Pick a quiet hotel off the strip

Hotels are for relaxing and sleeping. Bars are for being loud. Don’t mix the two.

On my most recent week in Trujillo and Huanchaco I stayed in three hotels – but only liked one of them.

The first was in Trujillo and was fine. It had a good location near the historic center and was clean and relatively quiet. It wasn’t good enough to recommend, but it was good enough for me to not complain.

The second was on the beach in Huanchaco and it had a loud rooftop restaurant and bar. The room and breakfast were okay, but it was just too loud for comfort. You don’t need to know which one it was - just go to the third hotel.

The third hotel was just right – the perfect Goldilocks combo of quiet, comfortable and near the beach.

The Bracamonte Hotel is only a ten-minute walk from the center of town but plenty far enough from the strip for it to be truly peaceful and quiet.

Things I look for in a hotel: location, reviews, and photos from guests.

Location: I look for hotels a bit away from the center of town and also check Google maps to see if there are bars on the same street. If it’s a nice place to walk or taxis are cheap, I look for a place farther from the center.

Reviews: On Google, or whatever platform you use to book hotels, check how many reviews it has before you look at what the rating is. A perfect score but only five reviews could easily be friends and family giving great reviews. I look for a place with both more reviews than the competition and a high score.

Photos: They really do say a thousand words, especially if they’re uploaded by people who have stayed there. I want to see what the room looks like, what the view out the window is and, if breakfast is included, I want to see what the food looks like. The photos people will upload to Google and online review sites can be way more realistic than the photos that hotel owners upload.

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I love writing about Peru and all the places I travel. I do not love writing about myself, but I’ve learned that being a freelance writer requires marketing myself - and sometimes that means writing about me.

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