Spending 17 nights in Homewood Suites by Hilton: I really like living in hotels! A journey of FIRE (financial independence retire early) movement…
In the early years of my wife and myself’s journey of early retirement, we primarily used long term rental platforms like Airbnb or VRBO (Vacation Rentals By Owner) for our lodging needs. Because we technically don’t own or rent a permanent place of our own, this made sense.
Living as nomads doesn’t mean we move from one place to another frequently. Thanks to these aforementioned long term rental platforms, we’ve been able to stay a month, sometimes few months, in a rental property of our choosing.
We’ve lived the life of “slow travelers”, meaning we stay at one place for a long time, seeking to explore a particular area in depth, and also so we can live a semblance of a so called “normal” life, where we have a semi-permanent place to rest our heads each night. We enjoyed our early years of our early retirement, as we got to “live” in a particular area, trying to experience what life is like as a local.
We explored local parks (and sometimes parks 100+ miles away), sampled their food offerings, met local residents (and visitors), and learned to adapt to constantly changing bevy of ever changing conditions such as sales taxes, food prices, gasoline prices, attractions admission prices, and so on. Living in a different place is exciting and novel. It’s why most people travel, to get away from the everyday, mundane life, and to experience something new and different.
Even when I was a child, traveling and staying at a motel or a hotel was super exciting. Everything about traveling was and is still amazing: the anticipation of travel itself, the thought of experiencing something new, and the excitement of living in a new place if only for a night or two.
I still remember my first time staying at a nice hotel in South Korea. My family was preparing to immigrate to the USA, and we needed a place to stay for several nights after getting rid of our humble abode and most of our belongings.
We lived in a very small place with a shared bathroom (outhouse). We didn’t have much, so the idea of staying at a nice hotel, with its own bathroom(!), was a novelty.
I only have fond memories at the hotel, of eating delicious hotel foods, looking out the windows of our room and seeing green grass and tall trees, and feeling happy, truly happy that all is right with the world. Certain childhood memories remain, and this is one of my absolute favorite one.
That wonderful feeling of staying at a hotel remain to this day. I still get goosebumps looking for a hotel for us to stay at, and I still am in awe of the whole experience of checking in to a hotel, getting acclimated to its surroundings, and experiencing different stimuli.
In this regard, I’m living my version of a dream life. I get to experience living in different places, to live like locals do, and to acclimate myself to the environment. I guess this is why most people travel, but for me, it’s something that must be innate.
I sometimes joke with my wife that in my past life, I must’ve been a navigator, taking the lead in my tribe’s hunt looking for prey, or my tribe’s seasonal migration, out in the African savanna. I can get around well, I can remember a particular route to a place well, but most importantly, I truly enjoy the whole experience.
To sum this all up, I am truly happy when I’m experiencing new stimuli at a new place. Ever since our early retirement back in August 2020, we have been traveling quite a bit, experiencing this beautiful world (and this beautiful country) one mile at a time.
If our early years of our early retirement were spent at mostly long term rentals, since our dog Toby’s passing, we have broadened horizons to include hotels. This slight detour to our ways began in earnest during our first major cross country road trip in the winter of 2022.
We drove from North Carolina all the way to Southern California, covering well over 12,000 miles in the process. During this trip, we fell in love with living in hotels again. These are some of things we loved:
- Free breakfast
I would say that roughly 95% of the hotels we stayed at included free breakfasts. Some, like Spark by Hilton, has Continental breakfast (just breads, cereals, coffee, juice, fruits if we’re lucky), while the rest have full breakfasts (eggs, yogurt, breakfast meats like bacon/sausage, breads, fruits).
This is one of the best things about staying at hotels. I can just get up and walk downstairs to eat breakfast. Easy, and it also saves me money. I calculated the value of a hotel full breakfast at roughly $20 per day for the two of us. (It would easily cost $20 per day to eat breakfast anywhere these days, even at places like McDonald’s if we were to order things like yogurt, orange juice, fruits, etc.)
Of course, had we stayed at a long term rental, we’d be buying our own groceries, cook, then clean up after ourselves. I calculate just the cost of groceries at roughly $50-60 for the two of us per week.
