Bed bugs? Cigarette buds under the bed? Not the ideal conditions for a productive and comfortable trip.

At Via Her, we always think it is a good idea to check your hotel's reputation before booking it. If the city you are traveling to is not listed on Via Her (yet!), you can send us an email and we will look up the information for you (email us at Concierge@Via-Her.com).  However, if you have the time to do some homework yourself, one of our favorite websites is Tripadvisor.

A few tips to ensure that you are optimizing the information on the website:

• Look at the number of reviews: A hotel ranking based on 10 reviews is not as pertinent as a ranking based on 500!
• Look at who is writing the reviews: tourists on vacation do not have the same expectations in terms of services and amenities as business travelers do. Tastes and expectations also vary with culture, gender, etc.
• Tripadvisor now ranks business hotels; so it is a good idea to check reviews from other business travelers.

Now, for fun, and hoping you will never have to travel there, check out the list of dirtiest hotels in the world (per region).