Hundreds of millions of Americans are currently dreaming of travel from the comfort of their home while observing quarantine and social distancing orders. Hoping that someday soon it will be safe to travel, armchair travelers are looking to inns and B&Bs to jump start their vacations once it's safe to dip their toes into travel once again. A survey of registered bnbfinder.com travelers recently revealed that more than 83-percent of respondents plan to travel again as soon as it is deemed safe. In addition, nearly 70-percent of survey respondents rank B&B lodging as their preferred lodging as soon as they can vacation again, beating out hotels, vacation rentals, and campgrounds by a sizable margin.
Blue Lantern Inn, A Four Sisters Inn located in Dana Point, CA is a member of the bnbfinder Diamond Collection. The bnbfinder Diamond Collection is an exclusive group of professionally inspected and highly rated luxury inns. Each member of the bnbfinder Diamond Collection is required to have passed a professional inspection from a third party industry recognized inspection agency.
Concurrently, innkeepers around the world, accustomed to providing guests with a superior level of high-touch comfort and service, are prepared and poised to provide their guests with a safe and much-needed gateway filled with rest and relaxation. Offering a clean, private and personalized setting once travel resumes, innkeepers are ready for the new normal in travel, filled with personalized service at a safe distance.
Once travel can once again resume, smaller boutique properties such as bed and breakfasts and inns will welcome travelers back with customized, value-filled and romantic settings filled with the hospitality they've missed. Already sticklers for cleanliness and luxury amenities, innkeepers plan to exceed CDC recommended cleaning requirements and prerequisites for food service and social distancing. In the new era of travel, innkeepers have shared with bnbfinder that they will offer touchless check-in and check-out over the phone, breakfast in bed at no additional charge, above-and-beyond cleanliness, and/or private dining options.
For travelers seeking value, inns and B&Bs provide all the extras, often including multi-course breakfasts, free snacks such as home-made cookies, fresh fruit, and in some cases, wine and cheese amenities. Most also provide free parking, free wi-fi, free bottled waters and soft drinks, and no "resort fees", "daily surcharges" or "cleaning fees", making B&Bs and inns an excellent value for travelers.
Best of all, with gas prices the lowest they have been in decades, travelers surveyed have told bnbfinder that off-the-beaten-path and drive-to destinations will top the list once they are able to travel once again. Tens of thousands of B&Bs and inns throughout the country await travelers with a perfect one-tank getaway.
Travelers seeking to vacation beyond the walls of their homes will find thousands of inns and B&Bs at bnbfinder.com Look for special offers and ideal drive-to accommodations throughout North America on bnbfinder.com, offering the most comprehensive list of B&B lodging in one place on the web. As travel resumes, travelers seeking value, bespoke and safe vacation destinations can turn to bnbfinder for ideas.
In a world where Airbnb and VRBO have become go-to choices for accommodations, the cozy bed and breakfast seems to have been all but forgotten. Yet many of these small, welcoming family-run places have changed with the times. You might still get a homemade muffin for breakfast and a cat sleeping by the fireplace, but here are five myths that need to be dispelled about B&Bs.
1. Bed and breakfasts tend to be fancy and expensive.
At first glance, the rates might seem high. But advocates point out that there is built-in value with a B&B stay, especially when comparing it to a night in a big city hotel where everything is priced a la carte.
“B&Bs are actually more value-oriented than a hotel stay any time, in cities and in rural areas,” says Marti Mayne, a long-time B&B consultant who now works with The BB Team, a broker and consulting service for innkeepers. “When you add the cost of a breakfast at a major urban hotel, the cost of Wi-Fi access, afternoon refreshments and then the cost of the water in the mini-bar, these extras totally add up. Many B&Bs offer up free DVDs and some rooms come equipped with DVD players and flat-screen TVs, with evening refreshments like wine and cheese or port available in the library.”
“What you can’t put a price on,” adds Mayne, “is the value of the personalized hospitality. Innkeepers are happy to share their inside knowledge, offering up those perfect gems of places for photo ops, picnics, and a day of touring or tasting.” Plus innkeepers will help carry your luggage, “no tips needed.”
