Women have worse quality of sleep than men, according to The National Sleep Foundation. George Washington University School of Business says 2/3 of travelers are women today. That translates into a lot of sleepless nights from women in hotels!
when we speak with women from The Women’s Travel Group on tour, we hear concerns about sleeping and jet lag all the time.
There are some obvious ways to make your hotel room more sleep-able:
Check if there is renovation going on, put ‘quiet room’ into your request, ask for non-smoking rooms, and if you are on a low floor, check on street noises and trash collection.
Then there are some less obvious ways to make your room comfortable:
Don’t stay near the ice machine or banquet areas. (You can ask the hotel to turn off the ice machine by the way. They might actually turn it off.).
If your neighbors are noisy, change immediately. If no other room is available, get security to intervene. ‘Change immediately’ is the better choice. Unfortunately security usually has little influence since they need to assuage both you and your neighbors equally. You might add, ‘if you cannot quiet them, I am calling the police’. Unpleasant wording, but can be needed if your 8AM appointment is important. People yelling on mobile phones on the terrace can be asked to move on.
If your air conditioning or any other in room machinery is broken, change rooms asap. Do not be lured into waiting for assistance or hoping all is fixed when you return from dinner.
Thirdly there are The Women’s Travel Group tips for converting your hotel room into sleep friendly:
Bring a soft travel pillow and a pillow case from home. To find truly comfortable pillows, google: ‘soft camping pillows’. Inflatable travel pillows are hard on the head. Camping pillows, stuffed with polyester fluff, are comfortable, the right size, and will compress into small spaces in your suitcase.
Download music on your phone ; wordless music is more soothing to sleep. You can listen while reclining and, on some phones, you can control how long the music will play.
Make your hotel room your new home, as you listen to Podcasts you enjoy and have downloaded beforehand. Hearing English spoken and a story you like makes your hotel room less foreign.
Earplugs should be soft enough to fit spaces in your ears but not so soft they are dangerous. Foam earplugs, given out on planes, fall out quickly. Silicon is hard; wax is softer. If you are in England or changing planes in an English airport, run right to Boots and load up on Boots brand earplugs. They are wax, not too soft and cheap. They are the gold standard from our experience. Warning: you should never be so plugged that you cannot hear a fire or other alarm!
Boots English earplugs
Finally hunt around for some white noise: the air conditioner/bathroom exhaust. And yes there is even podcasts you can download with many white noise choices. Want to hear waves crashing? Camp fire? Tibetan Singing? Pink Noise? (maybe you will understand the linked wikipedia definition of Pink Noise).
Travel Tips from The Women’s Travel Group, smart tours for women to colorful destinations.