How to find the best hotel for someone with asthma

Traveling is full of potential asthma triggers, but there are plenty of ways to give yourself an inhaler-free holiday – starting with picking the right hotel.

Book a room at the top

The potentially spectacular views provide more than enough reasons to book a top-floor room, and the fact that they also have lower pollen counts is a nice bonus. Rooms on the ground floor might be convenient and their garden views are charming, but they also tend to be more vulnerable to floating pollen.

If your asthma is triggered by allergies, aim for the stars (or at least the top floor), and if that’s not possible, try emailing the accommodation in advance and ask for a room as far away as possible from the entrance.

Choose a non-smoking hotel

While finding non-smoking rooms might be fairly easy — especially in countries where it is illegal to smoke indoors — some accommodations still allow smoking in communal areas.

With that in mind, smoke-sensitive asthmatics should look for non-smoking hotels rather than just non-smoking rooms. And when in doubt, it’s also possible to check which destinations and hotels have been endorsed for ‘clean air’ by other travellers.

Always read the reviews

Reviews tell you a lot more about a hotel than simply whether or not it has a decent breakfast and if the staff are friendly.

Travellers with medical conditions like asthma are usually keen to share their experiences, from praising hotels that arranged to express-courier forgotten inhalers to highlighting apartments investing in the highest quality hypoallergenic mattresses.

Hotel chains consistently praised for this commitment to staying allergy-free include Hyatt, Doubletree, Westin and Four Seasons.

Treat yourself to a sauna or steam room

If you are travelling to a destination where the temperature is significantly different to back home, it’s worth considering booking a hotel that has a sauna or steam room.

Despite the benefits, some asthmatics find that the dry heat of a sauna can act as a trigger, so booking a spa hotel will give you the additional option of a steam treatment and help relieve some of the tension associated with travelling.

Check that the accommodation is ‘pet-free’

Pet-friendly hotels are becoming more and more common, which is great news for pet owners and those of us who spend a lot of time saying ‘hello’ to every dog and cat we see. For allergy-triggered asthma, however, it’s not ideal.

Most hotels offer ‘pet-free’ rooms, but that doesn’t account for communal areas, and so finding a hotel that doesn’t allow any pets at all is your best option.