Tiny Luxuries Travelers and Foodies Love

Just like my happy discovery of the restaurant’s tiny phone shelf, it turns out that what many travel writers long for is simply a place to put their things. Sarah Maiellano, a Philadelphia-based writer for USA Today and others, recalls eating at the renowned New York City restaurant Le Bernardin and getting a purse stool, “Like an elegant, small footstool, but placed tableside for purses.” More frequently in Mexico I’ve seen restaurant servers pull up a standing rack on which purses can hang like coats, and Amy Robertson, who has traveled the world for three careers (consulting, international aid, and writing), mentions that in Lebanon, restaurants will often pull up an extra chair for your purse.The joy in having a place to put your stuff continues at the hotel, with Canadian newspaper and magazine writer Ann Britton Campbell just looking for a second luggage rack. Pam Mandel, cofounder of The Statesider, will never forget the 24-hour snack options laid out at the Cedarbrook Lodge outside Seattle: “You roll in at 10 p.m., and you’ve been slogging, but you can’t be bothered to go out, and the kitchen is closed … and then, you find real snacks, not just one tired Nature Valley granola bar.”Coffee in the room is a low bar to clear, but hotels can raise it, says Jenny Peters, a writer for USA Today’s 10Best, with a bottle of milk in the fridge to go with it: “An amazing little thing that makes it awesome.”It’s those amazing little things that make a restaurant or hotel stand out. For Hannah Freedman, senior editor at Family Traveller, it’s a button to open and close the curtains by the bed: “It’s totally unnecessary, but there’s just something about being able to wake up and take in the view without even leaving bed that really makes a vacation feel truly luxurious.” And content writer Catherine Tully just wants an hour of adults-only time in the pool at the end of the night.