Chicago

[Jon Miller]

I have a conference in Chicago, and it seems that the hotels in the downtown area (near the Loop) are mostly really expensive (a good deal is 160$ p/night).

Is there good options in the downtown area? Or is there a place farther away next to public transport?

I ask because I know a lot of people here know chicago well.

JM

[Uncle Sparky]

I stayed at the downtown Y once.

[Ming]

The best deal is the Chicago Getaway Hostel. It's in a decent area just north of the downtown area. It's a couple of blocks to walk to a bus... but it's CHEAP. If all you want to do is sleep, it's the answer. A classic "hostel"...

Address: 616 West Arlington Place, Chicago, IL 60614
Phone: (773) 929-5380
getawayhostel.com

One of the sites is showing rooms for only $62. It actually gets decent reviews.
NO... It's not in the heart of the city, but check it out.

[Dinner]

~$60 for a hostel? Wow. I can remember when a night in a hostel only cost like $15.

[Ming]

And I can remember when gas was indeed the cheapest thrill at 29 cents a gallon...

[Dinner]

The cheapest I can remember was about $0.69 and that was in 1992 right after the first Gulf War. I had just started to drive at that time and even on my $4.25 part time job at K-Mart I could afford to fill my tank, take road trips with my friends (usually just to another county or something over the weekend), pay for my car insurance, and still have money left over to eat out or go on a date or what not. Good times, good times.

[Ming]

I'm going back to 1972. We were in college... and a couple of bucks would fill up the tank for an old VW. Beer was more expensive than gas

[Dinner]

Hey, my first car was a VW too! It was a 1974 VW beatle which my sister had previously owned but she forgot to put motor oil in it and blew up the engine. When I was 15.5 years old my father made me a deal, if I helped him put a new engine in it he would give me the car. Given that a VW engine was held in by just four bolts and as it was the single most common car on the planet I think the new rebuilt engine cost something like $180 (paid for by my dad) and installing it only took an afternoon even with a know it all teenager mucking things up. The harder part was installing the fuel injection computer for the 1976 engine but even that only required two screws and running four wires (well, and screwing in the old computer box we bought second hand at a junk yard). All in all one of the best deals I ever made.

[-Jrabbit]

Is the conference downtown?
If it's affiliated with a university, the school may have hotel connections.

[loinburger]

Some universities also convert dorm rooms into cheap hotel rooms (for conference attendees and other people associated with the university) over the summer

[Jon Miller]

Is the conference downtown?
If it's affiliated with a university, the school may have hotel connections.

It's at the Holiday Inn Mart Plaza.

I think we are getting the discount rate there, but it is still more than I would like to get reimbursed for (although probably my institution would not grumble too much for 160$ per night).

JM

[rah]

If it's on the expense account, go ahead. No bean counter is going to crab much about a 160 per night room in Chicago.

[Jon Miller]

They won't grumble, but I generally am not a fan of going over 120 a night.

And the week before I am in Switzerland and it is a lot.

JM

[rah]

Never travel to NY then.

[Jon Miller]

This seems (one night) to be good, thanks Ming.

JM
(and it is close to brown line which goes direct to the Market Plaza)