Bed and Breakfast: Your Home While Traveling

Imagine this: you are in a colonial house, yet you feel the clean sheets as you feel the first rays of the sun fall on your face.  You are in a well-maintained and clean room, from where you could hear snippets of conversation from people in the garden area.  Slowly, the smell of cooking bacon wafts through, and you are reminded of food.  You go down, and friendly faces greet you as you eat your breakfast.

You feel like you are home, but you are actually 10,000 miles away from it.  Instead, you find yourself in a cozy bed and breakfast.

Bed and breakfasts are usually private houses that have been converted into public accommodations for travelers on a budget.  They usually offer overnight stay for travelers with the breakfast thrown in.   Most guests who have experienced the difference with a bed and breakfast often do not go back to staying at hotels or motels.   Here are some of the reasons why.

Bed and breakfasts are actually very popular right now for those who want to stay in a safe and clean place for the night.  Most are run by families, who do the cleaning and cooking themselves.  Others have staff to do the work.  Still, the charm of a bed and breakfast comes from the fact that it is usually quaint and cozy, and breeds some kind of personal touch and familiarity. In fact, what sets bed and breakfasts from hotels and motels are the homely atmosphere that exudes a wholesome touch and the home cooked meals that provide a touch of local flavor for the guests to enjoy.

What is more, bed and breakfasts provide a place for their guests to mingle with one another, making socializing easier.  While some even serve as veritable information sources for tourist attractions in the area.

Bed and breakfasts often put a premium on security.  In fact, in almost every country, one of the legal requirements in putting up a bed and breakfast is to make sure that it has all the necessary safety precautions in place.  It should be fire resistance, with a fire escape plan already enforced and in place.  Each guest room should have appropriate fire detection and equipment for fighting fire.  Hygiene and cleanliness is also a top priority, as everything from the kitchen and cooking utensils to bed sheets and rooms are checked for hygiene.

A majority of bed and breakfasts belong to professional associations that may be international, regional, national or local in scope.  This ensures you that the bed and breakfast you choose upholds certain standards set by these professional associations.

For instance, some associations require that their members meet certain criteria of quality, or to hold certain activities for guests.  Others provide a stamp of approval to tell guests that the bed and breakfast is indeed reputable.  Still others help their members to meet regulatory and governmental requirements for operations.

More than this, however, guests were found to put a premium on the friendliness of the host, accessibility and location when choosing where to spend the night.  To be successful in operating a bed and breakfast, hosts are usually the deciding factor.  Also, bed and breakfasts allow people to take a break from their ordinary lives without leaving the comforts of home.

It is not surprising. Therefore, that bed and breakfast have mushroomed over the years.  In the United States alone, bed and breakfasts have already trumped motels, resorts, and hotels as they go to place for travellers, fuelling a growth that saw the number of bed and breakfasts from just over 1,000 in the 1980s to more than 28,000.  According to Time Magazine, over 50 million people find accommodations in bed and breakfasts every single year.

The price of a good bed and breakfast can rival that of a hotel, although in some places, a bed and breakfast may be more inexpensive than a hotel.  However, most guests would agree that the personal touch, homey atmosphere and the more relaxed feel makes it a better travel option that is sure to keep your stress at bay.  Why deal with impersonal bellhops and sloppy service at hotels or the insecurity at motels, when you can feel like a king or a queen in a bed and breakfast?