George Washington Didn't Sleep Here, But You Can; A Guide to Alternative Accommodations Guidebooks Available to Purchase

Those of us in our mid‐thirties can just barely remember the tourist homes, guesthouses, small hotels, and “mom and pop” tourist cabins which once dotted the two‐lane highways of this country, roads like Route 66 which spanned the country east to west and U.S. I which ran from Maine to Florida. However, aided by the developing interstate highway system, Holiday Inn, Best Western, and several other major chains spread themselves all over the landscape in the 1960s and 1970s and won a large part of the growing leisure and business travel dollar. Indeed, Holiday Inn's ubiquitous qualities were so thoroughly standardized that the company adopted the slogan, “The best surprise is no surprise.” The trouble is some people like to be surprised, especially if the surprise is a pleasant one. Until a few years ago, the traveler looking for a more interesting or cheaper accommodation than a typical chain motel had few guidebooks to choose from. Country Inns and Back Roads and Farm, Ranch and Country Vacations were about all that were available. Since the late 1970s, however, a steady stream of alternative accommodation books has appeared, and now any library faced with choosing guidebooks for the reference collection finds a bewildering number of them. In this review I will examine and evaluate what is available to guide the traveler to alternative accommodations in the United States and Canada. I'll look at bed and breakfast guides, guides to country inns, farm vacations, and college campus accommodations, but not camping guides.