2. Bed and breakfasts aren’t a good option in big cities.
Tell that to Kurtz Thometz, who runs Jumel Terrace BnB in Harlem Heights in New York City. In his brownstone, Thometz offers a 900-square-foot, two-bedroom book-lined garden apartment that offers accommodation, Wi-Fi and daily breakfast for up to six guests. This is Sugar Hill, the uptown neighborhood of Duke Ellington, Count Basieand Lena Horne, and the house overlooks the historic Morris-Jumel Mansion. The midweek rate of $375 a night for four guests is a fraction of what similar-sized accommodations and breakfast would cost four travelers in Midtown Manhattan. For an extra charge, Thometz offers neighborhood tours in his vintage black 1976Checker Marathon taxi. Heading to San Francisco, Boston or Chicago? Sites such asBedandBreakfast.com, BNBFinder and BNBOnline offer hundreds of big-city options, as does TripAdvisor.
The value factor of a B&B is probably most evident in a city setting.
Penny Whisler, innkeeper of Three Tree Point Bed & Breakfast in Seattle, points out that “the Seattle summer hotel room average for 2015 was $427 and there is not one B&B room that was close to that. Our highest room rate last summer was $295 and this includes breakfast, parking — which is $50 per day at some Seattle hotels — WiFi, and no lodging taxes. You get not just a room but a home with your own living room, kitchen, bedroom, bathroom and patio with amazing views of the Puget Sound and Mount Rainier.”
3. Bed and breakfasts are not designed for business travelers.
While not exactly exuding a typical corporate welcome — which is probably a good thing — the fact is that many B&B’s now cater to business travelers in larger cities and smaller towns where there are corporate headquarters nearby.
Penny Whisler of Three Tree Point in Seattle often gets business travelers, including one woman who has returned again and again.
“This is her 17th stay with us,” Whisler says. “She likes having a stocked kitchen, living room, Wi-Fi, quiet and safe neighborhood, and a home away from home. We also offer a frequent-visit special.”
Indeed, it’s the pricing that can be an added incentive. Mayne says that “Many inns and B&Bs offer business and corporate rates. Simply ask. Additionally, if you need to have the breakfast portion charged separately because of a per diem for food and another for lodging, that’s not a problem. Simply mention it to your innkeeper and they’re happy to create an invoice with breakfast deducted and listed separately from the lodging portion of the bill.”
She adds that “some innkeepers welcome breakfast meetings and provide a complimentary breakfast for a colleague or charge a nominal amount. They’ll also provide a private place to meet if space allows.”
Some take it even further. Depending on their size and location, some B&Bs can be ideal locations for small retreats and workshops and can host small business meetings. They will also provide meeting space and break-out rooms if available. Increasingly, B&Bs are also equipped with AV equipment like LCD projectors, teleconferencing and more. A good example is the Walnut Street Inn, a boutique bed and breakfast in Springfield, Mo., which actively courts business guests with great Wi-Fi, corporate rates during the week, and the ability to accommodate up to 24 guests in their parlors for meetings.
4. There’s no privacy in a bed and breakfast.
Some B&Bs in older homes certainly have noise issues, but Mayne points out that B&Bs were designed with romance in mind, and privacy is important to ensure a romantic setting.
“Newer B&Bs are increasingly built from the ground up to be a B&B and privacy is addressed with extra insulation between rooms and also between floors, like theLookout Point Inn in Hot Springs, Ark.,” she says.
Mayne says that in vintage B&Bs, many innkeepers have added extra insulation in rooms and added private tables to the dining rooms, in case couples would prefer to enjoy breakfast together rather than “family-style” at the table. More than 50% of B&Bs now offer private tables, and many offer only private tables for dining, likeRabbit Hill Inn in Lower Waterford, Vt.
5. All the bathrooms are shared.
Shared bathrooms used to be a hallmark of the bed and breakfast experience, when old residences had a single bathroom to serve an entire floor of bedrooms. But that’s no longer common.
“This is the largest myth of all,” says Mayne. “Surveys of inns and B&Bs show that 99% of inns and B&Bs offer all-private baths. And for many inns, the bathroom is the new bedroom and filled with amenities like whirlpool tubs, steam or multi-jet showers, fireplaces in the bathroom and more. Knowing how important privacy is, innkeepers are experts in fitting in private baths to guest rooms.”
