The last two times I was on the road for research, I started gathering information on new types of inexpensive accommodations along the highway or near the airport.
Three of the four places explored were parts of chains, so you could reasonably expect to find the same thing each time.There are surprising variations in what you get when you rent a room in the vast price range between the economy motel, with its paper bathmat, and the luxurious digs with the fleecy bathrobe.
It seems clear that predictability is still the No. 1 requirement of people who must travel, as opposed to those who do it for fun, but Holiday Inns are no longer the only name on the highway. There is lots of competition, and the whole middle-priced category is in turn being pressed by all-suite hotels and by motels at the minimum-service level.
In selecting middle-priced places to test while I was on the road anyway, I shunned the old minimum-service motels because the variations there are less interesting.
I stayed at the Courtyard by Marriott; the Comfort Suites, close to the San Francisco Airport; and at a Sleep Inn in North Carolina (Comfort Suites and Sleep Inns are both part of the Quality International organization); and at another breed of bed altogether, the Skytel in the Los Angeles Airport.
-SKYTEL, to start with the unusual, is a hideaway in the Tom Bradley International Terminal departure level, next to the Air France counter. It has 13 rooms that are windowless versions of a Pullman roomette and bathroom, and they rent by the hour, not the day.
A friend on her way to Tokyo who wound up frazzled after a trip from New York found this a place to change, lie down for an hour and take a shower. I went and rented a space for four hours to see how it was.
At the Skytel, execution is not as perfect as concept. The credit-card-operated phone over the bunk would not work with my card. I trotted to the front desk and asked for help. A room across the hall was opened for me, and my card worked there, but this required transferring my notebooks. The fold-up table was stable and the plug for the laptop computer was in the right place, under the table. The lighting was good for work, and could be dimmed or put out completely. The bathroom had a shower, washbowl and toilet, mirror and hairdryer and thinnish towels. The bed was firm, with a little television set perched high above the foot.
When I wanted to go out to one of the airport concessions to get a takeout lunch, the clerk at the front desk, who is always there or is replaced by a security person, locked my room with my stuff in it so I could wander unencumbered. All in all, it beat the days of killing time in the newsreel theater.
The price for a half hour, really for a shower, is $9.95. The cost for one hour is $16, for two, $24, and on up to $47 for eight hours. Reservations are not needed, though if you plan to arrive at 10:30 p.m. or later you might want to book, Skytel says. Skytel: 213-417-0200.
-THE COURTYARD by Marriott in Texas was a treat. The motels in this group - there are 140-odd now open - are built in urban areas, but near industrial parks and airports rather than in downtowns, with the expectation that business executives arrive by auto.
I picked one of eight in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, across from the Texas Rangers stadium where, it developed, Nolan Ryan was about to pitch his 5,000th strikeout. The traffic jams for two nights were unspeakable; this, however, must be a once-in-a-lifetime hazard.
The motel folds a neat 42-seat restaurant into the lobby, anonymous but bright. The brief menu is Courtyard's solution to all midpriced motels' need to keep food costs down.
There are no bellmen and there is no room service, but at the restaurant you can take out a choice of a few sandwiches, salads, snacks and desserts. Courtyard's rooms appeared to be identical, each with a sofa and a good desk with a light over it and a plug under it. The free newspaper was USA Today.
The regular nightly rate Sunday to Thursday at this Courtyard is $62 for one person and $72 for two; the corporate rate obtained by the travel agent who booked for me was $39.
When I checked in, the clerk asked for a business card "to be sure about the corporate rate." The weekend rate is $54 for one or two people. Courtyard by Marriott: 800-321-2211.
-THE COMFORT SUITES near the San Francisco Airport is a motel wedged into a triangle bounded by heavily trafficked streets with names like Industrial Way. It operated a jitney to the airport and provided a list of nearby restaurants, plus the opportunity to ride the jitney to any of them, as a way to keep people fed in the middle of the industrial wasteland.
The other solution was a free help-yourself breakfast laid out in the lobby, including breads, cereal and fruit and a microwave oven for instant hot cereal, as well as a free evening snack including soup. Beer and wine were in the minibars. In the courtyard were tables and a gas grill for those who brought their own food to cook; it was often used. There was no pool, but a well-used whirlpool tub in the yard.
The desk was solid, with a plug underneath, and a wall lamp over it. The Wall Street Journal and USA Today were both free. This room was listed at $78; I was charged the corporate rate of $67 a night. Comfort Suites: 800-221-2222.
-SLEEP INN in Salisbury, N.C., is one of only two in this category opened so far by Quality International; the other is in Nova Scotia. Originally, they were to be named McSleep, but this plan was turned aside when the hamburger chain with the same first syllable made legal noises.
Sleep Inns are being built by Quality International for the economy market, and my room at the first of these motels, opened this summer on I-84, is significantly smaller than the others I visited on this round. The company says the rooms are 70 percent of the size of an average hotel room.
However, it had the most advanced key system I have seen: once I used a credit card to check in, the credit card magnetic strip opened the outside door and my room door. Even when the power failed that night in Hurricane Hugo, this system worked.
The Sleep Inn has no restaurant and virtually no lobby. A 24-hour Denny's adjoins the motel, a common expedient in the minimum-service category.
There was no bathtub, only a shower. Two bars of soap constituted the amenities. The television had a VCR and films could be rented from a vending machine for $5.95. The rate at the Sleep Inn was $33 - for two in a room, $37. Sleep Inn: 800-221-2222.