You read correctly. This blog item is about us. Wandering Educators, the savvy online community where teachers share travel experiences and expertise, interviewed us this week.

If you’ve ever wondered about who we are, how Overnight New York got started or our favorite tip for first time visitors to New York City, click onto the Q & A (and scroll down to the end to learn more about our logo).

And if you’re an educator — or just looking for a blog jam-packed with news, information and tips on global travel — check out Wandering Educators.

Yotel's Yobot -- $2 per bag.

We’ll never know the identity of the enterprising employee who cleared his throat, stared down a guest and was remunerated for carrying a bag. But by the 1820s tipping the porter, like signing the register, was a ritual at hotels in New York and other big American cities.

Blame it on the buildings. Carrying bags wasn’t a problem for guests staying at small, squat colonial inns and taverns. But hotel architecture changed in the 1790s, with the advent of full-fledged hotels with complicated floor plans, writes A.K. Sandoval-Strausz in Hotel, An American History, a fascinating look at the evolution of the hotel. (more…)

Hudson's semi-automatic.

Semi-automatic? It’s a vending machine, not a weapon, and you can see this big, oddly futuristic contraption in the lobby at the Hudson here in New York as well as at the Mondrian South Beach and the Sanderson in London.

As anyone knows who’s ever craved a midnight Coke, vending machines are nothing new at hotels. But the semi-automatic, with its singular appearance and attention-grabbing offerings – 24-karat gold handcuffs, anyone? – is different. We road tested – and blogged about — the Hudson’s semi-automatic a while back, but eager to know more, we spoke with Kim Walker, senior vice-president for marketing at Morgans Hotel Group.

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