Several media outlets have done stories recently on the high cost of hotels in downtown areas. It's usually true that a centrally located hotel room in one of the world's major cities will cost you a premium rate.
All of this prompted me to try a search engine experiment. What would I find if I searched some expensive city centers for hotel space, setting some fairly demanding parameters?
Using Kayak.com, I set the distance limit from the city center at three miles. I set a price limit at $100 USD/night. I refused to consider hotels with fewer than two stars, and I eliminated those with user review ratings under five on the ten-point Kayak scale.
I'll admit at the outset that these are some fairly unreasonable limits. Three miles in places like Los Angeles, New York or London might as well be twice that distance. A case can be made that a hotel within six miles of Times Square is fairly convenient.
View the results not so much as recommendations, but as data. In fact, as time passes, these links might reveal prices much different than the snapshot I took at the time of my search. That's part of the travel business.
So what is the point of this exercise?
I think it shows that in many expensive places, it is possible to find a decent place to stay for under $100. But many travelers never take the time to do this basic homework.
Click on "next" below and begin reading about how the experiment turned out in nine major cities.
