Hotel Vintage Downtown-Westloop (Chicago, USA)

The local bus runs frequently to the city's downtown area ... and the bonus is that the same applies to the night bus.

This isn't for everyone but, for young travellers and backpackers, it will have a lot of appeal.

There's no doubting that the friendly welcome and the informality of this set-up, plus the reasonable costs, go down very well with some.

You can approach this place from a number of angles and dress the description to suit. That, though, avoids the ‘elephant in the room' and the fact that these are not apartments! Oh, no … they are individual rooms in an apartment. That's why the kitchen and bathroom facilities are shared. You have a room and it isn't en-suite.

The TV is missing from the room and the ‘bed' is just a grotty mattress on the floor. Some of the other rooms are lucky and have bunk beds. Not something you'd usually applaud but, in this situation, it's the most attractive of the options. If you win the lottery and actually get a bed, your troubles are far from over as you can feel the base through the very thin mattress.

Naturally, there are cockroaches enjoying a wild old time here and the kitchen is best avoided. The fridge is full of old food products left by now departed guests. Bedding etc; is of the poorest - and not the cleanest - quality, there's rubbish and grime all over the place. The icing on the cake though is that, in Chicago (*of all places), this area is thought to be ‘dangerous'. Wow!