Sleeping near Frankfurt

If it's prior to your flight back home you may want to stay in a town with direct train service into the airport. Consider Mainz and Wiesbaden. Both are very nice with Wiesbaden being the more charming. A very nice small town in the Taunus hills, only a 20 minutes taxi ride from the airport is Bad Soden. The hotel Rheinischer Hof is affordable, gets good recommendations on booking.com and you can walk to numerous local restaurants and bars from there. Also there is a very nice old-fashioned park just around the corner if you maybe like to walk in the early mornings or so. Last but not least also only 20 minutes from the airport is Höchst with a medieval market square just like in Rothenburg. The Lindner Congress Hotel is walking distance to this square and usually very affordable as well. From that hotel walk down one block to the Main river, turn right and you'll see the medieval castle-type wall structure in which the market square is located in.

That's a very helpful reply. Thank you. I will look for each of them on the map.

Whenever I am flying out of Frankfort I spend the night before in Mainz. It is only a 15 to 20 minute train ride to the airport. There are many hotels within a 10 minute walk of the Mainz train station, but you will have to go to another guidebook besides Rick's because he doesn't admit the existence of Mainz.
While there I would definitely take the time to visit the Mainz cathedral - one of the three great Romanesque cathedrals in the Rhineland. Also in the don't miss category is St Stephens church with it's stained glass windows by Marc Chagall. Finally, if you are into that, the Gutenberg Museum is worth a short visit.

Hoechst is great! While there, you could visit one of the oldest churches in Germany, the Justinus church, built in 850. Have dinner in the old market place, sitting up on the city walls that overlook the Main river and stroll around the cobblestoned streets lined with fachwerk houses. Maybe even walk around in the dry moat or go have a drink in the really cool stone cellar. Yes, I AM talking about Frankfurt, but the part that Rick forgot to visit. Keeping my fingers crossed that he will come see this little gem eventually. http://www.schlosskellerhoechst.de/g%C3%A4stebuch/

Are you guys talking about Höchst im Odenwald? That's a reasonably charming town, but not that convenient to the airport. Burg Breuberg is also nearby, and I know what a hard-on some people on this website get for relatively un-reconstructed medieval castles... I didn't like Darmstadt the first time I visited there, but the city has really grown on me since. WWII obliterated most of it, but enough of the former royal splendor and Jugenstil of the Großherzogtum Hessen remain. And its REALLY convenient to the airport.

Nope, we are talking about Frankfurt Hoechst.

Wonderful feedback.
I'm checking into all of your suggestions. To find that we won't have to "waste" a night by staying in Frankfurt, which sounds pretty dry to me, is great to hear. Thanks, everyone

Frankfurt, dry? Please don't make me cry. :-))
This is a lively, fun city, with history oozing out of its' pores. People pass it by without ever finding anything out about it other than it has skyscrapers. It is like writing off Chicago or NYC because they have tall buildings. It is the most multi-cultural of all the German cities, it devotes over 9 % of its yearly budget to cultural activities and has more museums than any other city except for Berlin. Anyway, I doubt if you would be bored here and might wish you had more time here, once you visit.

Point made. With more time another trip we'll stay a while in a charming corner of Frankfurt.

Another vote for Mainz, only because that is where we stayed our last night and we were very happy with our choice. The city is very walkable and we visited about half a dozen churches including St. Stephens with the wonderful Marc Chagall stained glass windows! A relaxing and 'easy' way to spend the last afternoon.
Can also recommend Hotel Koenigshof. We paid 80 euros. It is at most 5 minutes from the train station.

With a cheerleader who is so passionate about her Frankfurt it won't have this dull reputation for long. Jo was kind enough to spend a day showing us around Frankfurt during the Christmas Market time.... and we thoroughly enjoyed everything and after 6 or 7 times of just staying near the airport on previous trips I will never do that again. I had my 15 year old grandson with me and he was thoroughly impressed with both Jo and Frankfurt.

Jo, I went to the above site that you mentioned to but could not find a change to English icon. If there is one, please direct me to it. I have already made reservations in Mainz because of the great reports from there but I do want to look into Frankfurt inexpensive hotels.

That link was just to the Schloss Keller, a really cool venue for music, dining, and parties, just to offer a few photos of things to see and do if one is in Frankfurt Hoechst. I like using www.hrs.com to find hotels. It lets you check availability, the neighborhood, location, if breakfast is offered, etc. For budget in Frankfurt, the Ibis City Center is good, or the Excelsior, Hotel Monopol, or perhaps the Holiday Inn Express.

I think this new video on Youtube shows just how much charm Frankfurt actually has: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQfwcUO7SF0 And this video really only shows 3 of the central districts (boroughs) of Frankfurt. As mentioned before, the district of Hoechst is quite beautiful and the district Sachsenhausen has a lot of historical importance.