If there were an Olympic event for disappointment, the Best Inn in Booneville, Mississippi would…read moremedal without breaking a sweat.
I booked a weeklong stay through Expedia, knowing full well I wasn't paying for luxury. I was expecting "basic," maybe even "dated." What I was not expecting was to stumble into what felt like patient zero for every communicable skin condition known to modern medicine.
Let's start with the journey. After a delayed flight and then being trapped on the interstate for over two hours while traffic sat completely still due to a semi-truck accident, all I wanted was a bed and silence. Instead, I arrived after hours and was forced to stand outside in the cold for roughly 30 minutes, trying to communicate with an elderly clerk through a window. He clearly could not process my Expedia reservation and repeatedly had to call someone for help.
Eventually, a younger man, presumably his son or nephew, emerged in pajamas, speaking to him in their native language to translate what should have been a very simple transaction. No one asked for my reservation number. No one looked anything up. They just... guessed. The whole operation felt like a group project no one prepared for.
After several attempts, I was finally handed a dirty, visibly stained key card. Not metaphorically dirty. Literally dirty. Predictably, it didn't work. I had to return to the office more than once just to get the card re-coded so I could enter the room.
Now let's talk about the room, because this is where things crossed from "inconvenient" into deeply concerning.
The door's locking mechanism was broken. The towels had stains. The bed had stains. The walls had stains. The floor had stains. The tub, sink, and floor all had identical rings, like the room had been marinating in neglect for years. Everything was coated in a thick film of dust, the kind that tells you no one has wiped a surface since the Clinton administration.
This wasn't about old furniture or budget accommodations. This was about cleanliness, or rather, the complete lack of it. I did my best not to touch anything with my bare hands because you could see and smell that this room was not clean, not sanitary, and not fit for human occupation. Bleach itself would have looked at this room and said, "Yeah, I'm not going in there."
At this point, I contacted Expedia to cancel, only to be told that the cancellation policy required forfeiting one full day's booking. Conveniently, Expedia claimed they could not get in touch with the property, which is interesting considering I had just been standing outside with multiple people in pajamas who were very much alive and present.
So now I'm left wondering who's playing me harder, Expedia or the Best Inn.
I canceled the reservation almost immediately, returned the key card, and booked another hotel in town. But the principle still stands. The presentation of this property on Expedia is wildly misleading, bordering on fraudulent when compared to the reality of crossing that threshold.
This place should not be operating. Full stop. There has to be a health code violation somewhere in this equation, because this wasn't "low quality," this was unsafe. One night in that room felt like signing up for ringworm with a side of tetanus.
After a long, exhausting travel day, the last thing anyone deserves is to be greeted by a biological hazard masquerading as lodging, then told there's "nothing that can be done" while your money disappears into the void.
This was day one, and it somehow managed to be one of the worst lodging experiences I've ever had in a developed country. Learn from my mistake. Avoid this property entirely, and if you value your health, your money, and your sanity, keep scrolling past this listing on Expedia.
