Please welcome guest blogger Michael from Darngooddigs.com
Have you ever been traveling and you meant to spend just a weekend at a hotel – but you ended up spending three weeks because you just couldn’t bring yourself to leave? Or at least that’s what you wanted to do, even if it wasn’t possible at the time? That’s the kind of hotel we review on Darn Good Digs. We’re building a guide to the world’s best independently owned hotels around the world for budget-minded travelers. Travelers nominate their favorite places to stay, and after meticulous research we select the best to include in our guide. Hotels cannot pay to be included.
We just added the blogger Sarah Lavender Smith’s nomination of the Aiguaclara Hotel in the tiny medieval village of Begur on Spain’s Costa Brava – occupying a 19th century mansion replete with original tile-work and ornate wrought iron detailing and run by the welcoming and friendly owners, Clara and Joan. We work with dozens of bloggers like Sarah who are traveling the world and let us know when they found extraordinary, darn good digs.
Arthur Frommer recently wrote in his blog that Darn Good Digs “is a riot of color, and each hotel, hostel or b-and-b is thoroughly examined from every angle.” He told his readers, “Thus far, Darn Good Digs has nominated slightly over a hundred such lodgings scattered all over the world, in every possible location…. It’s obvious that they all are so outstanding that they will be eagerly sought out by smart travelers in the months to come. You yearn to stay in these picturesque places covered by flowers and foliage, filled with well-stuffed easy chairs, bright and attractive and yet modestly-priced.”
We first launched Darn Good Digs because we had found amazing places to stay during our own travels that we wanted to share with other travelers. At the same time, we were frustrated with how difficult it was to uncover these rare gems – that fit within our modest budget yet were clearly an innkeeper’s labor of love. Other online travel sites were either overflowing with “paid” advertorials or simply too much information, with hundreds of thousands of hotel listings and millions of user reviews. At Darn Good Digs, we talk to other travelers, do the time consuming research, and then give our readers a truly select list of the best hotels, b&b’s, and hostels for travelers on a budget. In return, we simply ask our readers to nominate their favorite hotels so we can keep expanding the website.
If you have come across any Darn Good Digs during your travels, please nominate them using our Nomination Form. And check out our guide to the best accommodations around the world. You won’t be disappointed.
