I sleep well anywhere, which is probably one of my favorite traits. It’s a skill I’ve abused for all it’s worth on roads and rails and cheap beds in hostels.
I don’t sleep better in hotels, but I sleep differently. It seems deeper but I usually wake up a few times in the night. I love the feeling of waking up disoriented in the morning-- probably one of my favorite feelings.
Count me as another who never sleeps well the first night in a strange place. If I’m lucky, I can get 2 or 3 hours the first night. If I stay in the same hotel room for more than one night, I usually sleep pretty well after the first night. If I’m on a multi-day road trip, I actually sleep better in my vehicle than I would in a hotel. I’ll take a hotel room when I get to my destination, accepting that I won’t sleep well the first night.
I sleep well. I have yet to find a room that doesn’t have a loud-ish air conditioner. I use those as a white noise machine and it masks all the little stuff that might otherwise bother me. I sleep fine. I also sleep fine on trains, planes, boats, cars, wherever if I’m tired!
It may take me an extra few minutes to fall asleep. The pillows are always way to thick and soft. Also, I usually sleep with a fan. If I don’t have that familiar white noise to lull me to sleep, I can get distracted by ambient noises.
However, once I fall asleep, I usually have the best sleep evah. One of those sleeps where you wake up periodically throughout the night expecting the alarm to go off at any minute, only to happiy find out that you have a gazillion more hours of sleep left.
I sleep poorly in my own home unless there’s a white noise generator next to the bed. Hotel rooms don’t have those.
My job entails a fair amount of travel. I’m with SDT in that I need to have a good amount of white noise. I bring a portable folding tube fan that’s pretty good for that. The room also has to be pretty cool. If those criteria are met, I sleep well.
:dubious:
I hate you. 
The first night is horrible, but after that I get used to it. I’d guess that if I spent more time flying, I could learn to sleep on planes, but that hasn’t happened yet. Random and unexpected noise when I’m trying to sleep always wakes me up.
As to the blinds leaking lights…safety pins are wonderful. I always bring some with me because I want the room to be dark and the curtains in hotels/motels never close properly.
I find Hotels and Motels too noisy for good sleep. unless I am wearing ear plugs. Same goes for hospitals, damn they are noisy places. So I take ear plugs there as well. The darker the room the better.
That’s sarcasm there, Emily.
It also depends a lot for me.
I remember one hotel about a dozen years ago had such an uncomfortable mattress that I actually spent the night on the floor. (And slept pretty well after that, actually). Mostly, though, I can make do with the pillows and mattress provided.
The biggest issue for me is temperature. I’m from the Pacific Northwest, and my ideal night-time temperature is somewhere around 58 F. (Yes, inside.) My wife doesn’t like it that cool, so we usually compromise around 63 F at home during winter nights. Most of the hotels I’ve been to have an AC system that doesn’t even go that cold. So I’ve got this god-awful, noisy, rattling, on-and-off machine that struggles to get things down to 68, and I’m sweating like it’s a freaking heat wave.
I sleep better when I’m in hotels because that means I’m on vacation and there’s no work stress. Even though I’ve been bothered by other noisy guests, most of the hotels and motels where I stay are in quieter neighborhoods than where I live.
I don’t sleep well anywhere.
Always, like a log. Whenever I’m in a hotel, I’ve had a long day traveling, or otherwise sightseeing and other fun stuff. I’ve never been in a job or other situation where frequent travel was routine, so it never quite gets old. I can sleep on a 24-inch-wide Amtrak berth, lulled to sleep by the gentle swaying of the car.
I sleep better in hotels, they have much nicer beds than mine. I do take my own pillow.
Those of you who can’t sleep without white noise should look into small white noise machines. I know my brother had one that was the size of an alarm clock. It wouldn’t be exactly the same, but it might be good enough to help.
Like a baby.
The thing that has helped us the most to get a good night’s sleep is to sleep in a better hotel (like a Hilton or a Embassy Suites), where the walls are so thick that you can’t hear others in other rooms or in the hall, or even doors slamming. Their beds are usually super comfy and the A/C isn’t the noisy type.
However, if we have to stay at anything like a Comfort Suites or a Days Inn it’s a crap shoot. Super Eight is usually pretty sleepless, at least for the first night or two.
If I’m in a hotel, it means I don’t have to do anything productive in the morning.
I’m far enough from home that I don’t have to feed the dogs or do yard work…
I’m far enough from work that I don’t have to haul ass at 3am to get something done by noon so the customer can pick it up…
I sleep like a log in a hotel… Not because its a Hotel, but because I know I don’t
actually HAVE to do anything.
Those things suck, I’ve only had to deal with one once, and thankfully we
were in a suite that had a very comfy couch. My little lady likes a “soft” and “crappy” bed, and I like a firm one… So she was about 18 inches below me, and
if I moved wrong I rolled over and fell on top of her… I hated that thing.
The sleep number things are miserable. I’m sure the sleep number people think they are getting free advertising by having them in hotels… It was the reason it was permanently banned from the beds we would ever consider… Its a crappy $19.95 air mattress from the dollar store with a fancy controller… And it sucks just as much as a the crap from the dollar store…
I’ve had better sleep in a jail, on a concrete bed, using a toilet paper roll as a pillow, with florescent lights blasting my eyes out.
I don’t travel for work, so I’m rarely traveling alone. The circumstances lead to sleep.
If I’m traveling with my wife, we fill up our days with activity, and then there’s hotel sex (which always seems more exotic than at home, don’t know why). So I’m out like a light.
If I’m traveling with buddies, we drink. A lot. (No hotel sex though.)