A Parisian’s walkway … the Dom Luís I light railway and pedestrian bridge was built by Gustave Eiffel Photograph: Alamy
It’s most famous for its ruby tipple and a strident football manager, but Porto is shaking off its fusty image with buzzy places to eat, drink and hang out
It’s spirit that turns table wine into port, spirit that turns crisis into creativity and spirit that allows dignity to flourish among Porto’s glamorous dereliction. Here the Douro river pushes into the cold Atlantic and the city sits on one steep riverbank, with its thrusting towers and opulent city hall, its people defiant of austerity. The past defines much of Porto’s look, but her people have found a way to get on and look forward with hope and panache.
Stunning blue-tiled 14th-century churches and 19th-century palaces lie all but abandoned. There are Meccano bridges designed by Gustave Eiffel. Grand art deco theatres sail like pale liners over the city’s cobbled hills, and great modern buildings rise like phoenixes. There are green parks and shady silent squares, seaside and riverbank, wealth and poverty – and all in a walkable city.
The Baixa district is postcard Porto, rising from the riverbank – all pitched terracotta roofs and stucco painted in shades of mustard, Elastoplast and estuarine grey. At night it glows like honeycomb. Across the river is Vila Nova de Gaia, where 1950s signs on port lodges proclaim old English names – Cockburn’s, Graham’s and Croft.
Clérigos Tower, a landmark of the historic city – a Unesco world heritage site. Photograph: Alamy
And there’s the seaside. Empty surf beaches lie a few minutes from the city centre. South of Gaia, the fishing villages are salty and sweary; on the Porto side of the river, Foz do Douro is a posh suburb where the river meets the ocean and, further north, Matosinhos offers rock-cut swimming pools, sunsets and superb fish dinners.
Porto’s life and soul is on her hilly streets, in the many hipster bars and smoky cafes, in portions of tasty food and drinks that are huge and silly-cheap, in a pace of life where a gentle stroll is full speed ahead and a commitment to slow food makes meals lingering and rhythmic.
Getting around the city is a cinch: you stroll, or buy an Andante ticket (€15 for 3 days, stcp.pt) and jump on any bus, metro or train.
TheCasa da Música concert hall (auditorium and backstage visits from €6, performance tickets around €15) is perhaps Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas’ best building. It’s four stops from Metro Trinidade station, a five-star stunner.
The 15th-century Igreja (church) de Santa Clara, on Largo 1 de Dezembro, is impressively ornate. Igreja de São Francisco on Rua Infante Don Henrique is gothic outside and Liberace-baroque within. And if so much ecclesiastical culture (and gilt!) is quite enough for one morning, chill out at Horto das Virtudes, the peaceful park below São António hospital.
Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art (€8.50) is Portugal’s most important modern art museum. The building, filled with light and shade, was designed by local architecture god Siza Vieira (he’s 82 and still working). As well as exhibitions, there’s a cinema, a performance space and a huge, elegant park.
Casa Museu Fernando de Castro (€5, €2.50 concessions, free first Sunday of every month) is a house on a quiet residential street, filled with the wild jackdaw finds of collector, poet and cartoonist Fernando de Castro, from jokey ceramics to 17th-century church panelling.
The Military Museum (€3.50) is where dictator António Salazar’s goons tortured anti-fascists. Five steps away, a disused shopping mall, Centro Comercial Stop(enter at the Gala sign), has been appropriated by Porto’s rock and jazz musicians: each shop is now a rehearsal studio or tiny concert space.
Get a feel for the real Porto on a half-day walking tour from TheWorst Tours(“free”, donations welcome). They’re run by three brilliantly provocative activist architects. There’s 70km of cycle track along the river and in town – Porto Rent a Bikehas electrics and tandems, too.
