More NYC hotel choices on the horizon

There's a 95 percent chance Senior Editor Christine Sarkis is thinking about travel right now. Follow her on Instagram @postcartography and Twitter @ChristineSarkis.

Christine Sarkis is an SATW-award-winning journalist and executive editor at SmarterTravel. Her stories have also appeared on USA Today, Conde Nast Traveler, Huffington Post, and Business Insider. Her advice has been featured in dozens of print and online publications including The New York Times, Conde Nast Traveler, and People magazine. She has also shared travel tips on television and radio shows including Good Morning America, Marketplace, and Here & Now. Her work has been published in the anthologies Spain from a Backpack and The Best Women's Travel Writing 2008. She is currently working on a travel memoir.

The Handy Item I Always Pack: The Trtl Pillow. It's easy to pack and comfortable, and makes it so I can actually sleep on flights.

Ultimate Bucket List Experience: Seeing the Aurora Borealis from the comfort of somewhere warm, like a glass igloo or hot spring.

Travel Motto: Curiosity is an amazing compass.

Aisle, Window, or Middle Seat: Aisle all the way.

Email Christine Sarkis at editor@smartertravel.com.

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Finding a hotel in New York City has got to be one of the most frustrating trip-planning tasks in the entire U.S. Not only is availability limited even if you’re booking in advance, but the astronomical rates cut deeply into almost all budgets.

Which is why the CNN.com headline “NYC hotel boom could help ease room shortage” caught my eye immediately. And while the article doesn’t promise happy endings on the price front, it does point to more room availability in the coming years.

According to the article, there are 59 hotels under construction and 103 hotels in the planning stage. Most hotels will charge mid-market prices, which sounds reasonable until you read on and discover that in New York City, that still means $200 to $300 per night. And when the nightly rate for a mediocre hotel is more than a round-trip cross-country flight, that seems to me to be sign to consider other destinations.

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