in search of darn good digs

Nadia Latif of Travel Intelligence has uncovered for Darn Good Digs an intimate three-roomed riad in the heart of Fez’s labyrinthine medina.  From the moment we received the nomination of Riad Numero 9 from Nadia, a self-described hotel junkie, we knew we had found an extraordinary small hotel.  She emailed us, “I visited it last [...]

Gary Diedrichs from Green Traveler Guides recently nominated the eco-friendly Balamku Inn on the Beach in Mahahual, Quintana Roo, Mexico, as one of his all-time favorite independently owned hotels.   The Green Traveler Guides, launched by Gary and his wife Peggy, are all about traveling well with the lightest possible carbon footprint. They do old-fashioned research [...]

One of the great benefits of putting together a guide to travelers’ favorite places to stay is receiving a new nomination in our in-box.  It’s a little bit like receiving a surprise gift.  After all, we depend on travelers from around the world to take the time to nominate their all-time favorite places (with rooms [...]

Vento di Rose is a true labor of love. The owners, Emanuela and Emidio, are some of the kindest and most generous people we have ever met. Their home and bed and breakfast is a beautifully restored Italian country house with views of medieval hilltop towns in every direction. And as if this weren’t enough, [...]

Where do you want to travel next?   We’ve spent most of the winter here in Brooklyn researching the hundreds of nominations we received recently, and we’re psyched by all the new digs we’ve added.  Beyin Beach Resort in Ghana is on our new must-visit list.  So are the two fabulous cave hotels in central [...]

We are really pleased to feature one of Sherry Ott’s all-time favorite places to stay, the Ambassador Garden Home in Kathmandu, Nepal, as our fourth post in our guest travel writer and blogger series.  Sherry blogs at Otts World, a popular blog that she launched over three years ago when she quit her corporate Manhattan job to [...]

Darn Good Digs only includes independently and locally owned hotels in our accommodations guide, and we do so for important reasons. We strongly believe that locally owned hotels, together with all independent businesses, give our communities character and vitality. They provide diversity in an increasingly homogenized world. Yet for us, staying independent isn’t just about [...]

Our third guest post in our professional travel writer and popular travel blogger series is by Dee Andrews, the author of Travel and Travails. Dee’s blog chronicles the year she spent with her husband and two young children living in Spain, and the challenges and joys of “finding new paths on the road of life.” [...]

We’ve asked a group of professional travel writers and popular travel bloggers to nominate their all-time favorite small hotels, b & b’s, and hostels with rooms under $150, and our second guest post is by Shelley Seale, the author of The Weight of Silence: Invisible Children of India. Shelley has written for National Geographic and [...]

We’ve asked a group of professional travel writers and popular travel bloggers to nominate their all-time favorite small hotels, b & b’s, and hostels with rooms under $150, and our first guest post is by Jeanine Barone, the author of J The Travel Authority.  Jeanine has written articles for most of the major travel publications, including National Geographic [...]