- Dozen Eggs $3
- Breakfast meats (bacon, Canadian ham, ham, turkey, etc.) $5
- Various breads (waffles, bagels, whole wheat bread, multi grain bread, etc.) $6
- Yogurt $4
- Fruits $10
- Coffee $10
- Orange Juice $4
- Condiments, seasonings and cooking oil $4
- Cream cheese, peanut butter, butter $8
If we were to add the cost of our time to drive to/from grocery stores (don’t forget to add the cost of gasoline to get there and back), shop for groceries (roughly 2 hours including driving times/shopping time), cook, and to clean, then it’s definitely more than $50-60 per week…
- Getting hotel rewards points to redeem for free nights
We started using Choice Hotels that winter and realized the benefits of staying at the same hotel chain. We really liked the clean, modern rooms of Sleep Inns out on the west coast (Page, Arizona and Moab, Utah), and we started using more of these hotels from there.
After a year, we got enough points to redeem for a free night, which was really cool. I like the idea of getting something back for my loyalty, and I really liked these hotels at the time.
Unfortunately, the quality of Choice Hotels on the east coast, was a whole different ballgame. Hotels on the east coast were in dire need of repair, and in dire need of good customer service. Both were seriously lacking.
Staying at a Choice Hotel chain in Brunswick, Georgia (Country Inn & Suites) and the absolute last straw, a Sleep Inn in Wilson, North Carolina, made us realize we needed to make a change. So, in the winter of 2023, we switched to the Hilton hotels.
We never looked back since that time, achieving Diamond status the following year, and also to this day. What I really love about the Hilton hotels rewards program is that they run several promotions throughout the year like “Double points”, where you get double the points per stay, or “Double nights”, where you get 2 times the number of nights you stay for.
Thanks to these promotions, we ended up staying 26 nights free just last year (15 nights at Home2 Suites Ocean City, 5 nights at Hilton Garden Inn Oceanfront, 1 night at Homewood Suites Edgewater, and 5 nights at Home2 Suites Salt Lake City). In pure dollar value, these 26 nights amount to roughly $2600, if not more.
I definitely got my money’s worth with the Hilton rewards program. There’s no doubt that we started to think seriously about living in Hilton brand hotels, at least part of the year.
- Hotel room doesn’t need to be cleaned by us at departure
Unlike long term rentals like via Airbnb, where we do need to tidy up the place before leaving (take out the garbage, take out pillowcases/bed sheets, clean the rental like how we found it basically), we don’t have to do any of these when we’re staying at a hotel. It is, so convenient!
We have been, like most travelers who are bit miffed about using Airbnb with all their guest protocols, miffed about that as well. I paid good money to rent the place, and I have to clean the place when I leave???
When the price of a long term rental via Airbnb was cheap (around $1300 or less), I was ok with that. But these days, I find many Airbnb rentals costing as much as a hotel room. Wait, I pay about the same but I have to clean afterwards? And, there’s no free breakfast? It just doesn’t make sense…
Now, don’t get me wrong. Hotels still cost more per month compared to renting a long term rental via Airbnb. However, if you were to really calculate everything side by side, then the value equation gets fairly close. Here’s what I mean.
Cost per month for an Airbnb
- We spent anywhere from $850 to as high as $1850 per month. Average “rent” is roughly $1300 per month.
- We usually prepare our own meals at long term rentals; grocery prices at $500-600 per month
Cost per month for a Hilton hotel chain
- 30 nights would equal about $3000
- We still buy groceries for lunch/dinner; figure $300
True cost per month, if accounting for other variables
Let’s say we spend $1900 per month at a typical Airbnb vs $3300 at a Hilton hotel. Even though there’s a whopping $1400 difference between the two, here are some of these variables that minimize that difference:
- The value of a full breakfast at Hilton hotel has a value of $20 per day, or $600 per month as mentioned above
- The value of not needing to clean our rental is $120 (we clean once a week; we figure it has a value of $30 per cleaning)
- The value of Hilton rewards program is $2600 or more for 26 free nights *Dividing $2600 by 12 months equals $217 per month of value.
I recently calculated what we spent on our long term rentals back in 2021 when we didn’t use hotels at all, and it was roughly $8700. In 2024 as an example, we spent roughly $12000 on lodging that include both long term rentals and hotel stays. The difference of $3300 can easily be offset by the $2600 in free nights we got back plus all the other variables mentioned above. Nice!
I know I’m trying to justify the Hilton hotel stays. But if used correctly, the cost difference isn’t as big as it seems. We get a much nicer environment in a Hilton hotel vs a long term rental generally speaking.
