The bathroom can be down the hall. After all, when you stay with family, the bathroom is probably down the hall too. If someone is astonished and annoyed to discover that middle-aged ladies sometimes visit the bathroom in the middle of the night, ask me if I care. Besides, they must be visiting the bathroom in the middle of the night themselves or they wouldn't even know about it. Cut down on those beers, young man!

As long as I feel safe, I don't care much about luxury when traveling alone. However, since my husband has little vacation time, I do try to look for the little comforts he likes when he travels -- yes, en suite bathrooms, but also microwave, coffee maker, mini-fridge. Ironically, these too are more reliably found in your middle range chains than your luxe chains though. Hmmm. $500 a night for a suite that includes a kitchen at hoity toity place or $89 a night to have the same thing at a motel where hubby can park his car for free and enjoy free wireless internet? There's no doubt which property he'll enjoy more. So we agree with Dianne about the charms of La Quinta and similar chains. We almost always like them better than the supposedly more luxe places.