Hotel, Motel, Holiday Innnnn (or your brand here)...

Countdown - 39 days

I just finished putting the final touches on 89 letters going out to 89 hotels that are along my route for the Vancouver Adventure.

[Let's take a minute and remember why it is called the "Vancouver Adventure" anyway. The original trip was planned to simply get to Vancouver and back. When Alaska got added to the itinerary, it was merely as a sideshow. Technically, Alaska it further west than Vancouver, but I'm considering Vancouver to be my western-most point before heading north to Alaska and returning back to Fort Wayne. Play along with me here. Vancouver is still on the route and a very important part of it. It's much more than the spot where I 'turn right at the Pacific and go north'. But I digress...]

Anyway, I've finished putting together a mailing to many of the hotels on my route in the hopes that just one of them in each overnight city destination will be charitible enough to write off the cost of the room as a 'donation' to charity. In doing so, I'll donate what I would have budgeted for accommodations that night to charity when I return home and complete this trip. It's a win-win-win: Hotel gets publicity as a do-gooder along my route (and I'm sure I'll talk up all the cool stuff about their hotel and facilities); CCFA gets the money that I would have spent on hotel rooms; and the hotel gets to write off the 'donation' as a charitible tax deduction. SWEET (water!)

Once the letters go out to all these places I'm hoping that I'll hear pretty quickly on who will take me up on the offer for each city. I'm *really* hoping that two places in Prince George, British Columbia get on board. I'm staying there twice! (one night in PG, then up to Hyder/Stewart, then back to PG). As I hear back from folks, I'll be sure to update the blog to recognize these forward thinking hotels and management staff.

So, how do you get a hotel to cough up a free stay for a night in their facility as part of a donation toward a great charity? Well, since I'm just now trying, I'll have to get back to you on that one.
In the meantime, if you know someone in the hotel business who might be able to pull a few strings, lemme know! Remember the cause!