To me, what makes these motels special is originality; my favourites carrying the fingerprints of their owners and their geography, like the flamboyant Madonna Inn, of course, whose owners wanted guests to feel both comfortable and wowed from the moment they walked through the door; Silver Sands, a beautifully intentionally reimagined modern waterfront retreat, perched on the tip of Long Island’s laid-back North Fork that whisks you to the late 1950s; the retro-styled Blue Swallow Motel built in 1939 said to be one of the best preserved and longest continuously operating, independently owned and family-run motels on Route 66; the Ojai Rancho Inn, a former 1950s motel in Ojai, a magnet for bohemians that offers a playful nod to Ojai’s reputation as a spiritual vortex; and the historic El Rancho Hotel on old Route 66 in New Mexico, once a hub for the Hollywood film industry, most of them having lured me off the road with their cool, sometime neon signage, of course.
