As USA Today wrote yesterday, hotel websites are notorious for having photos and descriptions that don’t match reality.

I’ve heard this a lot from volunteers over the years traveling to Vietnam, Ghana, India etc:

> In Delhi last month, I walked by one of the hotels I browsed online before leaving home. The hotel’s website photos were so misleading – the building was run-down in person and was located right next to a large trash-dump.

> I once talked to a hotel owner in Ghana whose website had photos of a resort hotel, while the reality was that his hotel was basically a run-down brothel in a dumpy neighborhood in Accra.

> In Vietnam last year, one of our volunteers booked a beautiful-looking hotel in Saigon for several weeks, only to find on arrival that it was a small hotel located down a cramped and noisy alley.

My advice:

• If you need to book a hotel from home, only book 1-2 nights. If the place isn’t what you expected from the website, you can change hotels.
• My coordinators are happy to book 1 night for you at a safe budget hotel, then take you around to see the other hotel options.