The following is a rough list of hotels that we have stayed at in the last several months. We are a family of four taking a year off and traveling around the world. See http://www.jamesworld.ca for more details.
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Hotels
Costa Rica
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Peru
Lima: Mira Flores
Cusco:
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Ecuador
Quito: Hotel Rio Amazonas: Very nice, but much more expensive than we would have stayed at on our own. Free wifi in the lobby and two free computers to use. Close enough to many other good restaurants. We stayed here as part of our GAP tour and an extra night at the end cost us $70/room.
Galapagos: There seemed to be quite a few little Inns around with ample vacancy. We stayed entirely on the boat while there, but people could easily stay on the island and do day trips I think.
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Australia
Sydney: We stayed at the Woolbrokers hotel in Darlington harbor. It was OK for rates and cleanliness. The bathrooms are shared and noise is a problem. The restaurant was OK for breakfast (and supper if one had to). It is only a 5-10 minute walk to the well developed harbor though, and is the least expensive one we found in the area. At $125/night it is more like a $25 place in Bangkok or a $35 place in Delhi. Considering that the Holiday Inn in the area quoted us at $250/night though, we had little choice.
All along the East coast (and inland to a lesser concentration) are campgrounds which we always stayed at. Over three quarters of these had little cabins (about 3m to 5m square buildings) which were available for nightly rental. Better than a hotel in price and facilities available they are a great way to travel. It's a pretty good idea to get a free government campground listing book, and reserve a cabin a couple days in advance though. Also it should go without saying to avoid all school holidays for the state you are traveling in.
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Singapore
We ended up staying at the Downtown East hostel, which I wouldn't suggest at all on a weekend to anyo0ne who needs any sort of sleep. See our longer blog post describing our stay at: <a href="http://weblog.jamesworld.ca/2007/10/28/singapore/">http://weblog.jamesworld.ca/2007/10/28/singapore</a> . The downtown east neighborhood is a great place to stay though since it's close to the airport, many, many food places and has a couple of attractions attached. There is a slightly more expensive place than the hostel, right between the hostel and the Downtown East complex, but we can't recall the name. Both had large supervised pools which made things nice in such a muggy climate.
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Malaysia
Kuala Lumpor: We looked into an apartment rental for a week for a pretty reasonable price ($100/night for a really nice place). Long range planning is absolutely required though. We ended up only being there for four nights though and stayed at The Concorde.
We went to the island of Penang for almost a week and stayed at the Lone Pine resort in Batu Ferengi. A pretty nice room for four was only about $70/night. Georgetown is much larger and busier, but we opted for less crowds. The hotel was beach front, clean and had a small pool and OK restaurant. There were an abundance of other eating places nearby though. All kinds of activities await along the beach, (jetskis, para sailing, tube riding, speedboating, waterskiing) from different companies so negotiate a bit.
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Thailand
Bangkok: A-One
Bangkok: near airport
Phuket: Nay Yang beach resort
Phi Phi Don: The White Room 1 or 2 were great and everything here is walking distance to everything. Not that it matters since there are no taxi's or rickshaws on this island of sidewalks. There are lots of places to stay here and I would be very confident in landing (in all but high season) on the ferry and walking around until I found a room.
Chaing Mai:
Chang Rai:
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Laos
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Vietnam
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Hong Kong
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China
We didn't stay in any hotels in China at all. In Beijing and Shanghei where we toured, hotels seem to be easily had, but the prices are upwards of $70-$80 for the basic yet clean kind of place we've been staying at all along.
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India
New Delhi
Ajanta,
While extremely reasonable in cost, incompetence reigns supreme here. The value outweighs the hassle though, just keep careful track of your bills. They have a tour office in the lobby which proved very handy and offered reasonably priced tours of
“The Golden Triangle” plus extra spots as desired. Our seven night, eight day tour of Agra, Rahasstan???? Jaipur and Pushkar (including a car, hotels and guides but not including monument fees) was $1500. Taj & Agra Fort fees were $20/adult and free for the two kids (under 15 I think).
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Dubai
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Tanzania
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Egypt
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Jordan
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Turkey