America's 10 Dirtiest Hotels

(NEWSER) - Looking to vacation in a spot that inspired your favorite novel? USA Today asks travel expert Melissa Biggs Bradley about the best hotels to connect physically with the literature.

• The Resort at Paws Up, Greenough, Mont.: "The Blackfoot River, which runs through this 37,000-acre ranch, is the river referred to in Norman Maclean's wonderful A River Runs Through It," Bradley says.

(NEWSER) - Eliot Spitzer put Washington’s Renaissance Mayflower Hotel on the map with his Ashley Dupre tryst—and before Spitzer, televangelist Jim Bakker did a similar service for Florida’s Sheraton Sand Key Resort with Jessica Hahn. Travel + Leisure takes a look at a few other famous—or infamous—hotels:

• Al Capone ran a speakeasy out of the Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables, Fla., in the 1920s.

(NEWSER) - The recession is igniting new hotel wars: not battles for customers, but between owners of luxury hotels and the properties’ operators, the New York Times reports. The owners are often struggling to keep up with big debt payments, hindered by a more than 16% average drop in hotel bookings across the sector. But operators are loathe to cut rates or amenities, saying that doing so will diminish a property’s brand. More»

Resorts try to lure back vacationers with promotion

(NEWSER) - Several Mexican resorts are offering free stays to tourists who catch swine flu while vacationing there, the Times of London reports. They hope to restore confidence in the sunny destination, which they say has been completely sanitized of the H1N1 virus. The hotel leading the promotion also slashed rates by 40%. Holiday bookings have fallen 83% during the flu outbreak. More»

Those worried about their carbon footprint should consider a budget hotel

(NEWSER) - The greenest hotel chain in the US isn't exactly the swankiest: A new report from Brighter Planet finds that Vagabond Inn is the most energy- and carbon-efficient, the Los Angeles Times reports. Next up: Red Lion Hotels, another mid-range offering, followed by the budget Red Carpet Inns and then Travelodge. Dead last of the 75 chains analyzed? The more upscale JW Marriott Hotels & Resorts. More»