I stay in hotels a lot, both for business and travel. I usually stay in Hilton properties, mainly for the points. But I will also stay at some inexpensive motels when budget travelling on my motorcycle. Lots of these have been bought by creative people, and renovated and are quite nice and quirky. The benefit to a lot of these are that you can pull your motorcycle right up to the front door of your room. You just have to be very selective and read a lot of reviews on these types of motels.

I mainly stay in Hilton Garden Inns, but sometimes right now I will stay at a Hampton. The "free breakfast" is just sort of a pre-fabricated affair, but it's free, it's filling, and it's never made me sick, and the coffee ain't bad. As far as cleanliness, I have never had an issue with a Hilton property.

I agree with what others have said about getting one in a decent part of town. If it's a place you have never been, you can use Google street view and take a few minutes to "virtually" drive up and down the streets in the area, and get a pretty good idea if it's a decent area. In other words, if you see a bunch of "buy here, pay here" car lots, pawn shops and title pawn places, you might want to book a hotel elsewhere.