Five best budget London hotels
Palmers Lodge, Swiss Cottage
Voted one of the top 10 hostels worldwide by hostels.com customers, Palmers Lodge is set in a Victorian, Grade II-listed building. After an overhaul just over a year ago, it provides 34 classily decorated rooms (from private en-suites to 14-bed dorms), as well as free Wi-Fi and a bar and restaurant. You might not exactly hobnob with the capital's élite at Palmers Lodge, but, with its dark wooden beds, elegant wood-panelling and high ceilings, you'll certainly feel the part.
Palmers Lodge, 40 College Crescent, London NW3. Tel: 0044 20 7483 8470; website: www.palmerslodge.co.uk. Doubles from £52 (about R736), including breakfast.
Base2stay, Kensington
This boutique "aparthotel" blends style with good sense to produce an experience that's relatively low on cost while still offering a level of luxury - something of a rarity in the capital. It offers quality beds, power-showers and reasonably priced broadband and phone calls. All rooms also come with natty kitchenettes, a godsend if you don't want to spend a small fortune dining out, or eat badly on a budget.
Base2stay, 25 Courtfield Gardens, London SW5. Tel: 0044 845 262 8000; website: www.base2stay.com. Doubles start at £99 (R1 400), without breakfast.
Yotel, Gatwick
This is the latest venture from Simon Woodroffe, founder of the YO! Sushi chain. His aim is to combine a British Airways first-class cabin with a Japanese capsule hotel, and the first Yotel is finally set to open at Gatwick's South Terminal later this month, after a series of postponements. Yotel's 10-square-metre rooms will, like airline seats, be available in either standard or premium class. All come with luxury bedding, mood lighting, "rain" showers and fresh coffee, not to mention flatscreen TVs, free Wi-Fi, and high-speed cable internet access. Premium cabins also have iPod docks. Yotel's four-hour booking option means that there will be somewhere comfy to catnap when a flight is delayed. Another Yotel is scheduled to open in August at Heathrow's Terminal 4.
Yotel, South Terminal, Gatwick Airport. Website: www.yotel.com. Standard cabins from £40 (R566) per night, premium cabins from £70 (R990) per night. Four-hour bookings will cost from £25 (R354); all room only.
Hoxton Hotel, Hoxton
With frills stripped away to keep prices down, you won't find chocolates on the pillows at the Hoxton Hotel, or overpriced minibars, or jacked-up phone bills (UK calls cost 3p per minute). Instead, the hotel focuses on the basics, with a bar, restaurant, free Wi-Fi - and 205 comfortable rooms. These are stylish in an unfussy way, with plush shower rooms and Frette sheets. Because Sinclair Beecham, co-founder of Pret A Manger, is behind the hotel, you'll find a mini Pret breakfast of yogurt, juice and a banana hanging on a hook beside the door each morning.
Hoxton Hotel, 81 Great Eastern Street, London EC2. Tel: 0044 20 7550 1000; website: www.hoxtonhotels.com. Doubles from £59 (R835), with breakfast
Piccadilly Backpackers, Piccadilly
What sets this vast, 700-bed hostel in the centre of London apart is its attention to invention. The basics are all there: great showers, wellequipped laundry facilities, a bright breakfast room, and an internet café. But its latest, and best, rooms have been creatively refurbished as part of a "Hostel Art" project. Twenty-one artists have enlivened the rooms on Level 3 in styles ranging from Manga to street art. There are also "pod" dorms, with bunks in the Japanese capsule-hotel style.
Piccadilly Backpackers, 12 Sherwood Street, London W1. Tel: 0044 20 7434 9009; website: www.piccadillybackpackers.com. Doubles from £52 (R736); pod dorm beds from £17 (R240).