Minimum and maximum number of rooms in hotels and other lodging - your preferred range.

I agree with the larger hotels being too massive. Service isn't always bad at the larger hotels I have stayed in-just less personal. I also think larger hotels are less likely to have the uniqueness that I often look for in a hotel. I like small hotels. I don't mind seeing and talking with the same people at breakfast and that is where most of the interaction has been for me. Unless there is a nice patio or garden, I am most likely to be in my room when I am at the hotel. I like finding places that have something special about them like being in a historic building, or located above a bakery or at a winery. Those places often are the smaller places. So far I haven't had an experience with an uncomfortably personal staff. That would likely turn me off to the small places! In general, I would say I like the places anywhere in the 50 rooms or less size, usually less.

To each their own...I enjoy small places - we use airbnb a lot now, still do some couchsurfing and tend towards B&B's with 6-10 rooms. Big places are too cookie cutter and impersonal and not very interesting...I love staying at our B&B for the 3rd time in Venice that has 4-5 rooms and chatting with Marco, meeting the folks from Australia and talking about travel, or the people from the UK who were travelling around Europe for the last 6 months. Or the people at the little B&B in Rome with 3 rooms who were from Texas who showed us (without much luck) how to use the coffee machine and walked with me down the street to show me which way to walk to the Colosseum. The folks from the UK who we had a lovely chat with in California over our poolside breakfast.

They tend to have some interesting breakfasts (Venice = peach croissants! near Sequoias Nat Park in California = baked acorn squash with spinach (a first for me and very tasty), fresh oj, homemade maple walnut muffins and cranberry granola (so good), bacon and egg frittata) instead of the cardboard stuff at the big hotels (don't even get me started on Anaheim!) and at least don't charge (generally) for said breakfast (unlike the hotel in Munich which charged 15 euro a head for breaky - boy, we should have paid more attention) or for wifi (same Munich hotel, something like 6-8 euro for 24 hrs)- I find bigger places tended to charge for stuff that little places would provide for free (including parking). And I find the bigger hotels half the time don't even offer breakfast (not that the airbnbs do either) but have a menu where you can order crazy expensive toast and cereal and juice, or you are on your own to find something to eat.

So I'll stick, for the most part, with my little intimate B&B's. Big hotels have their place for me...generally to stay at by the airport the night before flying home. I'll take friendly chats with owners and guests any day over impersonal conversations with someone behind a desk.

Hello Andre L. I think being a guest in a small B & B in Europe or Britain would not be liked by all travelers.
I was at a B & B in Europe which was managed by the people who own that building, and their residence is on the floor above the B & B rooms. Those managers were away, three days (Friday, Saturday, Sunday). No person was working in that B & B those days. The air was cold in my room at night. I needed to receive another blanket. I could not receive another blanket, because the people working there were not there : they were away (far away from that town) for three days and three nights. And during the three days the B & B managers were away, hot water was leaking from a pipe in the shower room, all of the time. Wet warm vapor from that hot water was flowing out of the shower room to the hall. All of the toilet paper was wet, it could not be used for its intended purpose. Good toilet paper was not available, because the people working in that B & B were not there for three consecutive days. And there were no dry towels. In that town, the stores that sell toilet paper are not open for business at night. And at that B & B, if I wished to talk to a person working there, it was necessary for me to knock on the door of their residence. I felt like I was a stranger intruding in their home, as Andre said. I was in a small hotel : hot water leaked from a pipe at my bath tub, all of the time, the water totally covered the bathroom floor, the water flowed under the bathroom door to the bedroom floor. It was like a lake of water on the floors in the hotel room. There was no drain in the floor for evacuating the water. No person working at the hotel was at the hotel then. In a hotel that is not very small, there is likely to be an employee at the front desk, all of the time. Sometimes, it is very important for a guest to be assisted by a hotel employee at a time late at night. And a small B & B does not have an elevator (lift). Guests walk up many stairs, carrying their travel bags. And that exists in some small hotels. I do not require being a guest in a Five - star hotel that has every kind of amenity and service that can be imagined. And I do not require having a telephone and television set in my room. I do not require having a private bathroom at my room. I do wish to be at a hotel in which an employee or manager is at the front desk at all hours, or at night a person working in the hotel is residing in that building, and that person is available at any time. And, in my experience at B & Bs in England, the women who were the managers at the B & Bs were in an extremely bad mood (foul mood) in the mornings. It was necessary for me to talk to the manager in the morning of a day when I was departing from the B & B, because the managers insisted that I pay for my room at the time that I depart from the B & B. One of those B & B managers was not ready to receive my money in the morning. I waited a long time for the manager (owner) to be ready to receive money from me. I did not ever experience that at a hotel. At some hotels in Europe, the guests can pay for the room at the time they check in at the hotel.

