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Safety, hygiene, and personal space are some of the new watchwords for travel during COVID-19, with risk assessments on every option being regularly updated. While some travelers have turned to vacation homes, camping, and even RV rentals for safer-seeming alternatives, others still favor the ease and amenities that come with checking into a hotel.
This does, however, mean exposure to hotel staff and other members of the public. One way to avoid running into other guests is to rent out an entire hotel. But surely this would be cost-prohibitive for most people and only attainable for the uber-wealthy, right?
You'd certainly think so, and perhaps this was true — until recently. But with the pandemic affecting business, hotels are increasingly looking to lure customers with hitherto unseen deals. While hotel buyouts are never cheap, some whole property hotel rentals are increasingly affordable if you want to house your familial or social bubble. It's even possible for less than $100 per person per night for a group of five.
And while some chain hotels are offering entire floor rentals, this may only mitigate risk in a very minimal way. "Risk increases as you have more interactions with individuals," says Dr. Thomas Russo, chief of the division of infectious disease at the University at Buffalo. "Although it superficially sounds better, renting out floors doesn't really change the risk significantly as you're still interacting with hotel staff, and you're around other people in lobbies and elevators."
With this in mind, booking a hotel stay for your social or family bubble is safest if it's possible to book an entire property, or even a complete hotel. This way, there are no interactions with random members of the public, and it's much easier to arrange specific practices such as contactless check-in. And, of course, all the amenities are there for your group's exclusive use.
But Dr. Russo has one big caveat: it's only recommended for social or family pods that already exist. "It's not good practice to fly in family members from around the country," he warns. "The risks are only mitigated by keeping contact to small groups that have already been observing safety measures and isolated together."
Yet all groups, even closed pods, should be aware of the risks of travel. We always recommend following guidelines from the CDC and reading up on local and state regulations before traveling.
With that in mind, if you are looking for a hotel stay for your family or quarantine family with no other guests around, a buyout is a more affordable option than you might think if you can find the right properties.
While many hotel buyouts still start upwards of $10,000, we scoured the US for properties that come in at $250 or less per room per night. That means if some people are sharing rooms, the rates can be even more attractive. We've also chosen smaller, boutique properties that offer the best value. Some hotels start with as few as five rooms for small groups, while the largest has up to 26 rooms. But even if your group won't fill every room at the larger properties, all still come in at solid rates of under $450 per person per night even for just 10 or 12 guests. Additionally, we looked for hotels located in secluded countryside, beachfront or hilltop areas, as well as smaller, city-center boutique hotels with intriguing offers.
Read on for affordable hotel buyouts, sorted by price from low to high.