Taberna do São Pedro in Afurada, a fishing village just west of Porto. Photograph: Kevin Gould for the Guardian
Vila Nova de Gaia, or simply Gaia, is on the south side of the Douro and home to the city’s famous port lodges. The best of the tasting tours is at Graham’s (from €8, Rua Rei Ramiro 514, +351 223 776 484) and its in-lodge Vinum restaurant is very good, too. Niepoort (Rua Cândida dos Reis 598 +351 223 777 777) doesn’t do tourist tours but visits on request are sometimes possible if you ask nicely – the emphasis is on its excellent table wines as well as port.
An hour’s walk (or 10-minute cycle) along the riverside boardwalk towards the Atlantic is Afurada, an entirely authentic fishing village. Eat perfectly grilled fish and listen to the salty backchat at Taberna do São Pedro (Rua Costa Goodolfim 42, +351 220 993 883). There’s an ad hoc ferry service across to Porto, and regular buses, too.
There’s great eating and drinking all over Porto. Starting east of Porto’s centre,Maus Hábitos (Rua Passos Manuel 178, 4th floor, +351 222 087 268), which means bad habits, is a hip space on the roof of an art deco car park. The restaurant serves brunches, lunches (€5 and up), dinners and great pizza, such as the Nan Goldin, which is topped with artisan smoked bacon and confit onions. There are regular exhibitions and talks, plus nightly DJs playing everything from shoegazers to jazz funk. A few doors away at number 137, Passos Manuel (+351 222 058 351) is an art cinema and bar.
South on Muralha Fernandina (the eastern city wall above the Eiffel bridge) is community-run Guindalense Futebol Clube (+351 222 034 426), a convivial, welcoming cafe-bar. Posh it’s not. But its terrace offers the city’s most jaw-dropping views, and beers and coffees cost around 50 cents a throw. Food is simple and sturdy: a full-on francesinha (Porto’s massive doorstep sandwich, layered with a pork, smoked sausage, bacon and a medium rare steak, topped with an egg and a thick overcoat of cheese), hot dog or burger is around €6. There are occasional fado music nights; book ahead for carnival nights and New Year’s Eve fireworks.
O Buraco (Rua do Bolhão 95, +351 222 006 717) is fun, reliable and offers “food like grandma used to make”, such as frango pica no chão cabidela (chicken-and-rice stew with chicken blood). Her grandkids must have had huge appetites.
Cantina 32
South of São Bento railway station (with its stunning azulejo tile panels), Cantina 32 (Rua das Flores 32, +351 222 039 069) is a friendly, attractive place with appealing options for vegetarians. A few doors downhill, Mercearia das Flores(Rua das Flores 110, +351 222 083 232) is a deli crammed with local products and wines whose kitchen produces very good brunches, salads and sandwiches.
On the roof of posh mini-mall Passeio dos Clérigos is BASE (+351 910 076 920), Porto’s coolest hangout: open from 10am to 2am, it offers a full menu from the restaurant below, plus sunloungers, jute coffee beanbags beneath olive trees, beautiful people, fresh juices (€3), sushi (€11) and rocket-y sandwiches (from €6). It’s closed in cool or wet weather.
Don’t miss Miss’Opo (Rua das Caldeireros 100, +351 222 082 179), a buzzy restaurant, exhibition space, guesthouse and shop. A meal of small plates likesalada bonita (pretty salad), grilled swordfish, umami mushrooms, good bread and sausage plus wine costs around €20 a head.
Miss’Opo, a restaurant, exhibition space, guesthouse and shop. Photograph: Kevin Gould for the Guardian
Beardy and hip, Café Candelabro (Rua da Conceição 3) is a bar with simple snacks plus a bookshop – specialising in offbeat cinema, photography, theatre and art – in one cool, small space. The barman has a heavy hand (cocktails from €4) and a DJ crouches in the corner most nights.
For fine dining at casual cost, Traça (Largo São Domingos 88, +351 222 081 065) serves slow food with an emphasis on game and old regional recipes. Dance your dinner off at Pipa Velha (Rua das Oliveiras 75, +351 223 222 780), which started the trend for cool downtown bars; it has excellent drinks, sturdy snacks and is open until 4am.
Towards the trendy area around Rua Miguel Bombarda, I love Casa de Ló(Travessa de Cedofeita 20A, +351 914 900 409), a former bakery reimagined as a bar and garden that puts on unplugged concerts and nightly DJ sets. Also recommended isCasa Santo António (Rua da Assunção 40, +351 938 704 632), a “gourmet tasca” with a friendly vibe and great regional ingredients – try alheira, a smoked chicken or game sausage.
