lodging near Metro in the following cities
 

Hi were visiting the following cities in the summer and would like to stay on the outskirts due to cost but would like to have public transport links into downtown areas close by. The cities are Salt Lake City, Seattle, Vancouver, and San Francisco...can anyone recommend hotels/motels etc .... thanks

Have you considered using priceline to get hotels in the city center to save cost? You can really get some steals!

See the info at www.biddingfortravel.com for more info on how to bid.

hi jen thanks for the reply but were from the UK and im not sure that im able to use priceline with a British Credit card....

Adrian

There are a couple of options for UK residents using Priceline:

1 - look on www.biddingfortravel.com and there is a description of how you need to make your UK address look like a US one and then it will work fine for you to bid on www.priceline.com.

2 - use www.priceline.co.uk, the UK version of the site.

If you use the UK version then you can get a good idea of the bid amounts you're looking at from the BFT site and convert to £ and then bid on the UK site.

For example, I recently saw people winning the same Toronto hotel regularly for $32 per night and so I just tried £18 on the UK site and got the same hotel. I do have a US Priceline account too.

Let me know if you can't find what I'm referring to.

I'm not a great fan of Priceline personally, and I understand the hesitancy for someone to spend the next 36 hours in deep concentration trying to figure out how to successfully use it, and still make mistakes as nearly all first timers do. It also is not for anyone who may want to change their itinerary along the way -- stay an extra night here, for example -- as the reservations are totally non refundable.

I can't offer a lot of help, except in San Francisco, stay in the Cow Hollow area. Inexpensive (under $100) lodgings that are roomy and nice and right on the major and frequent buslines. See www.cowhollowmotorinn.com
In addition to the Cow Hollow Motor Inn the same company owns a couple of others as well, all on that website. Some might prefer Columbus Motor Inn which is closer to Fisherman's Wharf and North Beach (not a beach, but the Italian section). Frankly, I like the neighborhood feel of Cow Hollow better.

Adrian,

Are you not renting a car? What are you planning on doing/seeing in SLC? You could stay in the Midvale area (middle of Salt Lake Valley) and the TRAX train is easily reachable from there, but it basically runs north/south and terminates downtown.

What's your budget? There are lots of inexpensive places in Salt Lake City, some even downtown. The trax line goes north and south... but also goes east up to the University where the Olympic park is. All lines intersect downtown.

As for San Francisco, I would stay in the "south bay" or on the "peninsula" (like in Colma, San Mateo, Redwood City). You can take the cal-train to the city. Also, I've stayed at the Holiday Inn on Van Ness avenue in San Francisco for $85 per night. (Hotel is called the Holiday Inn San Francisco - golden gateway in lower nob hill) www.holiday-inn.com That may be a bit pricey, but it may be worth the splurge. It is a nice hotel and is in a great location (heart of the city). It's very convenient for sight-seeing and shopping. It's one block from the cable car line.

Have fun!

San Francisco has gobs of cheap transportation. The BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) is cheap and fast. Look it up at www.bart.gov. When we went to SF, I believe I looked up addresses for various BART stations, then went to yahoo maps to find what hotels were near different stations.

Our last visit to San Francisco we stayed at the Allison Hotel (http://www.allisonhotel.com/) It is set up like a European hotel in that some rooms share a bath and it has a continental breakfast. It is in a great location and has the charm of an old SF hotel, but modern comforts. I will stay there again. We are traveling to Salt Lake this summer and I noticed several nice B&Bs and smaller hotels that offer low expense. It may pay for you to rent a car there so that you can visit the area, then you could get a nice room for $50-$60. Hope this helps.