- Safety
If there’s something more important than saving money, it’s safety. What good is few hundred dollars saved per month staying at long term rentals if it has questionable safety concerns?
I can honestly say that we stayed at several of these questionable places including in Claysburg, Pennsylvania where we actually saw police arrest someone right next to our building twice, and in Stratton, Maine where our cabin was in the middle of the woods. Both situations were bit iffy to say the least.
At least with hotels like the Hilton hotels, they generally build them in better parts of town, meaning better safety. I would rather spend more to feel safe and Hilton hotels generally have that covered.
It was probably the end of 2024 that we started to really use Hilton hotels. Starting with our free 5 nights stay in Wilmington North Carolina using points, we really enjoyed racking up points to be used towards free stays.
We found out throughput the years that our favorite Hilton hotel chain is the Homewood Suites, for their spacious rooms, full kitchens, evening reception Wednesdays, and the availability of a large couch to lounge all day. During the month of April, we chose two different Homewood Suites for our stays.
Homewood Suites by Hilton Allentown-Bethlehem Airport
For the first 10 nights, we chose Homewood Suites Allentown-Bethlehem Airport, about 50 miles north of where we used to live near the Philadelphia suburbs. At a cost of roughly $1000, it was a decent price.
It certainly helped that we knew this area well during our time we lived nearby. We used to go visit destinations like the Lehigh Valley Mall, downtown Allentown, and Bethlehem.
It was definitely a homecoming of sorts, and we no doubt, love Pennsylvania. We have so many great memories there, especially the times living with our Pomeranian Toby. One other thing that I personally love about the state is that it allowed me to retire early thanks to my last job there. Thank you so much Pennsylvania for all the great memories!
We left our parent’s place in New York City west, towards Allentown-Bethlehem area. At a driving distance of roughly 100 miles, the drive would take just over 2 hours.
We arrived at the hotel, checked in, and got settled in to our now familiar setup of a studio suite at the Homewood Suites. It was just what we expected with its spacious room, full kitchen, and two windows to make it airy and bright.
Although we only had a view of a large home improvement store right next door, we didn’t mind. At least we could see outside and see the expansive blue skies.
We loved the hotel’s location with several fast casual restaurants right in front of our hotel. It was a very short walk over, which was fantastic.
We picked up our takeout foods from Moe’s Southwest Grill, Haazs (a Halal restaurant), and SaladWorks couple of times during our stay. We couldn’t have asked for a better location than that!
The highlight of this stay was our trip out to one of favorite attractions in Lehigh Valley, Hawk Mountain Sanctuary. Hawk Mountain Sanctuary is a world renowned raptor conservation site with nine miles of hiking trails, and it offers spectacular views from the North and South Overlooks especially during fall migration.
This is a place we loved so much that we signed up to be a member of the sanctuary for couple of years while we lived there. We hiked there with our family, friends, and just the two of us. Because the sanctuary doesn’t allow dogs on their trails, we hiked there without our fur ball Toby, but we still have great memories there.
We took off from our hotel on a beautiful sunny morning, again heading west towards Hawk Mountain Sanctuary. At a driving distance of roughly 35 miles, it took close to an hour to get there.
One of our favorite drives in Lehigh Valley is the drive to get to the Hawk Mountain Sanctuary. It features Pennsylvania’s famous rolling hills, idyllic scenery, and fantastic mountain ranges in the distance.
We cherished the drive up the mountains, reminiscing about our past trips there, then pulled into the gravel/dirt covered parking lot. We walked inside the visitor center to pay for our trail fees ($10 per adult as of this writing).
Afterwards we did a quick pit stop before starting the hike, as we knew that there are no bathrooms on the trails. We started on the popular Overlook Trail, just past the visitor center.
Our first stop was the South Lookout, at an elevation of 1300 feet. This lookout is a very short hike, reachable after hiking 5 minutes from the visitor center.
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| South Lookout, Hawk Mountain Sanctuary |
At the South Lookout, we saw raptors majestically gliding in the air. They were flying impossibly high, circling at times, probably looking for prey. Looking at different birds of prey is one of the best reasons why we love this place.
We met up a family with 2 young ones who were using binoculars. We asked what they saw there and they said turkey vultures and some red tailed hawks. They knew their raptors!
