The Pleasure of a Cheap Hotel

We’re big fans of cheap hotels, so we can’t seem to get enough of Daisann McLane’s recent celebration of the humble, oft-unheralded accommodations. McLane’s new book, Cheap Hotels, collects her photographs and recollections of many of the places she has visited while writing the Frugal Traveler column for the New York Times. In Sunday’s edition of the paper, she meditates on their draw. “In an inexpensive hotel, ghosts feel freer to roam, shadows linger and stories are told,” she writes. “Extraordinary things happen.”

The newspaper’s Web site also features an audio slide show, accessible from the main travel page. McLane recently spoke with World Hum.

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