By: Margyle

Dear Edinburgh Hotels,

I am writing to ask you to please stop allowing the hotel chains I have heard of to be in your city. I know they are names that people trust and recognize, but when I’m out of my own country I like to imagine it is a magical world where everything is exotic, and you are ruining this. Also, please build more castles. People love castles.

Sincerely,

Me

Have you ever been somewhere overseas and been annoyed by some chain from your home country? Restaurants do this all the time and I don’t have as much of a problem with it, but hotel chains just rub me the wrong way. Am I the only one?

Take my last trip to Venice. I’m having a lovely walk through one of the many alleyways passed throngs of people to a relatively open area where I see a canal-jam of gondolas in front of a well known-hotel chain. Really? In Venice? I’m sorry, but my vision of the ridiculous city of Venice does not include something so ordinary and bland as a major hotel chain. Every hotel should be on a canal with its own Italian name, accompanied by serenading gondolier to ferry you to your room as night. Is this too much to ask?

I know many of the hotels I see may be a part of a chain but have their own unique name, but I didn’t say I was being rational. Just please pretend to be one of a kind, for my sake. I go on vacation to see something different, not what I see at home.

Well, that’s part of it at least. The other part I guess has to do with the romanticism I have for travelling. Cities are living breathing things that do what they want and do not conform to the idealized views of a starry eyed tourist. It’s kind of like how many men seriously think women do not pass gas or defecate because they can’t imagine something so beautiful doing something so disgusting. Sexist, perhaps… but the good kind!

Again, contradicting myself, certain places don’t really bother me. Maybe it’s because it’s in an English speaking country, but it doesn’t seem as out of place as one in Milan or Bangkok. If hotel chains need to operate in foreign lands, I would prefer they remain out of my sight so they don’t ruin the sights. I have that to look forward to once I get home.