
Last updated on February 7th, 2025
Are luxury hotels worth it? Society tells us we need to experience the best of the best to become “successful”, but is this actually true? Read more to find out.
Simple Upbringing
I started my mainly food blog PierreAteIt back in 2014, but within the year, I shifted my focus to include luxury hotel reviews. That means I have spent nearly a decade with a large part of each year living out of strictly luxury hotels. Prior to this, I spent about 3.5 years as a very budget oriented traveler. If I wasn’t staying in a super cheap accommodation for $10 USD a night, I was staying with people for free on Couchsurfing.com.
If we go back even further in my life, while growing up in the United States, my family was also very budget oriented. I have lots of memories of my childhood going from garage sale to garage sale to yard sale to yard sale, with my mom, getting everything secondhand. Long story short, this meant that I had never experienced much luxury growing up and was always curious about the lifestyle of the rich and famous.
I mean, this is what society tells us that we’re supposed to achieve to be “successful” right? We are told that we’re supposed to spend long hours working hard, make a lot of money, and success is achieved when we are able to pay for a suite at the Ritz, and drink champagne.
Shortcut to the Luxury Life
When I finally realized that I could use my skills as a professional photographer, professional videographer, web designer, and internet marketer to obtain the luxury lifestyle I had become so curious about, I jumped at the chance. I’ll never forget my very first luxury hotel review at the Mandarin Oriental in Bangkok, Thailand.
I was giddy as could be, jumping for joy over every little thing that they did. To be fair, the Mandarin Oriental Bangkok is truly a masterpiece when it comes to luxury hotels. Essentially, I started with the best of the best.
Once I had the Mandarin Oriental Hotel editorial on my blog, it became fairly easy to get my proposals accepted at other luxury hotels worldwide. This quickly snowballed to staying 6-9 months out of the year strictly in luxury hotels in exchange for my marketing services. Some years, it would have easily cost $250,000+ USD to experience what I did if I had to pay out of pocket.
A Decade of the Luxury Life
I felt that I had found a cheat code to living life like a millionaire, or more realistically, like a multi-multi millionaire. Visiting exotic locations, staying in the finest hotels, eating the absolute “best” food at three Michelin star restaurants, dating women from every walk of life, and even flying business class to top it off. I had done it, I had achieved “success” in the eyes of society and everyone that I met was interested in my story.
I continued to live this luxury-life for nearly a decade. My blog that initially focused on food exclusively, now focused on luxury hotels, fine dining restaurants, spas, tours, and airlines. This allowed me to get everything that I wanted at the time, and more. From a handful of articles at the beginning, to 750+ articles today. I had done it! I was a full-time professional luxury traveler.
Less is More
After years of enjoying the high life and all that it brought, I started to question why I was doing what I was doing. I wondered if my life was truly better in a $1,000 a night cream of the crop luxury hotel versus when I was living in a $200 a month basic apartment in Bangkok. The answer was simply, no, it was not better.
Something had shifted within me after all these experiences and I realized that contentment didn’t come from excess. Maybe it came from my childhood where we lived an economic lifestyle and I was taught to enjoy the little things. I felt I had finally come full circle to realize what was truly important in this short existence we have alive.
Life Changing Experience
When we reduce or eliminate our desires, real contentment is much easier to attain. I do have to admit that I only came to this conclusion after my vast experience within the world of both budget and luxury. This definitely did not come overnight, it came through growing as a person over the last decade. An experience that really helped push me in this direction was doing my first week-long meditation retreat at the The Young Buddhists Association of Thailand back in May of 2019.
It was during this first meditation retreat that I realized fully how happy I was with the most basic lifestyle possible. I understood this in theory prior to the retreat but it didn’t fully click until I had gone through this experience. During the retreat we were forbidden to talk, told to avoid eye contact with others, slept on thin and hard mattresses, woke up at 04:30 am, meditated for 11 hours a day, had two basic meals a day, then slept again around 21:30 to repeat the whole process again and again for the following week.
Consequently, I realized that I was truly happy with such a simple lifestyle that absolutely anyone can attain right now, in this very moment. Realizing that I didn’t need anything externally to be happy was incredibly liberating! I just needed to focus on the moment and enjoying the small and simple pleasures of life, no matter what they happen to be.
What Happens Now?
Therefore, over the past year and a half, I have shifted back to a focus on simple accommodations and doing less overall luxury blogging. I have come completely full circle in my life preferences. What a wild ride it was! These days I now spend a majority of my time living in budget accommodations that I simply pay for with money instead of my services.
I have also noticed that I’ve been drawn away from big cities and back to nature. Afterall, we are all part of nature so it makes sense that we feel most comfortable when we are in it as opposed to these artificial environments we have created.
In Practical Terms
You may be wondering, “what does this simple travel lifestyle look like in practice?” Basically, I now seek out affordable hotels that offer a good value for money. No longer does it matter to me if the hotel offers breakfast or other facilities like a fitness center or spa. I actually love being forced to go find food outside the hotel as well as workout outdoors. This opens the door and actually encourages lots of rewarding experiences.
Recently, during some of my less frequent luxury hotel reviews, I’ve had some low-quality experiences that made me realize I would have actually preferred to stay at a cheaper hotel and eat affordable local food than what I found inside the hotel.
Is All Luxury The Devil?
I have said a lot in this article which I hope has got you thinking, but I want to make it clear that no, I don’t think that experiencing luxury should be avoided at all costs. What I do think needs to change is thinking that we need external solutions for our internal problems or emptiness. To reiterate what I said before, we don’t need anything externally to achieve internal happiness.
No matter how many luxury experiences we have, we will be no closer to contentment in life than someone who has never experienced such luxuries. Ultimately, what our contentment depends on, is our mindset, and that is completely under our control.
Conclusion: Are Luxury Hotels Worth It?
In conclusion, once we truly embrace the concept that less is more, we will be able to attain freedom from our desires for these external and very temporary “solutions.” The idea that luxury hotels make our lives better is generally an illusion. In reality, we are actually in control of making our lives better through how we view every situation no matter where we are staying. In conclusion, do I think that luxury hotels are evil? No. Do I think that the way that society has defined success by prioritizing over-consumption is wrong? 100% yes.