Hotel

Booking a hotel room doesn’t guarantee a quiet night. A room located near an elevator, by the pool, or facing a busy street can expose travelers to noises that are hard to endure, especially after a long day of travel. Yet there are several ways to reduce the risk, starting with the room’s position and the requests you make to the property. Here are the practical steps to stack the odds in your favor before you settle in for a (good) night at the hotel.

Smart moves to avoid a noisy room

Not all rooms in a given hotel are equally affected by nuisances. Even before you drop your bags, you can ask for a more favorable location. Rooms close to elevators are particularly best avoided: bells, doors opening and closing, and the frequent passage of guests talking loudly can carry on for a good portion of the night. Higher floors can also be appealing, as can rooms at the end of a corridor.

But these preferences are usually not visible at the time of online booking. Unlike airlines, hotels generally do not allow, in most cases, you to choose your exact room on a map. “You can see all the available seats on the plane. Why can’t I do the same when I book a hotel?” complains Chekitan S. Dev, a professor at the Nolan School of Hotel Administration at Cornell University, to CNN Travel.

Until reservation systems evolve, it’s wiser to contact the property directly. You can request a room away from the elevator, on a higher floor, or overlooking a less-trafficked part of the building. A request made at the time of booking has a greater chance of being honored, particularly when the hotel isn’t fully booked. Lindsey Maness, now employed by the National Sleep Foundation, learned this lesson after a night that was especially unsettled.

“I now request hotel rooms as far away from the elevator as possible and try to book rooms with no immediate neighbors when possible”, she tells CNN Travel. External surroundings also deserve consideration. A room facing a busy street, a lively neighborhood, or a nightlife hub is more likely to pick up noise. Some specialized sites even rate hotels according to their level of tranquility by examining their surroundings, window quality, insulation, and room layout.

Why some hotels are quieter than others

The quietness of a room also depends directly on the building’s design. Newer hotels can incorporate soundproofing solutions right from construction, but a large portion of the hotel stock was built before these concerns gained prominence. Glenn Nowak, an associate professor of architecture at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, regards a sound transmission class (STC) of 50 as a benchmark. With that level of insulation, a normal conversation in a neighboring room should become inaudible and loud music would be reduced to a relatively soft hum.

Material choices play a decisive role. A poured concrete wall generally provides better sound insulation than a wall with a metal framework, but its construction tends to be longer and more expensive. Double walls are among the most effective solutions for acoustically separating two rooms, yet they also raise the project’s cost. “Many hotels worldwide were built before such standards were put in place”, notes Glenn Nowak to CNN Travel. Even newer properties can still show acoustic weaknesses after renovations.

Certain renovations can unintentionally alter a building’s insulation performance. In downtown hotels, it is also impossible to remove all nuisances. “No hotel — especially a hotel in the heart of Manhattan — can eliminate all noises”, reminds Simon Chapman, CEO of The Benjamin in New York, to the American media. For travelers, the best approach remains to anticipate: request a quiet room, keep away from elevators and common areas, and, when possible, gather information about the establishment’s sound environment. And if in doubt, a pair of earplugs is a simple solution to slip into your suitcase.