Talk:Sleep

Goal

This article should serve as a catch-all for travel topics that might fit under the "Sleep" heading of an article. -- (WT-en) Ryan 17:52, 8 August 2006 (EDT)

Merging in from Finding accommodation

WTDuck2, thanks for your help with merging from Finding accommodation. I have only one concern to share and discuss.

Currently many paragraphs appear both at the old and the new page. In theory, people may still contribute to Finding accommodation and we'll need to merge that changes into this page, Travel accommodation. How are we going to deal with this? Maybe we should remove the pieces from Finding accommodation that are already here, so we don't have duplication? --(WT-en) DenisYurkin 03:53, 9 September 2007 (EDT)

I moved the rest "as is", putting redirect from "Finding accommodation". Please help to sort out all the content into respective sections. --(WT-en) DenisYurkin 13:16, 29 July 2009 (EDT)

cancelling a reservation

Currently we only give details on cancellations made before a first date of reservation.

What is usual policy for cancellations in the middle of stay? Let say, I made a reservation for one week, then only appeared for the first day and checked out and left on the 2nd day--does anyone practice any penalties for cases like this?

Same question about moving existing reservation to later days. Say, I booked a 3 days in a hotel for a middle of my stay in the country, but changed my plans on the first day of my original reservation period, deciding to come stay with them a week later. Is it typically "cancellation and new reservation", or how property owners typically deal with that? --(WT-en) DenisYurkin 04:02, 9 September 2007 (EDT)

Booking by e-mail

I think this might be a very naive question, but I've always booked my hotels (in Europe) via the web and it's only now I come to travel further afield (Latin America, FWIW) and use smaller hotels without fancy web sites that this has come up, and I realise I'm completely out of my depth... When you're booking by e-mail, what's the equivalent of giving the credit card details online to guarantee the reservation? Surely it's not acceptable to e-mail credit card details, is it? Can/should you do this by phone? Or is it common for smaller hotels not to require any credit card details until you physically show up? If someone could edit the section of the article on e-mail booking to clarify this I would be grateful, and I think it would improve the article... --(WT-en) zorn 22:18, 30 December 2009 (EST)

While I believe sending card details by email is not safe, I'm not very knowledgeable in internet security. Personally I frequently accept the risk and email card details (including CVC code) anyway. Another option is to fax a scan of the credit card, but I believe it's even less safe. The only alternative I am aware of is to send a money transfer to the hotel's bank account--at least in Europe this option is offered frequently if a hotel fails to process a given card for whatever reason. --(WT-en) DenisYurkin 14:57, 31 December 2009 (EST)

I am reluctant to edit the article until I've had more actual experience, but I asked my credit card company what the rules were around giving the credit card number in circumstances like this and they said there were no hard and fast rules. They advised me to check the hotel out on the internet to ensure it was reputable but that otherwise it was OK to give the card details by phone, fax or e-mail. I am a bit surprised but if they say it's OK, I'm not too inclined to worry. I guess I'll just try to keep an eye on the online card statement, which is probably not a bad idea anyway. Once I've had a bit more practical experience I will update the article, unless someone who already knows about this beats me to it. --(WT-en) zorn 18:42, 1 January 2010 (EST)

Rename

Per Denis' suggestion elsewhere, I would like to rename this article to Sleep. This would conform to our usual more or less common practice of creating travel topics that mirror our section headers, a la Talk, Respect, etc. --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 23:18, 4 January 2011 (EST)

On the contrary, arguably we should change our section headers to improve SEO. There have been multiple discussions; one is at Wikivoyage_talk:Search_Expedition#Bing_Search. Pashley (talk) 19:28, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Gîtes

The word "Gîte" turns up in several Quebec articles, e.g. Gaspé_Park#Sleep and Percé#Sleep, and elsewhere. Arguably, it is a French word and should not be used here. However, travellers will have to deal with French names, so I'd say it should be.

WP has w:Gîte and we have partial explanations at Bed_and_breakfasts#Regional_differences and France#B & Bs and Gîtes; the three do not entirely agree. This article does not mention them and we have no Gîte article.

