Invaluable Tips From the Woman Who Wrote the Books on Cheap Eats, Sleeps

It has been said that you meet the best kinds of people when traveling on a budget. Sandra Gustafson, the author of the “Cheap Eats” and “Cheap Sleeps” guides to Paris, London, Italy, Hawaii, Prague, Budapest and Vienna (Chronicle Books, $13.95 each) is one of them--a delightfully unassuming woman who’s spent most of the last 17 years on the road, tracking down nice places to stay and eat that don’t cost a fortune.

There are lots of guidebook writers on the same mission, of course. But what sets Sandra apart is that she personally inspects all the places she recommends, and she writes about them from the viewpoint of a woman with good taste and wide experience. She has attracted an intensely loyal readership, which she fiercely protects.

For instance, after hearing from a reader dissatisfied with a room he’d booked, on her recommendation, at the Hotel Cimabue in Florence, she went back and collared the owner, insisting that he take her to that room. Unlike all the others she’d been shown on an earlier inspection, it was airless and awful. So she told the hotelier she was going to exclude the Cimabue from her book the next time she revised it. Very upset, he begged her to come back in two weeks, and he’d have the room renovated. She did, and it was--which is why the Hotel Cimabue is still listed in her book.

How does she pack this kind of clout? Small and soft-spoken, Sandra manages to assert herself in the most pleasant way possible, simply by being the sort of person you wouldn’t want to disappoint. I got her to share some of her traveling secrets several weeks ago. Here’s how our conversation went:

Question: How did you start the “Cheap Eats/Cheap Sleeps” series?

Answer: I was in Paris at the time, working as assistant registrar at the American University and living in the only kind of apartment I could afford, with a kitchen no bigger than a closet. So I ate out a lot, kept a journal and notes. Friends would ask me where they should eat. To make a long story short, I turned my notes into a little book, making copies on a Xerox machine. Later a journalist in San Diego wrote about it, and . . . I got 350 orders for a book I didn’t have.

Q: Then you got a publisher, and the rest is history, I guess. What was your Paris apartment like?

A: It was on the Ile St.-Louis, gorgeous, but very tiny--like living in a doll’s house. It had a dining area, an enclosed space for a desk, a bathroom with an electric toilet you had to plug in and a bed on a mezzanine, so I could lie there and watch the bateaux mouches [sightseeing boats] go by. I paid $300 a month for it.

Q: Nowadays, lots of hotel rooms cost that much a night.

A: Think of what you could do with the balance if you only spent $150! You could have a wonderful dinner, or stay in Paris longer.

Q: I’ve often thought of budget travel as a matter of trade-offs. You stay in a modest place so you can afford the theater.

A: Yes. I think that’s one of the reasons for staying in a budget hotel. If . . you’re in Paris, you can sleep cheap and treat yourself to something wonderful at dinner. But the real secret to dining now is to eat out at lunch. The prices for lunchtime fixed-price meals--with a choice of three or four starters and entrees, bread, wine, dessert and coffee--are phenomenal, even in Paris and London.

Q: Do you think choosing a hotel is the most important decision you make when traveling?

A: I really think that where you stay colors your whole experience. If you like it and the people are friendly, you’ve got a leg up. But you need to know yourself. . . . For some it doesn’t matter where you stay as long as you’re in Paris or Prague, but for you and me, it may. I’m happy as long as I have a view, or light or something to look at. I can’t face a wall. A wall is depressing.

Q: Have you ever ended up in a horrible place?

A: Oh, yes. In Slovakia once, I was ushered into a room that had two narrow mattresses against each wall and a shower with a curtain. Behind the curtain was the next room!

Q: How do you find the good places?

A: Of course, I read as much as possible about a city and keep copious files. But I get a great deal from simply walking by and keeping my eyes open. When I pass a hotel, I just look and think, do I like the way the curtains hang? Are the flowers fresh? Is this a nice street? Do I want to be here?

Q: You stay in the city you’re writing about for months at a time. Doesn’t it get lonely?

A: Not really. Wonderful things always happen to me. I remember something really touching. I was in Budapest just before Christmas and went to see a little B&B.; The owner took one look at me and said, “You need to come inside for some chocolate.” She made me a cup and wished me Merry Christmas. It wasn’t very much, but it mattered to me.

Q: Do you think being a woman makes your job especially hard? I mean going out at night and eating alone?

A: I don’t know. I’m not some sort of young thing. I’m an older woman, let’s face it. But I don’t have a problem eating alone anywhere. And I have a little trick. In very nice places, I make a reservation for two, arrive alone and sit there waiting. Eventually, the waiter gets the idea that whoever I’m meeting isn’t going to show up, which makes him much kinder than he’d be if he knew I was on my own to start with.

I’m going to try Sandra’s idea sometime and keep taking her advice about where to stay and eat. Maybe, someday, we’ll both get “stood up” at the same restaurant and end up dining together, which I already know would be a treat.