Wake up crying every 3 hours?
I tend to sleep pretty well. I often bring my own top pillow with me (it doesn’t take up that much room in a suitcase) and that helps.
Same thing for me, in a more general way. When I’m at home, my mind is filled with things I need to do at work the next day or with the house the next weekend. Away from home, the fact that I can’t do a thing about any of that eases my mind. Even if I’m traveling because I’m presenting a paper at a conference, I still have only that one thing to worry about, which is nothing compared to the usual.
IOW, I sleep better on the road than at home.
Yes, I sleep well in hotels.
However, I do some petsitting and have come to accept that I will not sleep well the first night. Houses that are supposed to have families in them just seem too quiet. Not scary quiet. Just quiet. Somehow that keeps me awake even though I’ve lived alone most of my adult life and should be used to it.
I didn’t cast a vote because none of the answers quite fits me.
See, I usually sleep GREAT in hotel rooms. Partly because hotel rooms have such frigid air conditioning settings, which I love!
So I get a great night’s sleep, most of the time. The problem is, I usually wake up in the morning with a terrible back ache!
I’m doing travel study in France, and for about a week, the program took us from our dorms at the university that we’re studying at, to a really nice hotel in downtown Paris.
The beds were luxurious, but the rooms were freezing! 
I had trouble sleeping anywhere other than in my own bed until about twelve years ago when I started to travel somewhat regularly. Now I sleep well enough in hotels etc, but not quite as well as at home.
Pillows are indeed often too soft and too thin, but usually I can fold them double and then they work better.
And a steaming pile in his shorts.
I sleep great in hotels. They often have a selection of different firmness pillows and I spend too much time deciding on which one(s) I want to use than I should.
Usually not on the first night, but better afterward.
If I can manually turn the fan on to “high” without changing the temperature on the thermostat, I’ll sleep much better.
Usually very badly, for two reasons: first, my parents made the mistake of putting a fan in my room as a white noise machine when I was in elementary school and now I’m completely addicted and dysfunctional without it. If the power goes out and the fan cuts off, I wake immediately, and trying to fall asleep without one usually takes at least 2-3 hours and involves tears and waking up every 30 minutes thereafter. So unless the hotel has a climate control system that can be set to blow constantly with a similar sound, or I bring a fan with me or buy one there (not usually easy or practical), that makes it pretty hellish.
Second of all, pillows. Hotel pillows are always too big and squishy and I feel like I’m about to suffocate, so I wind up throwing them all on the floor and going without.
I hate sleeping in hotels.
I have to buy over-the-counter sleep aids or I get no sleep at all in hotels/motels.
At hotels I don’t refuse to stay in (like a $39/night motel off the interstate), I sleep pretty well. Unfortunately, a few times I’ve had the misfortune of getting a sleep number bed in an otherwise nice hotel. Those things are terrible.
I sleep very well in hotels. Of course I’m one of those people who can sleep well anywhere and isn’t bothered by noise or light conditions.
The only issue I have is that I hate complete darkness, but it’s rare to find, and I can usually get by with the glow of a digital clock, or opening the curtains.
I’m the same way. I turn down the air-conditioning as low as possible and sleep well. In such a small area, the room gets colder much faster than it would with central air or a stand-alone fan.
People needing sound and light to sleep… insane. I need to cover my alarm clock because the light bothers me, and people/machine noise is also a problem. (But I do like to fall asleep playing some music.) Once I’m asleep I’ll sleep through morning light coming through the curtains and the traffic outside as it gets going in the morning.
I rarely sleep well anywhere but at home, and even at home, sleeping can be a struggle.
It’s worse if I’m away from home and I have to share a hotel room with someone, because I do embarrassing things in my sleep (snoring/drooling/tooth grinding. Also, the other person’s noises can keep me awake, even though I usually wear earplugs.) It’s the worst if I have to share a bed with someone, but thankfully that hasn’t happened in a long time.
I like my lightly-upholstered rock of a pillow at home, but I generally sleep fine in hotels.
Partially, that’s due to the fact that if I’m staying in a hotel, I’m usually exhausted by the time I hit the mattress. (I can rest at home–if I’m traveling, it’s to do stuff.) The other part is that I spent a couple of years traveling a lot for work, and if I hadn’t adjusted to sleeping in hotels, I’d have gone months at a time without a decent night of sleep.
I checked “It can go either way”.
If the hotel has thick walls and is quiet, I sleep very well.
If it has drunks returning to the hotel at 2 a.m., and standing out in the hall to shriek and have faux kick-boxing matches, then no.
If it has a couple in the next room indulging in a noisy rough-play sex marathon for hours, with vomiting interludes, then no.
These last two events happened the last two times we tried staying at hotels. Nowadays we like to rent a modest vacation condo or home.
Nn
Yep, unfortunately this aptly describes me too. It’s one of the many reasons I’m super excited to be going on a work trip with a four night hotel stay in November.