I've stayed in a wide range from giant hotels, to pensions that only offered a couple of rooms, to hostels, to small family run hotels, to apartments. I'm really not that picky; if it's clean and quiet, I'm happy.

My favorite are probably the small hotels, maybe 10-30 rooms. To be fair many of these aren't that great. When you find a good one, however, it's often the best stay of your trip.

Andre L,

as ive said before, the places i stay are just a place to store my stuff, sleep, shower, use the crapper and maybe eat a breakfast if its provided. For me, they should be clean and quite and centrally located for my needs if at all possible.

Since i travel solo and have a limited budget, i can (and do) choose less expensive or less fancy places that couple/families or people with a larger budget will use. Its not to say i havent stayed @ B&B and hotels and such, but when it comes down to it, i see that many people are caught up in their own E world. You can sit down with people, but sooner or later, their on their phone/note/tablet. Since im an early riser and early to bed, my schedule my not work well to meet people on my travels in the hotel. Ive have sat and chatted with people at breakfast, but its usually a short meal since everyone is hopping to go ASAP. Also, most of the places that were small, once eating, they would leave me alone. Im sure they know you want to eat and get going and im also sure that if i wanted to stop and chat with them, they would be more than happy and i have done that too.

So what it comes down to is that do/stay where and what floats your boat.

happy trails.

I love the anonymity of living in a large building - the idea of an isolated house in the country creeps me out.

For travel, I like small hotels (10-30 rooms, no conference rooms or fitness centers), but my favorite places to stay are a 3-room B&B in Matera and a 40-room hotel in Rieti. Because of the staff and location. I go back to these two places every year.

Our craziest B&B coincidence...we were in Ottawa at the locks at Rideau Canal watching the goings on. My husband was wearing a Clarks England t-shirt (Clarks shoes - I used to sell em and it was a freebie from the sales rep) and this Brit starts talking to us, thinking we were from Britain (until of course we opened our mouths and out popped Canadian). Anyhoo, we chatted for a few minutes. Two or three days later we were at a B&B in Montreal and starting chatting with the British couple at breakfast...well, you guessed it...we were talking to the same people we saw at the canal in Ottawa! I'm not sure if hubby was wearing the same t-shirt again, or we just got to talking about where we were had been and figured it out from there. Hundreds of miles apart, and what are the odds that they would be at the same little B&B in Montreal?

And I am reminded of our B&B stay in Ottawa...the people who ran the place didn't stay there (this was 2007, so memory a little fuzzy) and we used our towels and left them on the floor, thinking someone would be by to bring new ones...well...they weren't...and we didn't know how to contact them, so I ended up stealing some off one of the other beds (I wasn't going to use floor towels that had been in the hallway!)...and I am also kinda remembering a toilet paper shortage/almost catastrophe! But all in all, we've had some good experiences.

My favorite place to stay, in the Oberallgäu, is a pension that holds about 30 people in 17 rooms.

I don't think I've ever stayed in a place with 60 rooms, certainly not 90, nor would I want to.

I've stayed in at least 9 places with 2-4 rooms. I enjoyed all of them.

I admit I have probably stayed in places with more than 20 rooms, but that would not be my preference.

I love Germany, and I love mixing with the people from the country, getting to know them, talking with them, practicing my German at times, and I get far more opportunity for that in small places.

To me, traveling is a total experience, not just seeing things.

I'm not really comfortable in large places where everyone wants to wait on you (with a hand out).

In europe I like and stay in smaller hotels.. 10-30 rooms seems fine to me.. I don't do hotel breakfasts usually so never see anyone at the buffets.. I don't think I have ever stayed at a hotel in Europe with a pool or spa or anything like that.. so once again its not like I see the same people. I don't mind that the desk clerk sees the same 20 or so folks coming in and out all day.. at least its less ( note I said less not impossible) easy for thieves to waltz in .. like in a hotel with 100 or more rooms..

I have not done and am not personally interested in a B@B. as that would be a little too close to comfort to me( a "proper" B@B where its owner run and they live there.. not some of the newer B@BS that seem more like small hotels) .

So for me,, small hotels fine.. living in someones house.. not so fine.

I have never stayed at a large ( skyrise type) chain hotel while in Europe.. its just not something I look for.. I tend to have to keep under a certain budget and since those hotels often have more north american type features ( larger rooms, more services etc) I find the prices are higher then I want to pay.