A well located hotel adds great  value to your trip – I have devised a simple three step process to find the right location for a hotel. This series now runs into the ninth post after Tokyo, Hong Kong, Vienna, Zurich, Rome, Ho Chi Minh City and Dubai,

Malati and I have made numerous leisure trips across the world. With time, experience and a lot of hindsight our hotel selection has become more focused and precise. Which means  more comfortable and convenient stays. And of  course a more pleasurable holiday and pleasant memories! While price is important, the biggest challenge I have faced is in deciding the location of the hotel. In the past, I would have got a good price, and a great deal with lots of add-ons only to find that the hotel is far away from most places I wished to visit and nowhere near public transport. As a result the holiday became a drudge even before it began! However  with experience I have evolved a simple process to arrive  at the best  choice  of  the location. Earlier this month Malati and I visited Hanoi and spent six days. Here is how we selected the hotel.

To recapitulate the three steps

• City Centre or away ? A hotel close to city centre and attractions or far away and use the savings on transport
• The Holiday purpose? What is the main purpose of the holiday – Lazy ? Action packed / touristy? Nightlife ?
• Make a Visit plot – Plot on the map the places of interest
• Work out a detailed itinerary for each day of your trip – for visiting the selected places of interest .
• Once these have been identified the ideal hotel location stares out of the map . Choosing the right hotel

City Centre or Away : This is the first decision to take while selecting any hotel location. No Bai international airport is almost 25 km away from the city center and there are some hotel options particularly in the budget hotel range. Besides, as taxis in Hanoi are very cheap compared to many a western city one could look at this option. But do keep in mind the distance and time and availability of taxis late night. Safety did not seem to be a concern with tourists but why take a chance on lonely roads. Malati and I prefer to get back in the late afternoon for a short siesta before we set out again for the evening. Two trips a day from the Airport area would be quite a task given that we are both senior citizens! Hanoi is a small city with the most interesting parts located in and around the Old Quarter and the French Quarter. The old quarter is based around the Hoan Kliem lake, a small lake in the middle of the city with many places of tourist interest closeby. Adjacent is the French quarter which houses all of the museums of interest. Hotels are mostly in the Old quarter/French quarter or around West Lake,about five km from the city centre where many of the larger hotel chains have their hotel,

The Holiday Plan – Define the broad purpose of your visit? Sightseeing? Shopping? Museums and history? Leisure-  Lazy  hotel stay? Eating ? Hanoi city offers you all options – Your broad purpose will lead you to the places of your interest – which is often different from what the tour guides say.  So if you are a first timer do some research. Some searches on the net for starters  are  “What are the top 10 things to do in Hanoi”. I found Trip Advisor a great place to start. Lonely Planet is another great site. Also Vietnam tour operators have well crafted tour itineraries which could get some interesting ideas. Once you have gone through a few web sites you would get a pretty good feel of the city, the distances involved  and places to visit. Enough to create your own intelligent short list .

Malati and I decided to make it a peaceful and leisurely trip over a period of five days. We wanted to feel the pulse of the city, its museums and of course the varied Vietnamese food. I also hoped to get a flavour of French cuisine given the long occupation of Vietnam by the French. First on my list was the visit to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum and museum, the Presidential Palace and the One Pillar Pagoda all within the same campus. Hoan Kleim lake and its surroundings offered many places that got our attention. The boulevard around the lake is closed for traffic over the weekend and one can spend hours sampling the delights at numerous restaurants and shops selling trinkets of al sorts. Go across the lake to the Ngoc Son pagoda in the middle of the lake and also add the Quan Troc pagoda in West Lake. One of the things that we picked up from tourist photos was the abundance of flowers in Hanoi and so the city flower market got added to our list. Surprisingly Malati did not insist this time on visiting the farmer’s market. And of course the many museums in Hanoi – My favourite was the Ho loa prison or more famously known in the western world as Hanoi Hilton – Malati added the Vietnamese history museum and the Women’s museum. If time permits you can also add the Military museum which sadly we skipped as it was one museum too many ! Add the old quarter where you can spend a few days walking through the shops and eating at the many roadside cafes,

Pho is a common dish and so is the traditional Ban Minh best eaten on stools barely a few inches off the ground! Shop for clothes(not designer class) and ceramics, Visit the Uniqlo Flagship store. Take an afternoon off and enjoy a water puppet show by the lake followed by dinner at a restaurant or a bar. Admire the French influence on Architecture and add a night ride through the city.Sadly I did not find much of French cuisine except for Madam Huong boulangerie across the road from the Women’s museum. A notable omission in this list was the Temple of Literature – We were content taking a few snaps from the night city tour !

The Visit Plot: Once you have made your own shortlist do plot them on a map of Hanoi . It has been my experience that in any city places of interest are generally bunched in together in one or two locales, And so it is with Hanoi but with a smaller radius. While my wish list makes for a very exhaustive itinerary do have a look the visit plot above. You will notice that most places of interest are within a short distance of the Hoan Kleim lake and in a 1 Km square. Doesn’t the location of the hotel stare at you?

The Itinerary – At this stage with the  places of interests plotted on the map and a fair  idea of the distances between each of these places make out a detailed  itinerary. Work out the most efficient visit sequence for the day to include travel time and mode: time spent at each location and even your meal and rest breaks. And Voila! Your answer for the ideal location for your stay in Hanoi city will now stare out at you. Once you have zeroed in on the right location finding the right hotel is an easy task. Needless to say the further away you go from the city centre the prices of hotels drops sharply – True of any city !

With this process I zeroed on the Oriental Jade hotel on the busy street of Hang Trung just off the Old Quarter and a few steps away from the Hoan Kleim lake.In fact from anywhere.We were nearly always less than a kilometer from any place and it was a perfect location for an evening walk to the lake or the night market to savor the ceramic and clothes stores!And the brilliant GRAB taxi app was the icing on the cake.