Any volunteers to sort this out? Pashley (talk) 19:43, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

It appears in dictionary.com. I think it's OK to keep, though it could be explained at its first appearance in the article. Ikan Kekek (talk) 22:41, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Yes, foreign words should always be glossed at first mention. Wikivoyage:Foreign words has some information. I do note that Wiktionary lists the word as part of English, complete with diacritic, though I doubt most non-Canadians would be familiar with it. Powers ^(talk) 18:47, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

The dictionary.com definition ("a furnished vacation home in France that is available for rental, especially in a rural setting") doesn't quite match the Canadian-language usage, where the many variants of "gîte" (gîte du passant, gîte et déjeuner) pretty much all infer bed and breakfast accommodation. It's a little like mixing Imperial gallons with US gallons — the same word means something else. K7L (talk) 00:43, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

I see. My proposal, then, would be to give an explanation of these terms in Quebec#Sleep. Ikan Kekek (talk) 04:35, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

I started an article at Gîte. Pashley (talk) 00:08, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, I saw that. Do you think a stub definition article is really the best solution? Ikan Kekek (talk) 05:34, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

The word "gîte" was used in old French to mean "the place where we stay, where we sleep", today it means "where travelers sleep". In Quebec, we say "gîte du passant" for "bed and breakfast". I don't know about France. If you see only "gîtes" in article on French Wikivoyage in Quebec, it most likely means "bed and breakfast", Gîte du Mont-Albert in Gaspé Park is a notable exception. For citation, just look at bbcanada.com which is a directory of bed of breakfast, the French version is gitescanada.com [1]. Amqui (talk) 01:49, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Move back?

This was recently moved from Travel accommodation to Sleep. This may be in accordance with current conventions, perhaps even policy, but I think it is a mistake because "accommodation" is a much more likely search term.

I've argued at Wikivoyage:Travellers'_pub#Article_subheadings that we should be changing headings like Sleep and Eat for better SEO, so I see this as a retrograde step. Pashley (talk) 23:38, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, I agree with you. This article is not about sleep, it's about places to sleep. An article about sleep would analyze what sleep is, its different stages, etc. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:48, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

A good travel article about Sleep would also include sleeper trains, sleeping on long-distance flights, sleeping on airports when you're late for your connecting flight, rock-bottom accommodation, tips on how to keep yourself awake when driving...

Travel accommodation is a much better term. Let's move it back. ϒpsilon (talk) 08:58, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

BORRRINGGGG. The redirect suffices for SEO purposes, and the current title matches Respect, Stay healthy, Stay safe, etc. We should also move Food to Eat, restore Drink, move Travel activities to Do, move Shopping to Buy, and create See. Powers ^(talk) 15:51, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

I don't think I agree with you. How would "See" be a logical article in a travel guide? Ikan Kekek (talk) 02:33, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

It would be an article that discusses attractions, obviously. Admittedly it'd primarily be an index to other travel topics. Powers ^(talk) 18:39, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

I tend to agree with Powers here. "See" as an article has the same logic as it does as a section, and serves even to reinforce that association. I rather like the idea of having a complete set of topic/index pages which echo our main section headers. Texugo (talk) 18:46, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

As an article title, "see" is too vague to be useful. See could be an attraction, but one could just as easily "see" the fall colours, an entire city or region, or make an appointment to "see" someone (such as an ophthalmologist). As an article section, the context makes it clear as a list of attractions, but as a page title? Dunno. K7L (talk) 15:09, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

I see no reason at all to call "an article that discusses attractions, obviously" anything other than "Attractions", especially since that seems to me the most likely search term. Other likely terms like "sights" should be added as redirects, and specific types like "museums" might be either redirects or child articles. From an SEO viewpoint, I do not think "See" is likely to be at all common; I suppose people search for "what to see in ...", but we want them to find our destination articles, not a generic attractions article.

To me, then, words like See or Sleep are moderately awful as a section headers. They are utterly wrong as article titles. Pashley (talk) 00:14, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

But "Accommodations" is utterly boring. At least "Sleep" matches our section header. Powers ^(talk) 01:17, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

Booking vs. not booking advice

Swept in from the pub

I am noticing that a lot of pages are suggestion travelers not book accommodation in advance so accommodation owners will not have to pay commission. Booking in advance protects travelers against unscrupulous accommodation providers, and gives the option to leave reviews which is important to the community as a whole. It is also important to ensure the safety of travelers as it leaves information embassies/police/family can use to ascertain their whereabouts.

The number of times I have arrived without a booking only to find

A. the place is booked out, contrary to their booking.com/hostelworld/sitepage, and no assistance has been provided as "you didn't book"

B. there have been serious problems with the accommodation, and I was unable to warn others by leaving a review on popular sites

C. someone saw fit to cheat me, knowing without a booking I had little recourse

The only benefit I see in not booking is in very cheap countries where the commission a traveler pays is a considerable proportion of the overall price While the online commission giants make it harder for independent providers, they also make it easy to start up

Ultimately I do not believe the advice "not to book" is in the interests of travelers, and would like to seek consensus.

