Where is the nearest hotel to where I'm going?

I travel a number of times each year to conferences and technical meetings. I don't want to travel far each day (I really just want to walk), so I always want a hotel that is near the venue. However, it has never been so easy to find out where the nearest hotels are. Travel agents really haven't picked up on this one. They can get you a hotel in the same city, but they usually haven't much of a clue about where in the city the hotel is, and certainly not how far it is from your venue. Some of the travel sites like Expedia will show you a map of the hotels in an area, but they don't help you find where your venue is. It can still take a long time to work out where your venue is in a hotel map of an unfamiliar city.

So I was impressed when I had a look at Google Maps today and noticed that you can use it to find hotels. Here is what you do:

1. In the search box, type in the street address of the venue near which you want a hotel, and press Search;


2. If necessary, click on the location (red balloon with a black dot in the middle) to get an Address pop-up bubble;


3. In the bubble, click on Set as start location;


4. Type "hotels near here" in the search box and press Search.
   

Now the map will show you where the nearest hotels are. Cool. It works better for some parts of the world than for others, so it depends where your venue is. I guess there are no guarantees that it shows the best or most affordable hotels. Still, it is far and away the fastest way I know to find a nearby hotel for a venue.