Dispatch: The Road To Ethiopia Winds Through Washington, D.C.

Airport hotels have a certain charm. They are acutely function oriented. People use airport hotels for quick transit. They want a reasonably comfortable place to get a few hours sleep and shower in preparation for catching a flight. People don’t want to pay much and they don’t want much.

In an airport hotel you never settle. You are always just breezing through en route to another point in your chain of transportation from one place to another. You sleep if you can.

Airport Hotels have a certain hotel aesthetic to correspond with the business model. It’s quick in and out, bare bones, simple, no frills. It’s essentially providing economical comfort and security, a place to shower and sleep for a few hours.

I would think it would be rare for the profile of the user to vary much from that. Maybe some airport or concession employees stay there sometimes. But for the most part it’s in and out. It’s an extension of the airport’s service. It’s part of the airport, like a satellite, and it functions with a sort of airline schedule hum.

An airport hotel is fundamentally different from a resort or destination hotel. Tonight I am experiencing the former.  Here I am at the Holiday Inn Dulles International in preparation to catching a flight tomorrow morning to Ethiopia. And I am snug as a bug. The room was like an arctic storm when I walked in but I turned off the AC and now it’s quite cozy.

What needs to work works. Internet is free and easy. You can heat the room or cool it to your preference.

The view is the parking lot, and for an airline hotel, it’s a quite pleasing and pastoral view. It’s a nice parking lot, as it goes. There is grass out there. We’re not right on the concrete of the airport, not built into the terminal, as are some airport hotels where I’ve stayed.

I’ve stayed at airline hotels where your view opens out into what looks like some hidden crevice in the building’s structure, some architectural flaw that the architect didn’t want anyone to see, or a place where something was built on as an afterthought and you’re looking at a dead space between the buildings, or at plumbing pipes or ducts or some kind of maintenance walkway. Or industrial rooftops.

When I have encountered views like that in airline hotels, it didn’t faze me. I didn’t much care in that situation. It was just a laugh for one second of my spin in and out of the room.  

Views at airline hotels are for people who will not look out the window, who probably won’t even draw back the curtain. It would be a superfluous effort at a time when there is barely time to turn around, when it feels like every precious second must be devoted to the project of preparing to leave the hotel in time to catch your plane.

Also essential to the formula for an airport hotel is a shuttle service to the desired terminal. You have to know it's all set so you can relax knowing you can essentially walk out your door get to the right place with no problems and no more decisions. It’s all set. Then you may be able to sleep. Sleep is about the most valuable commodity to someone in transit.

This hotel provides all that and does so pleasantly and cheerfully. The service is friendly, but in an efficient manner. There is an understated quality to the service, as if acknowledging implicitly that what people want is efficient service, because time is short and they are very likely tired from travel. You’re not greeted as effusively as you might be at a resort or a conference hotel.

The Holiday Inn Dulles International works fine for me. It’s in and out. Everything works. The service accommodates my needs and questions cheerfully and efficiently. All is well. A fine end to a day of travel from New York to Washington D.C. And by the way …

I chose to take that trip from New York to Washington by train. It was about a three and a half hour train ride from New York’s Penn Station to Washington D.C.’s Union Station. For one who spends a lot of time in airports, the train trip was a great relief in many ways.

I didn’t have to take my shoes off, take my belt off, take out my computer, go through an X-ray machine, maybe get patted down, etc. etc. (Please don’t tell). Free Wi-Fi. No need for a trip to the airport.

I have seen it demonstrated to my satisfaction that if a drive or train trip is less than five hours, you don’t save all that much time by flying. And what a lot of trouble you save by not flying.

I rode the Amtrak number 93 from New York to Washington. It was from the heart of Manhattan to the heart of Washington, no long commute from the airport. Union Station in Washington is beautiful. Train riding is fun and relaxing. You are rocked like a baby. Having Wi-Fi makes it possible to make it into a moving office if you want to.

There was a snack bar, which was OK. If you were really hungry you could get something. I ordered a cheeseburger. It tasted pretty good and satisfied my hunger, but it was microwaved inside a plastic wrapper, so I wouldn’t order that again. But there were alternatives and the prices were mercifully low, much lower than you get when you are part of the captive market at the airport.

As a contrast to airline travel, the train trip to DC was a great relief from many of the more unpleasant aspects of flying that flyers have gotten used to and now take for granted.

The advantage of the train over driving is that you don’t have to drive. You can do other things, including sleep or read or go online.

So this trip was supposed to be just getting to the right place to catch the flight to Ethiopia. But it turned out to be a fun experience in itself. Then tomorrow the real trip begins with a flight to Addis Ababa.

 Source:  travelpulse.com