We stayed taking in the amazing sights then we slowly headed up the mountain, back on the Overlook Trail. We remembered this trail well, having hiked up here on at least 5 different times.
Instead of going up the long way, we turned right on Escarpment Trail, a shortcut to the North Lookout. We climbed some large boulders, feeling like we were really hiking, then made it up to the North Lookout in roughly 30 minutes.
North Lookout was as impressive as ever! With wide open, panoramic views from there, we saw the beautiful Lehigh Valley below. Oh, and we saw raptors, even more so, compared to the South Lookout.
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| North Lookout |
We walked over, on our left, to the Sunset Overlook, so we can eat our lunches. We found relatively flat rocks as a makeshift chairs, and we ate our sandwiches enjoying that awesome view.
The wind was chilly at that elevation (1521 feet) but the views and the raptor sightings were well worth the chill. It was truly nature’s free air show at its finest! So cool…
Homewood Suites by Hilton Boston-Billerica/Bedford/Burlington
When we were searching for a week long stay using Homewood Suites as our hotel choice, we came upon this one, near Boston, Massachusetts. It was just under $800 for a 7 night stay there, so bit more expensive compared to the one in Allentown/Bethlehem, but the appeal of Boston certainly played a part in us booking this hotel.
We were excited to leave our temporary home at Homewood Suites Allentown/Bethlehem and we headed north and east. We were be taking the well traveled I-80, crossing over via the George Washington Bridge.
Google Maps pointed us to take the not so familiar CT-15 route once we got into Connecticut which was cool. We stopped over at town of Stamford for a quick lunch at Panera Bread. Here’s my motto: eat when you can, go to the bathroom when you can. We did both at the Panera Bread.
We got back on the road, driving through beautiful rolling hills of Connecticut, and seeing lots of trees looking glorious with their light green colored buds. Great to look at, but our bodies were having a hard time thanks to the inevitable Spring time allergies!
We marched on, persevering through the stuffed up nose, watery eyes, and the constant sneezes. Not fun, but it is what it is…
By the time we arrived at our hotel and checked into our room, we were let down. The hotel looked old, worn out, and our room still had visible cookie crumbs on the floor.
We’re not the type of who complain much, so we just lived with it. It was only a week long stay anyway, and not our permanent home.
This Homewood Suites was one of the worst we had stayed in. Dirty rooms, furniture that had seen better days, and customer service that was utterly missing. Had it not been for good breakfast, I would’ve rated it as one of the absolute worst ones.
And, to add insult to injury, our car got keyed at or near the hotel. We hadn’t seen it before getting there, but we saw them during our stay. That ruined the trip for us from that point forward.
We spent our week just shopping for food at Trader Joe’s, and picking up takeout foods at couple of local restaurants. The allergy symptoms, even with the help of allergy medications, were getting worse, so we chose to just stay indoors.
We had plans to sightsee attractions nearby but that all went away with the emerging allergy symptoms at the beginning of our trip there. Oh, well,
We can’t always win in life. Sometimes we’ll get a bad hotel, have a bad experience (car getting keyed), or any number of bad things. We can either complain about it (which doesn’t do anything anyway), or just move on with your lives and understand this is part of living.
Life is not meant to be perfect. That only happens in Disney movies. The mark of a true adult is understanding the frailties of life, dealing with them, and taking things in stride.
You don’t have to like it. You just have to deal with it. That’s part of living…
In conclusion:
Thanks to the Hilton Honors Rewards Program, we’ve been getting the most out of our stays at Homewood Suites or Home2 Suites to get free nights. These two hotels have provided us with some of the best hotel experiences possible with spacious rooms, full kitchens, and good breakfasts.
Our stay at Allentown/Bethlehem was great. Breakfast was especially good with changing menu of chicken dishes, which we loved. With several food options just within walking distance of our hotel, it made our stay that much better. Oh, and we got to revisit Hawk Mountain Sanctuary, one of our favorite attractions in Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania.
Although we struck out on our stay at Boston area Homewood Suites, we understand not all hotels will be good. Well, we’ll scratch that hotel from our list of hotels to possibly return to…
Even with this bad experience at one of our favorite hotel chains, we will continue to utilize this hotel chain going forward. We still have more positive experiences there compared to other hotel chains.
Thank you for reading and happy trails!
Jake
Wandering Money Pig
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