Longest time you've stayed in a hotel?

[Alphabet]

With the random 2-3 days here or there to visit family for holidays, or going to check up on the little warehouse I rent to keep all my personal shit in,I've staying in hotels for the last almost 4 years straight.

Got a domestic EM gig at the beginning of the rice rabies. Worked Baltimore/DC proper, and entire State of Maryland for both mass and mobile vax ops. Spent a year and a half working sites from downtown B'more, to DC to bum fuck Maryland. Company was cool and let us choose/rotate our hotels for change of scenery. Most of us spread it between the big chains to maximize points across the board. Marriott, Hilton, etc...Just so long as they had kitchens, because most of us wanted to maximize the amount of per diem we could pocket instead of eating out for every meal.

That ended, did about another year on the border doing the whole migrant response thing. Again, same hotel(s) and per diem as above.

Right about when that gig winded down and up for renewal, Hurricane Ian and then Idalia hit, and I've been working both response and recovery in SWFL since the day after the wind stopped with Ian. Same same as above.

I routinely wake up some mornings not knowing where the fuck I am for a second. First few nights in a new place I have to leave the bathroom light on so I don't piss in the corner. Met a lot of interesting people. Had a lot of non committal, random sex. I have more hotel, airline and car rental points than I can ever burn up that I didn't pay a penny for. Have been able to gift my kids lifetime status with several chains. It's exhausting and almost institutionalizing, but also kinda cool at the same time.

Marriott and Hilton, IMHO are a tie. Hyatt I only was able to stay in once. (and I hated leaving it because it was cool as fuck. Hotel Revival in B'more. Old timey mansion with hip new shit flavor.)

Anyone else done something similar?

[gnaruki]

Six weeks on a project. Institutional is right. It starts to feel like a super low security prison. Daily housekeeping is nice but cooking with only a hot plate and a microwave gets old.

[Kurt]

Technically I lived at Hotel Harry in Ahtopol Bulgaria for 3 months straight ......But.... It was a house of a family who let out rooms and beds. I ate dinner with them every night.

Nice experience but not what you mean. I lived at The Super 8 of Alexandria Mn. for 1 summer but I had weekends off (Archaeologist right out of school) so I would go to Iowa every weekend and crash with people and then drive up there on Sunday and move into the Super 8 again.

It was kind of boring but i got paid $8 an hour in 1991 money and I saved my money for the per-diem by living off of pbj and apples plus one Steak dinner at Sizzler every Wednesday.

Might be fun to live like that again.

[Alphabet]

So, pushing 48 y/o this year, and higher up the food chain at work comes with experience. The other 2 managers and myself will do a grocery/liquor run once a week. We'll spend like a day and a half per diem each, and then pot luck it for the week. Add the free breakfast at the hotel, and there's always some church group or local org feeding us lunch. We try to convince the kids on their first gig to do the same and not blow their per diem eating out every night...but then we remember we were that age once and let them have at it.

Most of the good chains have a kickass pool/grill area/ fireplace out back. So we don't really use the kitchenette. Hurricane relief work is the best, because we'll find where all the hispanic roofers are staying, and it just turns into one big fucking party and food fest every night. Everyone brings something, and you can get fed and drunk as fuck for like $20.

[ROB]

Probably a couple weeks tops.

Even if I am in the same place I tend to swap between hotels so I have a better chance of finding "the one" for next time.

[Kurt]

Probably a couple weeks tops.

Even if I am in the same place I tend to swap between hotels so I have a better chance of finding "the one" for next time.

Thats a better plan. Before I got married I could take any hotel. My only requirement was a door and oxygen (stayed in doorless and oxygenless places before) and I often got played for a chump (stayed in a hotel room in LA that was condemned after the 1994 earthquake and had no plumbing or electricity and light was by candles and I just put up with it)
Now my wife has health issues so we shop around for things like an in-room sauna and pay through the nose but i kinda like it.

[ROB]

Places I like travelling tend to have cheap luxury hotels so I splurge.

Stayed in the bottom left of this place for like $70 a night a few years ago.

[ReptilianKittenEater]

About 4 days is the longest I can recall being at a hotel.

Slightly related to this is whilst hostelling noticing while staying at a hostel there was often at least one guest who seem to have moved in. Usually middle aged men that resembled aging hippies, though there was a cute girl at a hostel in Brasov Romania that did not appear to shower that often. One would hear proclamations that the person was thinking of moving on next month or next week was going to go down to the train station to check schedules.

[Kurt]

Usually middle aged men that resembled aging hippies

Yep. When I lived in Bulgaria I would travel to Istanbul for a Hostel stay every 30 days so I could reenter with a fresh passport stamp and there was always "that guy". Usually from the UK or Australia. I considered them "old" but they were probably 10 years younger than I am now and they would take up the mantle of "experienced traveler" but they would latch on to people and annoy them with their clinging grasp at youth culture.

They provided a good example of me knowing what I did not want to become as I aged, so I am thankful to have met those miserable losers.

[rickshaw92]

Back in the late 90,s till the early 00,s for about 6 or 7 seasons or so when I was making big time cash and doin 6 months on and 6 months off I was in hotels for the whole time.

Kinda.

Dunno if KSR flophouses or other Asian / African / Central / South American flophouses count as hotels or not.

Back in TO I would stay in university dorns, backpackers when TO finally got them or sometimes a cheap room over top the nudie bar in the bad part of town.

Those were the days!

[Darcy]

Well over a decade but it wasn't straight. Did 42/42 day rotations living in hotels while I was away, some hotels I was at for about 4 years, but generally 6 weeks at a time. Often 4 stars on the beach (Mombasa, Gabon, Dar es Salaam, down the Moroccan coast, plus a few on the Turkish Black Sea coast) but lots of shit hole places too. That Mombasa gig was the sweetest. Definitely get to know a ton of staff, went to their kids birthday parties too, and the menu... well, you get that sorted first week.

[Darcy]

The worst were long ferry trips, like Congo to Poland, or Winnipeg to Santiago, in a helicopter. You might do a country a day, depending on so many variables, but after a 28 day stretch of a different hotel most every night, you don't have a clue. You come out of your room/the elevator and stand there for a few minutes figuring out which way to go, and getting up to piss middle of the night, good luck staying half asleep trying to find the bathroom. Used to leave the light on in there and mostly shut the door so I could find it. One trick was to keep the key card holder with your room number on it in your pocket. Helped A LOT finding your hotel/room after heading out.

[Kurt]

The worst were long ferry trips, like Congo to Poland, or Winnipeg to Santiago, in a helicopter. You might do a country a day, depending on so many variables, but after a 28 day stretch of a different hotel most every night, you don't have a clue. You come out of your room/the elevator and stand there for a few minutes figuring out which way to go, and getting up to piss middle of the night, good luck staying half asleep trying to find the bathroom. Used to leave the light on in there and mostly shut the door so I could find it. One trick was to keep the key card holder with your room number on it in your pocket. Helped A LOT finding your hotel/room after heading out.

When I would stay at different hotels when I was a truck driver I might spend 4 days at a Super 8 in Hollywood and then drive and end up at a Motel 6 in Barstow. Getting up in the middle of the night forgetting I am no longer in Hollywood when I had to pee would lead to toe stubbing and swearing or sometimes just walking into a wall.

So when I went home I found my old Donald Duck Night Light and brought that along. But sadly I left that in a hotel bathroom somewhere and then had to buy a Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Night Light.

Those things work.