Starling Travel

These were in the huge bag of Hotel SWAG and I can’t identify which hotel I got them from. Any help in identifying them would be greatly appreciated.

I have no idea which hotel we got this from. Any ideas?

I don’t know which hotel was giving away Crabtree & Evelyn. Anyone out there can tell me?

The little bottles of shampoo and bars of soap are yours to keep, but some folks go a little further when they decide what to take home. Read more here:

• Hotel Swag || HotelChatter

A couple made off with an entire room of furniture at a Holiday Inn, but that isn’t typical:

Yet the most popular item that guests like to steal is washcloths. Holiday Inn loses about 100,000 of these a year. Guests also kept stealing the remote controls at the Grand Hyatt in Dallas but it turns out those remote controls only work in the hotel.

Washcloths, sheets, towels, glassware and bedspreads are usually are of such cheap quality, even at the really nice hotels, so I’m fascinated that they turn up missing. I suspect that the hotel guests aren’t “stealing” the wash cloths as the article suggests and they are merely lost in the shuffle of hotel laundry or accidentally end up in a suitcase. I doubt that many people are consciously stealing wash cloths.

My favorite hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada is The Luxor Hotel and Casino. It has lost a lot of its cool, Egyptian image over the years and has been through many renovations, but I still love it dearly.

This is the SWAG from the Luxor Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. It was taken in the hotel in November 2006. I especially love the pyramid shaped shower cap containers. It’s not pictured in the photo, but they also give you a full-sized bath soap for the shower.

They change their SWAG so often. Here is a photo of some of the older SWAG from The Luxor Hotel.

Luxor has gone through MANY iterations of their SWAG. Here are only a few of the versions I was able to find. My favorite were the bottles from their spa, The Oasis, which is gone now. Check out the designs on the bars of soap. Nefertiti was on the facial soap (both on the box and imprinted on the soap) and King Tut is on the body bar.

You can also see one bar of soap from the short-lived variation that was a multi-colored pastel with NO reference to anything Egyptian. The design of that SWAG was pretty, but I really missed the Egyptian style. I’m glad they returned to it.

If you have any photos of the older Luxor Hotel SWAG, please upload them to the Flickr photo pool:

• Flickr – Hotel SWAG Group Photo Pool

It’s a public group, so anyone can add photos. If you don’t want to join Flickr, please contact me and you can email me the photos and I’ll post them here.

Over the years, hotel chains change their SWAG. I have an example of the current SWAG at Best Western here.

We stayed at the Best Western in West Yellowstone, Montana in May 2007. This is the SWAG that came home with me. The shampoo and conditioner were provided by Suave.

That design is fairly new, because I have an example of an older design in my SWAG pile here. I actually like the clean lines of this design better than the new one.

I wonder what Best Western SWAG from the past looked like. I wonder if there is anyone out there with old examples of what hotel SWAG. If you are, please add photos to the Flickr group pool:

• Flickr – Hotel SWAG Group Photo Pool

It’s a public group, so anyone can add photos. If you don’t want to join Flickr, please contact me and you can email me the photos and I’ll post them here.

There is a lovely Comfort Inn in Cardiff By The Sea that is near our friends’ houses and is so pleasant to stay in. I have such good feelings about that hotel, so when I see the SWAG that I collected from our stays there, it makes me happy. Here is some older Comfort Inn SWAG.

This SWAG can’t be more than a couple of years old because I did a purge of my SWAG pile right after Katrina hit. This is how the Comfort Inn SWAG looked not too long ago. Of course, I absolutely LOVE the new SWAG! The design of the bottles makes it REALLY easy to get the shampoo, conditioner or lotion out. I love the design so much, I re-used the bottles for other travel items. You can read how I did it here: Travel Size Your Way.

This is the SWAG from the Airport Comfort Inn in Boise, Idaho photographed in the hotel. I opened the soap, but there is no design on the bar. Sadly, I don’t have a photo from my beloved Comfort Inn at Cardiff By The Sea, but next time we stay there, I’ll be sure to get a picture.

We recently stayed in a Travelodge Teddy Bear room in La Grande, Oregon. Here is the SWAG:

I opened the bar of soap so you could see the cute bear paw on the bar. The shampoo smells like honey. That’s what happens when they let bears run hotels…

These are from the pile of hotel SWAG that I have collected over the last couple of years. I photographed them at home, not at the hotel.

We got these at the Town Lake Raddison Hotel in Austin, Texas while we were at SXSW in March 2007. They are labeled with the brand ASiRA, and if you like them, you can buy more from their website here: ASiRA Body Care

Our last stay at Ramada Inn was not pleasant, so I have no good feelings about the SWAG. Isn’t that strange?

The only piece of SWAG remaining from The Casablanca Hotel and Casino in Mesquite, Nevada.

I know there was more, but this was all I could find from The Sahara Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada.

I don’t remember ever staying at a Howard Johnson. COOL SWAG, though.

This guy is OLD. I have no recollection of staying at Fairfield Inn, so it must be at least two years old.

I like the design of the Hilton SWAG, but it’s hard to get the stuff out of those bottles. Pretty, but not very useful. These are from the Las Vegas Hilton in Las Vegas, Nevada.

This soap is from the Excalibur Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. I know they gave us more SWAG than just the soap, but all that was left was this.

I enjoyed going through the pile of SWAG. There is a certain joy in bottles and bars of soap that are the wrong size. When I was a child, I used to think that the small soaps and shampoos that my grandpa brought home from his business trips were for me because they were small. While I was looking through the pile, I found some of the items that I had photographed in the hotel. Tune in on Monday for Hotel SWAG for those photographs!

When you stay at a hotel, they provide you with free little bottles of shampoo and tiny bars of soap. I call them Hotel SWAG (Stuff We All Get). I like to take pictures of the SWAG as they were presented in the hotel, but I had a huge pile of SWAG that I had taken home. You get to see it all for the rest of this week and all of next week.

If you would like to see a preview, you can here:

• Flicker Slideshow: Hotel SWAG

I have also created a group photo pool on Flickr if you would like to add to the collection:

• Flicker: Hotel SWAG Group Photo Pool

Tiny bottles of shampoo that aren’t even enough to for one washing of my hair are one of the luxuries of staying in a hotel. Let’s revel in them, shall we?