In the olden days, when Chanel was just the name on a quilted bag and travel used to be a slow, languid process, the choice of a chic sleepover spot didn’t seem very important. It would take you so long to get somewhere, your body would end up spending more time in transit than in any hotel bed.

Fortunately, in my more modern career – to observe and comment on what is and what passes as style – I’ve been privy to many a hotel room. And let me tell you, I still can’t get enough of them. In fact, lying on freshly laundered Egyptian cotton sheets, watching the latest flick while eating a hearty hotel burger (always the sign of a good hotel) and downing a few glasses from a well-stocked mini bar is my true idea of nirvana. Or even my notion of a rather nice final meal.

Whether it was the Alandale Motor Inn while covering the Tamworth Music festival, complete with flimsy bath towels and famous guitar-shaped swimming pool (wouldn’t that pond have some tales to tell?), or the brashness of a flashy and fantastic terrazzo-tiled bathroom at Palazzo Versace, there’s the good and bad in most good and bad hotels.

Simply, the fast pace of a business trip, or the slightly slower pace of a romantic away-game, requires a hotel with a damn good room. Even if it’s less than a 24hr stay, the room must have all the comforts (plus more) that I do at my own home – especially when I’m spending my precious bucks.

The Lyall in Melbourne’s South Yarra still rates as one of my most “at-home” and comfortable hotels. No wonder people keep coming back for more. Peter and Rowina Thomas aren’t “in your face” hoteliers but are around their inn just enough to make you feel safe and secure.

Big comfy robes, wireless internet (natch), Foxtel, a fully equipped kitchen (mine never gets touched, apart from being used as a resting spot for room service trays), a pillow menu, king size beds, “real” balcony doors and, yes, even flattering lighting make the low-rise Lyall as big a celebrity as the ones it attracts. It even has full-length mirrors. How many hotels have everything but them?

“Our clientele just expect to have things like wireless internet, so getting that was a no-brainer,” Peter told me after I’d returned to the sanctuary after a series of fashion summits in Chapel Street and Toorak Road. And when he obviously thought I looked like I needed a drink. (BTW, the Veuve was great.)

For princesses who like some pampering, the Lyall has invested in creating a great spa. This little nirvana has perked me up many times, either with a 45min steam, a scrub, a Swiss shower or a volcanic mud treatment before it was back to business, or straight to bed and that burger.

Style and understated indulgence are two major traits I also found at Byron Bay’s Rae’s on Watego’s, with its intoxicating beachside charm. While loads of admirers succumbed to the allure of the inexpensive Byron years ago and the prosperous are still snaffling up those postcard-perfect properties in its serene hinterland, Rae’s is one of the most warm and fuzzy hotels I’ve ever encountered.

With its pale pink fascia, blossoming bougainvillea, curved, rendered walls and timber shutters, you could be in a mini art deco Miami inn, in Portofino, on Capri or even perched at Port Douglas. The reality is you’re somewhere just an hour’s flight from Sydney.

While there’s no denying the roll call of names that have stayed and played at Rae’s is stellar – The Rolling Stones, Kate Hudson, Hugh Jackman, Baz Luhrmann – celebrities like staying there because they won’t be seen. Discretion is truly king at Rae’s.

Hotelier Vinnie Rae opened a spa, too, and if seriously good treatments are your thing, the one name to remember is Marionne. An elegant therapist with a graceful manner, Marionne De Candia took her skill seriously, using Environ cosmeceuticals from South Africa (devised by a plastic surgeon) as well as those from Italy’s luxurious Germaine de Capuccini cosmetics line, giving me 90mins of visage bliss.

Rae’s gothic turrets and art deco elements fuse well with individually crafted Balinese furniture, Italian marble flooring and hand-painted Javanese tiles, making it a kind a United Nations of interior design – and even if rain had pelted down (which it didn’t) there was always a walk to the Byron lighthouse; a saunter along Watego’s beach; a surfing lesson; a whale to possibly watch or a drive into Byron to its escalating ensemble of eateries.

It’s kind of like a stay at Melbourne’s Crown, really, where there seem to be as many restaurants and bars as there are hotel rooms. While the Crown Promenade (the Crown Lite of the casino complex’s hotels) is nestled across the road from Crown Full Strength, I once spent an entire weekend without once breathing natural air. The overpass, which takes you from Crown Prom to Crown Towers, put paid to that.

Both Crown Towers and its baby sister do a brilliant job as casino hotels, with nothing ever too much drama or a problem. Even when I ran out of hairspray on Logies night. And if you’re lucky enough to be the friend of a friend who invites you up to Crown’s VIP Crystal Club on the 29th floor (the posh and genteel 24hr breakfast and drinks club that’s open to those who stay in a Crystal Club room), then you will have experienced my idea of Hotel Nirvana No.2.

No matter how many metamorphoses it goes through, I still love the vibe and unabashed ’80s style of Hayman Island. Especially the pool view rooms. On a more recent trip, a great mate took over the beach pavilion as his birthday space and, with its clean, classic and simple structure taking pride of place right on the isle’s beachfront, seemingly away from the “hotel” feel of the rest of island set-up, that room showed another side to the Hayman’s idea of heaven.

But for the concepts alone, nothing quite beats the time I slept the night at the discreet and simply divine Park Hyatt, on the water’s edge in Sydney. With Elle Macpherson.

The underwear queen had invited a small group of style connoisseurs for a pyjama party, so a gaggle of us checked in to our rooms where, on our bed, was a bootie of Elle’s latest jim-jams. We popped on our favourite bed wear and hit Elle’s suite for a champagne supper, then luxuriated in our rooms before a late check out – another sure-fire sign of a hotel that exudes elegance.

Boy, I love a hotel. Probably because most of them are everything but what I have at home. Although I’ve made an executive decision as well. And that’s never to return to one smarty-pants Melbourne hotel where – and please finish what you’re eating before you continue reading – many stray pubic hairs were still stuck to the doona cover I was meant to sleep under that same night.

That inn has been chucked into the “never go back” file.