to go to bed, I don’t want an adventure, I want a comfortable and quiet room that I’m already accustomed to.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com