Chances are that when your fly somewhere, you’ll spend the night at a hotel.  And, if you’re not too sleepy, you’ll remember to put the do not disturb sign on the doorknob.

From my Bing Travel slide-show of clever and sassy door tags, here are few (more) samples:

Calling itself Brighton’s “sauciest boutique hotel,” England’s Hotel Pelirocco has put a twist on the Do Not Disturb concept in one of its unique, themed rooms.

The Do Knit Disturb suite is filled with the handiwork of local artist Kate (Cardigan) Jenkins, who knitted up this framed Do Knit Disturb artwork and hand-knit covers for most of the room’s furnishings, including the telephone and the lamp.

And in the San Juan range of the Colorado Rockies, just over the mountain from Telluride, the hand-built cabins at the Dunton Hot Springs Resort are urban cowboy-elegant. The all-inclusive rates hover at around $1,000 a night, but each do not disturb sign is nothing more than a recycled paint can lid that’s red on one side, and green on the other.

You can see the full Do Not Disturb slide show on Bing Travel

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From the Limelight Lodge in Aspen, Colorado

A do-not-disturb tag is a tiny but useful, low-tech device that becomes essential when you want uninterrupted time to sleep, work or play in your hotel room. A simple “In” or “Out” sign could suffice, but many hotels have gotten mighty creative with this housekeeping tool.

Here’s a sampling of the Clever Do Not Disturb Signs I found for a slide-show I created for Bing Travel.

From Boston's Libery Hotel, in the former Charles Street Jail. Signs request "solitary."

Do Not Disturb: Housekeeping crew restoring zen at motorcycle-themed Iron Horse Hotel in Milwaukee

Sassy Do Not Disturb signs at the Sanctuary Hotel in New York City

More tomorrow…

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Sometimes flying from one place to another just doesn’t make sense.
So instead you choose to drive.

And while today we take it for granted that there will be a budget hotel – or three – around the next bend on the highway, back in the mid 1920s motels weren’t even part of the American landscape.

When early car owners hit the road, they’d often spend the night in auto camps that had few to zero amenities. But that changed on Dec. 12, 1925, when architect Arthur Heineman opened the country’s first roadside motor hotel. The price of a room: $2.50 a night.

Motel Inn courtesy: History Center of San Luis Obispo County

Located along Highway 101 just north of San Luis Obispo, Calif., the Milestone Motel (later the Motel Inn) halfway between San Francisco and Los Angeles had individual units and a parking space in front of each door. Those features would soon become standard as more Americans hit the road and the concept of motels, motor courts and motor lodges spread nationwide.

While today there are more than 4.7 million guest rooms in the United States, according to the American Hotel &Lodging Association, and hundreds of thousands of motel-style properties along the nation’s highways, the Spanish-style Motel Inn is no longer open for business.

“It meant a lot to the community and used to be the first thing that greeted motorists that came into town,” said Pete Kelly, a researcher at the History Center of San Luis Obispo County.

“But now it’s almost torn down. Just a façade remains. The bell tower is still there and the original sign is there, but the rest is gone.”

(A slightly different version of this story first appeared on msnbc.com’s Overhead Bin)

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For msnbc.com’s Overhead Bin this week, I poked around for some unusual and offbeat Thanksgiving hotel packages. Here’ what I found.

While many travelers will head over the river and through the woods to eat big meals and sleep them off at grandmother’s house this Thanksgiving, others will spend part of the holiday hanging out at an inn.

Many hotels will be offering special holiday rates and, in their restaurants, serving up traditional Thanksgiving meals. But we found a few hotels that have cooked up holiday packages that include some offbeat or unusual extras.

Room with a parade view

In New York City it can be difficult for out-of-towners to find a warm, comfortable spot to watch the marching bands, the performers, the celebrities and the giant helium balloons in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

That’s why some hotels along the route put together special room-with-a-view packages. For example, in addition to an upgraded Central Park View room and a welcome amenity (pumpkin biscotti, a mug and a sachet of mulling spices), the Mandarin Oriental, New York’s “I Love a Parade” package includes parade-day access to the hotel’s ballroom, which offers a great viewing perch and activities such as cookie decorating, face painting and photos with (people dressed up as) turkeys. Rate: $1,155 per night, Nov. 22 – 25.

Sleep or shop?

