Nay Palad, in Kenya: it's beautiful... but it's uncomfortable
No one falls in love with a hotel for its built-in wardrobes . Nobody comes home from a trip saying that in their room there were three perfect sockets that allowed charge mobile phone, computer and turn on the lamp at the same time . No one writes an email to anyone saying: "I'm happy, my shower screen fits perfectly ”. Or maybe there is someone, but that someone will never travel with us. When we return home after a trip, one of those that travel inside you, we arrive saying: “ the room was wonderful, i didn't want to leave ”, ”you don't know what the atmosphere of the hotel was like: it looked like a Sorrentino movie” or “when I looked out the window and saw the view I almost fainted”. The faint, the memory , have little to do with comfort understood as a unique value, as a travel and hotel goal.
These words are one lit defense of those hotels that want to grab us by the shirt and shake us . Many times that means give up canonical comforts , but we usually have those at home and one does not travel to be at home. The obligation of a hotel is not to replicate our semi-bourgeois lives . Starting from a minimum, which can be cleaning and service, the rest is negotiable. Even isolation is : what difference does it make if you don't sleep one night because you're hearing the roar of the hippopotamus. How many nights of your life have you slept already. how many hippos have you seen . What does it matter if you wake up at dawn because the fountain in the courtyard of your riad in Marrakech makes noise. You will sleep and when you do you will miss the music of the water.
No, it's not easy to get to this corner of Utah...
The uncomfortable but memorable hotel prototype is the African lodge or camp . We will not delve into the differences between the two, but it is said of the usual accommodation of safaris in countries such as Kenya, Botswana, Zimbabwe or Rwanda . in these hotels not too much artificial light and it is likely that you need a flashlight to drive you around their enclosure because it is very dark; but much. Wild animals make noise ; Little is said about the noises that are heard at night while sleeping under the mosquito net in the camp. You may think that animals are going to attack you and eat you in slow motion. That will never happen because they are very safe places, but they are not calm . Not even in a Singita, a very sophisticated set of eco lodges, is there a way to silence those nocturnal sounds. Nevertheless, it will be worth it from the first second because they are extraordinary.
The lodges and camps are difficult to access; so are some castles in Scotland , the Patagonia and Atacama hotels Y those of the Sierra de Ronda and Matarraña . This makes them remote and therefore uncomfortable. The remote is one of the last travel frontiers . Something remote is not something far away, it is something difficult to access and where few people arrive. Traveling to a place that is next to the subway stop removes obstacles but, in itself, is not a great value.
To all the hotels of the Greek islands it takes time to arrive (unless you live on those Greek islands) and all of them, without exception, justify the journey just to be where they are. The Azores are not comfortable : they require a flight from Lisbon and, from there, a car and curves, however, what they return to those who take the trouble to get there is a lot; An example of a prize for the slightly lazy is the new hotel Santa Barbara, on the island of San Miguel.
No, it will not be easy for you to reach this wonder of Tadao Ando
To the amangiri , a hotel mecca, is reached after a flight to Las Vegas and a four-hour drive. Aman is an expert in remote locations (Utah, Bhutan, Lijiang…) and this mania makes these hotels difficult; also desirable. Traveling to them is already the trip.
Reach Setouchi , the hotel built by Tadao Ando , requires travel to Tokyo and from there to Matsuyama, which is an hour from this hotel-oddity. Go and sleep in Eilean Shona , the island where Barrie was inspired to Peter Pan requires flying to Glasgow or Inverness, plus a 3-4 hour drive plus another boat ride to reach the island. Do we want to go to all these awkward places? With the force of the seas.
In some of the most interesting hotels in the world you don't know where to put your clothes . Instead of closets there are few hangers, there are no drawers and in the bathrooms there is no space to place the cosmetic assortment . These hotels are not designed to settle in them, but to join us on a journey.
No, getting to Eilean Shona is not easy...
Sometimes there are no closets because the rooms are small and there are alternative solutions, as is the case with the Aloft or the Moxy . Others, because the lifestyle they promote does not involve having shelves or hangers lined with silk. It is the case of Jo&Joe de Hossegor . In it, a sort of quirky hostel , you have a structure that is a bed, a wardrobe and almost a work space. Doesn't look like an orthodox room (no trace of bedside tables and not even a table), however, it is very well thought out and past the initial "oh", nothing is missing.
Círculo Mexicano, the new hotel of the Habita group located in Mexico City , has a room design that breaks the traditional structure: you have to get used to cabinets are not what we expect , that the table is a hole in the wall and the chair may not rest on the ground.
Puzzling, yes; unkind, no; attractive, very . These are always good times for user experience designers and travelers willing to unlearn.
The rooms of Círculo Mexicano are there for you to understand
There are hotels with dark corridors, hotels you can't run out of (we have all been to Venice and know what we are talking about) and rooms with complicated stairs.
Sleep in the top of a tree in the Segera Retreat ? Ugh, you have to go up and down for everything. In the Pikaia Galapagos Lodge ? It requires various means of transportation and a couple of days to arrive. In The Fife Arms ? I don't see the lyrics of my novel when I'm in bed. In the Giraffe Manor ? There's a giraffe stealing my breakfast toast. Sleep floating on the Anthenea? A Biodramine, please. In the Eastern Express ? What a rattle.
All these discomforts are accepted if there is something with which to balance them. And of course they are accepted: blessed be . And of course they balance. The conflict arises when hotels cannot afford to be uncomfortable because they have nothing else to offer : no location, no destination, no story, no charisma, no grace. Not all hotels are worthy of having a small step in the bathroom that you almost always trip over. To be uncomfortable you have to be worth.
Watch out for giraffes, they will eat your toast