When you’re traveling far from home—or simply looking for a staycation destination that isn’t your guest bedroom—there’s a high probability you’re going to be checking into a hotel. Maybe you’re only using the room to house your luggage as you spend your days exploring the city you’re visiting, maybe you’re taking advantage of the amenities your hotel offers and ordering room service every night. Whether you’re able to splurge on a place leaning more boutique or you’re on a tight budget, we know one thing is true: There’s always room for improvement.
We’ve all heard the horror stories about hotel rooms in the past few years, like bed bug infestations or people doing unspeakable things in the provided coffee makers, and we’re just not here for that. As you step into your rented room for the first time, with your heavy luggage and airplane hair, the last thing you should think is “Is this place health hazard?” Even if you’re pleased with what you walk into, you can always make your home away from home feel even cleaner, cozier, and even fancier?
Though hotel staff is most likely working as hard and as best they can, there are some things you should do to put your mind at ease before resting your head on the hotel pillow.
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Bring Your Own Pillowcases
You know how when you’re doing your laundry at home and it comes time to take off your pillowcases, and when you do, you’re met with mysterious stains that you never want to face or think about ever again? Yeah, those thoughts are often brought back to the surface when we’re about to lay our heads on hotel pillows. A report by mattress company Amerisleep found that a pillowcase that hasn’t been washed for a week has 17 thousand times the bacteria found on a toilet seat. We wouldn’t want to take the risk of laying our heads down on the one pillow cover that accidentally skipped the wash! Though it’s not out of the question to fully bring your own pillows with you on vacation, who’s actually going to take up that much packing space? The internal compromise is carrying your own pillowcases to sleep on. Bringing your own, especially if it’s silk, can improve your sleep and is better for your hair and skin.
Carry Some Candles
You never know what you’re walking into when you open up that room door, and sometimes, it can be a waft of stale smoke coming from your non-smoking room. Even if there’s nothing at all wrong with how your room smells, a calming candle can simply make your night better if you light it as you wind down for the night. After a long day of being a tourist or visiting with family, there’s nothing better than relaxing into bed, turning on a TV channel you only ever watch when you travel, and inhaling that intoxicating scent of the candle you so adore (we’d go with one of these).
Take Your Favorite Slippers With You
There’s just something about walking into a hotel room and finding a wrapped up pair of slippers waiting for you to slip into after a long day of travel. There’s also something about not stepping on the same carpet or tile thousands of other unwashed feet have touched. The hotel-provided slippers are luxurious in theory, but more times than not they’re uncomfortable and just take up space. Carrying your own house shoes with you can make the experience overall just more enjoyable and feel more personal. No more stepping on the cold tile as soon as you wake up—you brought your slippers, so you wouldn’t even know the bathroom floor feels like an ice sheet.
Bring Bath Bombs Or Shower Steamers
The bathroom as a whole for a lot of hotel patrons can give off the same uneasy feeling as the hotel pillows if you think about it too much. One way to take your mind off of all the other people who showered here before you is to bring with you a bath bomb or a few shower steamers to make every morning or night feel like a spa day. If you’re lucky enough to be staying in a hotel with a stellar spa on site, you should still make the most of cleaning your body with some calming aromatherapy on the side. Plus, they’re small enough to throw in your carry-on as an afterthought and have no problems getting through security at the airport.
Don’t Forget Disinfectant Wipes
We know that hotel staff members work tirelessly to ensure the rooms stay clean, but things can easily fall through the cracks. Even if it’s simply for peace of mind, you won’t regret bringing a small pack of disinfectant wipes along with you and cleaning some germy hotspots before you start touching everything. A study by travel site TravelMath found that hotel bathroom counters had 1,288,817 CFUs (colony-forming units) per square inch. And the remote control has 1,211,687 CFU/sq. in, so you’ll want to give that a wipe. Make sure you’re also hitting the remote, light switches, dresser and wardrobe handles, coffeemaker, plates, glassware—basically anything you could touch during your stay. We don’t think it’s necessary to do a full deep clean of your room, but a simple swipe of the wipe will make you immediately feel cleaner. Besides, you’ve already packed wipes to disinfect your tray table on the airplane. Haven’t you?
Shop Hotel Must-Haves
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Assistant Editor
Meghan is the assistant editor at House Beautiful where she writes about interior design, pop culture, and furniture.
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