To spend a decent length of time travelling in the USA you either need to be loaded or be willing to stay in cheap, potentially grotty little motels on occasion. When I went to Hershey I stayed in one such place, a motel in the Red Carpet Inn chain. Hershey has a mix of posh theme park hotels a la Disney, and cheaper, tattier chains such as Days Inn. They are all pretty much the same price, so I chose the one I did because I’d not encountered the chain before, and thought I’d try my luck.

The room was basic, and though it could have put up 2 people, I seemed to fill the space quite easily. The main focus of the room was the bed – just a double here rather than the usual Queen, and bedecked with a lovely patented vinyl/polyester throw which I quickly threw onto the floor. That aside the bedding was perfectly acceptable – no dodgy stains on the white sheets, no visible rips or fraying at the edges. The room itself was clean enough, just a but chipped and peeling around the edges. Aside from the bed, had a huge antique TV with 50 odd channels, a gigantic fridge which I put my moisturizer and water bottle in just because it was there, and a tiny table and two chairs set up squashed up in one corner making one of the chairs totally inaccessible. It probably didn’t matter though as the chairs were minute and would barely have accommodated my arse, let alone some huge American’s. The motel room also boasted a beautiful carpet, so well loved it was even threadbare in places. It wasn’t red as I’d hoped, but then it finally twigged that they meant red-carpet as in Hollywood premier style – they metaphorically lay it down for you, the important guests, to walk over.

Outside the room was a little veranda, shared with the room next door. Beyond that was the car park as each room had a designated space, even those balconied ones on the 2nd floor. The hotel was well located for local attractions, but was surrounded by other hotels and a pharmacy rather than anything useful like a restaurant or grocery store.

I stayed here in August, but can write this now for two reasons – one, I keep a travel journal with mentions of all the hotels I frequent, and two I have a habit of taking a photo of each room I sleep in, just because I like to. That way I can flip through photo albums and relive the good and not-so-good nights in this country and abroad. This means I can also compare hotel rooms throughout the world. My latest conclusion is that someone, somewhere is manufacturing dodgy, flowered bedspreads and flogging them to the hotel industry. My hotel rooms in Atlanta, North Carolina, Chicago, Washington D.C. and the Bahamas all had remarkably similar ones to the one I had hear, and though it means no nasty surprises for you, the traveller, it’s really not something to be proud of.

For some less polite reviews and links to book online if you're still not put off,