For many people, Thanksgiving has become a day to map out a shopping strategy for Black Friday. For those intent on being first in line at the Wrentham Village Premium Outlets in Massachusetts, the Hampton Inn in nearby Franklin is offering a Midnight Madness Thanksgiving Shopping Special. Stores open at midnight and this Nov. 24-only package includes a $50 outlet center gift card, complimentary hourly shuttle rides beginning at 11 p.m., coffee-to-go, snacks and a bargain hunter’s early bird breakfast buffet. Rates start at $199.

In California, the Four Seasons Hotel San Francisco is offering a Bloomingdale’s Luxe Holiday Package that includes a $100 Bloomingdale’s gift card, spiked hot chocolate cocktails and a 25- minute head, neck and shoulder post-shopping massage. Rates start at $595 and are available through Jan. 31, 2012.

Sip and smile

For guests attending family get-togethers that may stray to the stressful, the Hotel Palomar San Francisco is offering a Pie + Family + Booze = Splendid Holiday package that includes a bottle of Wild Turkey bourbon and a choice of pie or cranberry preserve to bring along as a contribution to Thanksgiving dinner. Rates start at $229 and are valid through Dec. 29.

For families that think they can make it through the holiday intact, The Madison Hotel in Washington, D.C., has a package that includes a suite that can accommodate four people, a four-course Thanksgiving dinner with Virginia wine pairings for eight and a professionally photographed family portrait taken in the suite. Rates start at $799 a night. (Promotional code: Turkey Day).

No napkins needed

And then there’s the Thanksgiving without the Dressing dinner at the Terra Cotta Inn in Palm Springs, Calif. The popular nudist resort offers guests a free Thanksgiving dinner. “When you have Thanksgiving dinner dressed in your finest birthday suit,” said inn co-owner Tom Mulhall, “you don’t have to worry about your pants getting too tight and having to loosen your belt buckle. You won’t be wearing one.”

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If, like most people, you turn to friends and family to recommend places to go and things to do, then consider this fresh batch of travel tools.

Several new sites and apps such as Trippy, Gogobot, Afar, Gtrot and Flymuch promise to help you plan the perfect trip by tapping into Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and friends or expert sources on other online networks you already trust.

Each product offers its own twist — for example, added editorial content or local coupons and deals — but all are based on information-gathering that goes beyond the crowdsourcing model of sites like TripAdvisor.com and relies instead on friendsourcing, or tapping into advice from your network of friends, as the model.

“When crowdsourcing sites first came out, they were pretty revolutionary,” said Travis Katz, CEO and co-founder of Gogobot.com. “They offered a way for people to get opinions and advice from regular, everyday people, as opposed to an editor. But then the problem was there was too much information. You had to read through a lot of information to figure out what matched your need.”

While much of that content can be helpful, much of it is anonymous. So it can also be untrustworthy. “People have a huge incentive to create fake content that promotes their own business or criticizes a competitor,” said J.R. Johnson, CEO and Founder of Trippy.com. “In a friend-sourced model, your only incentive is to help your friend have an amazing experience in a location you are familiar with and passionate about.”

“For aspirational products, this makes perfect sense. Anything you do for fun is fun to talk about and you like to share great experiences,” said Carroll Rheem, director of research at PhoCusWright Inc., a travel industry research provider. But when it comes to travel, Rheem finds the blend of social networks and crowdsourcing an especially good fit.

“Because travel is so expensive and experiential,” said Rheem. “And because there’s a lot of information gathering and weighing and making decisions, and a need for relevant content.”

But while travel-themed, friendsourcing sites are proliferating, Rheem doesn’t see them replacing the larger, established crowdsourcing sites anytime soon.

“The average person takes one or two trips a year. So unless you happen to have friends who are extremely well-traveled, the feasibility of friendsourcing can only go so far when you think of the entire world of travel. However, these sites can add an extra layer of leverage.”

“Crowdsourcing sites offer breadth,” said travel analyst Henry Harteveldt of the Atmosphere Group. “Friendsourcing offers trust. I could see someone checking a hotel on TripAdvisor and using Gogobot to verify the hotel with friends, while also getting additional ideas for what to do.”

The bottom line is that “friends and family remain the No. 1 source for travel information,” said Donna Quadri-Felitti, a professor at the Tisch Center for Hospitality, Tourism, and Sports Management at New York University. “This idea of online friendsourcing is really just harvesting user-generated content that already exists. Everyone is trying to find the way to monetize the new social media platforms and add value to what those sites already do. Some of the sites are there; some, not yet.”

(This story originally appeared on msnbc.com Travel)

Categories: Air Travel, Hotels, Travel tips
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