--Willthewanderer (talk) 11:40, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

Not booking ahead is something I do not do and would not recommend. maybe that is based on where I am travelling and the quality I am looking for. Can you link to some examples of this advice? --Traveler100 (talk) 12:00, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

Twenty years ago I would often travel without booking ahead. I usually tried to arrive in town about lunchtime, so that I had plenty of time to look around, and when occasionally several hotels were full I could move on to another town. In those days booking ahead would have meant a phone call - international calls were expensive, there were language problems and I wanted to see the place rather than booking a hotel that the rats were checking out of.

However nowadays I almost always book ahead - the only regular exception is a small remote hostel which does not take bookings. I almost always book direct with the hotel or hostel, and I am still able to leave online reviews if I want. This change has mainly come due to the increased ease of making online bookings, and these days I tend to buy cheaper advance tickets for trains and buses, and so the whole trip needs to be planed. The main advantage is the time saved during the trip (not wandering around looking for a bed) and being able to give family my plans. A drawback is that I can less easily change my plans in response to the weather or local events. AlasdairW (talk) 12:31, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

Occasionally I will book multiple hotels for the same as long as the cancellation policy is no charge and can be same day (usually by 16:00) or in some cases day before. Then can still be flexible. --Traveler100 (talk) 12:53, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

I agree that booking accommodation in advance is likely in the traveller's best interest in the majority of cases, and by all means we should remove such language in particular cases where we know it to be inaccurate, but I would be against establishing an across-the-board policy on that basis. There are exceptions to every rule. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 14:41, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

Willthewanderer, could you please provide a couple of examples of pages that say people shouldn't reserve hotel rooms in advance? I still haven't read even tenth of our 28,103 articles, but I don't recall ever seeing this advice before. (If someone has scruples about commission fees, then they are usually trivial to avoid: just phone the hotel and book directly.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:56, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

I come across the advice from time to time, this is one I last saw on the Tbilisi articles "sleep section" "Check out prices on the usual suspect websites and turn up on site stating the price – hostel owners will happily give you the online rate, so they can skip the fee the pay on such websites"

It seems clearly like the advice is in the interest of the hostel owner, not the traveler on a number of occasions I find that the "walk in price" aka. not making a booking is significantly more expensive than booking online as owners try to cash in on disorganized tourists. 178.134.74.57. 10:12, 2 February 2018‎

Individual cottages and AirBnB-style units

Swept in from the pub

Do we want this sort of listing, where the space for rent is one lone cottage by an individual on AirBnB or similar sites? We have Wikivoyage:Listings#Rental listings but that seems to be aimed more at restricting local rental agencies (middlemen) and landlords/landladies of long-term occupancy apartments from listing here. I've de-touted this a bit, but I'm nost sure how AirBnB fits with our rental listings policy. K7L (talk) 13:32, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

When there are few alternatives, then yes. When the cottage is particularly notable (e.g., "stay at Famous Author's house"), then yes. But in this case, where a few hotels exist? I wouldn't want a dozen such listings, but there's probably little harm from having one or two. I could go along with either decision. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:56, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

Problems for non-married?

Reading Motels I remember a sign in the Black Forest about men and women not allowed to share a tent, "unless married for the purpose", and Sex segregation#Saudi Arabia. These hint that you might have problems if you are travelling in a mixed-sex group unless you have documentation on being a family in the legal sense, whatever that means for the accommodation business.

Is this a real-world problem? I have never been asked to show documentation on being married to my wife (who kept her maiden name), but then I haven't been in all places. Looking like a family or married couple probably helps in not needing to show documents, but are you supposed to carry such somewhere? What about a group of four adults who want to have that four-person room without being all male or all female (or two twins, when the lone man/woman doesn't seem to be married to any of the others)?

–LPfi (talk) 15:51, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

There were two Italians on our tour of Iran. Male and female, not a couple. They were never questioned or hassled about sharing a room. Other countries may differ. Ground Zero (talk) 17:07, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

@Ground Zero: I suppose those who look like married couples or families usually don't have problems. But if somebody starts suspecting (or get to know) they aren't married, will it be a problem then? It might also vary depending on how confident the personnel are nobody will find out. –LPfi (talk) 07:18, 6 October 2021 (UTC)