In Foz, upscale-ish Bar Tolo (Rua Senhora da Luz 185) offers everything frompetiscos (bar snacks) to full meals. Round the corner, Bite Me (Rua do Teatro 133) is a fine brunch spot above the Espaço 7 Trendstore.
For one of Portugal’s finest meals, head out to Restaurante Boa Nova (Avenida da Liberdade +351 229 940 066) in Matosinhos, north of Foz. This rocktop beauty is a restored 1950s tea house built by local architect Alváro Siza Vieira, just up from the incredible swimming pools the architect cut into the raw rock. Delicious, modern food is served with élan in a sublimely poetic setting.
Porto is in love with ice-cream just now. The best is at Gelataria Sincelo (Rua de Ceuta 54), which uses fresh ingredients from the nearby Bolhão market. Uncool, and to be avoided, is the famous Café Majestic; though campily pretty, it’s pricey and rammed with tourists and their selfie sticks. Equally, the Ribeira – riverside – district is prime tourist territory, a sort of pseudo-Porto.
The Livraria Lello bookshop in an art nouveau building. Photograph: Tibor Bognar/Corbis
Mercado do Bolhão, the colourful market that sells everything, has the best fruit and veg, plus excellent charcuteries and butchers, a couple of lunch spots (try Cafe D) and three tea towel sellers. The surrounding streets have plenty of delis, too.
A Vida Portuguesa (Rua Galeria de Paris 20, 1st floor) is a glamorous old department store that carries the best and most attractive Portuguese foods and handicrafts.
AtLobo Taste (Largo de São Domingos 20), local star designer Paulo Lobo employs local artisans to groove up traditional designs for blankets, baskets and other desirable craftware. Coração Alecrim (Travessa de Cedofeita 28) sells pretty eco, indie and vintage clothes and homewares. Mercado 48 (Rua da Conceição 48) has vintage rosewood furniture, craft ceramics and nice knick-knacks. Fresh and exciting isScar.ID (Rua do Rosário 253), a treasure trove of young Portuguese jewellery, ceramics, furniture and clothing.
Livraria Lello (Rua das Carmelitas 144k) is a bookshop in an incredible art nouveau building. Its interior is usually rammed with visitors snapping the amazing surroundings, so it now charges €3 to get in (redeemable against a purchase).
There’s a fine pousada, Pestana Palacio de Freixo (doubles from €197 B&B) on the river, away from the Ribeira crowds, for those wanting some luxury wind-down time. In the centre, Flores Village (doubles from €145 B&B, ) is a grand, newly renovated townhouse hotel plus serviced apartments, and a well-equipped spa.
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Or plug into Porto’s energetic new alternative scene in a clutch of charming, affordable, boutique B&Bs. Just down from Flores Village is Casa dos Lóios(doubles from €95 B&B), two adjoining boutique guesthouses. Porto Vintage Guest House (doubles from €75 B&B, ) is new for 2015, in the thick of trendy things on Almada. The White Box (doubles from €50) has five cool rooms for lovers of clean lines on busy Santa Caterina, while quieter Rosa et Al (doubles from €118 B&B) is a charming six-room townhouse near Rua Miguel Bombarda that holds art and food events and has a visiting spa service. For a budget stay, try the excellent Gallery Hostel (dorm beds from €22 B&B, doubles from €64 B&B), with its laundry, kitchen and film nights.
For a self-catering stay in Foz do Douro, it would be hard to beat 4 Rooms(doubles from €115 self-catering). It was designed by Pritzker prize-winning architect Eduardo Souto de Moura (of Braga football stadium fame).
•Flights were provided by easyJet (easyjet.com), which flies to Porto from Bristol, Gatwick, Luton and Manchester from £52 return including taxes. Accommodation was provided by the Porto tourist board. Sunvil (020-8758 4722, sunvil.co.uk) offers four nights’ B&B at the Pestana Porto from £499pp (two sharing), including flights from Gatwick, or from £517pp with car hire
