Berkshires, United States

Tourists

Price per night from$200.00

Price information

If you haven’t entered any dates, the rate shown is provided directly by the hotel and represents the cheapest double room (including tax) available in the next 60 days.

Prices have been converted from the hotel’s local currency (USD200.00), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.

Style

Mountain lodge motel

Setting

Berkshires basecamp

Tourists, in the idyllic Berkshire hills, is no ordinary motel. Yes, it’s on a road (the scenic Mohawk Trail) and retains an easy-going, feel-good charm – but it’s been re-cast with blond-wood lodges and organic interior design. Outside, a suspension bridge over the Hoosic River leads to an enchanting summer-camp estate; explore it and you’ll find a yoga pavilion and giant wind-chimes deep in the forest. Back at base, a creative crowd sips cocktails on the deck, plotting tomorrow’s activities – contemporary art at the esteemed Mass MoCA perhaps, or a hike on the Appalachian Trail.

Smith Extra

Get this when you book through us:

A welcome drink each on arrival

Facilities

Photos Tourists facilities

Need to know

Rooms

48, including two suites.

Check–Out

11am; check-in is from 3pm, but it’s flexible, subject to availability.

Prices

Double rooms from £176.94 ($223), including tax at 11.7 per cent.

More details

Rates don’t include breakfast, but you can order pastries, quiche, charcuterie and fresh fruit at the Lodge.

Also

All common spaces are wheelchair accessible; one Gallery room and one Ramble room are ADA approved.

At the hotel

Free WiFi. In rooms: TV, minibar with local snacks and drinks, Ursa Major bath products.

Our favourite rooms

The Ramble rooms have decks with views over the river and suspension bridge, while the Canopy rooms have woodland views – you just need to pick a favourite. Book the extra-spacious Sanford Suite and you get an oversized terrace too.

Poolside

The family-friendly, heated saltwater pool is between the Lodge Bar and the river; it’s open in the warmer months, usually from May to October.

Packing tips

A guitar (or ukulele if you’re travelling light), in honour of Wilco bassist John Stirratt, who co-owns the hotel.

Also

You know you want one of those snapback caps… and you can get one from the Lodge.

Pet‐friendly

Absolutely – up to two dogs a room can stay – and a portion of the $40 fee for each pet, a night is donated to the Berkshire Humane Society. (You’ll just need to let the hotel know in advance.) See more pet-friendly hotels in Berkshires.

Children

All ages welcome. Highchairs can be provided and an extra bed can be made up in your room's window nook on request.

Food and Drink

Photos Tourists food and drink

Top Table

Sit on the edge of the deck, overlooking the pool, river and forest.

Dress Code

Flannel shirts and country boots for the lumberjack look, plus a trucker cap from the hotel shop, of course.

Hotel restaurant

Chef Ty Hatfield is the mastermind behind the menu at the Lodge, which has a cosy mountain chalet feel, with honey-colored timbers and butter-soft leather sofas by the fireplace. For breakfast, go for freshly baked pastries or chunky rye bread with home-pasted nut butters. Midday soups, seasonal suppers, George Howell coffees, savory snacks and sweet treats are on offer too. Have dinner on the Deck Bar terrace – a zesty beet and fennel salad, followed by the charred tahini-drizzled vegetables or harissa-spiced braised chicken; the burger is a good move too, all washed down with a local craft beer or house cocktail. 

Hotel bar

The Airport Rooms cocktail bar is a cosy gathering place for locals and hotel guests. It’s open daily from 5pm to 11pm for retro cocktails – Amaretto sours, Singapore slings and Harvey Wallbangers – local beers and wine. Hungry? Tuck into Texan chef Greg Thomas’s rotating menu of Southern-inspired fare – corn fritters, molasses glazed hot wings, mini roasted pork sandwiches and other comfort foods. Settle into one of the eight cosy rooms or spread out on the patio to soak up the sun. 

Last orders

The Lodge is open from 7am to 11pm and the Airport Rooms is open from 5pm to 11pm. In summer months, the Deck is open from 5pm to 10pm during the week, and from 11am to 10pm at weekends.

Room service

You can order breakfast to your room between 7.30am and 10.30am daily.

Location

Photos Tourists location
Address
Tourists
915 State Road
North Adams
01247
United States

This roadside getaway is in the handsome Berkshires district of western Massachusetts, near the state borders with New York and Vermont.

Planes

Fly into Albany airport if you’re coming from US cities like Chicago, Atlanta and Denver; it’s just over an hour’s drive from the hotel. Flights from the UK and Europe go to Boston (three hours’ drive) and New York (three-and-a-half hours’ drive); Norwegian airlines land at Newburgh-Stewart airport, too, which is two hours and twenty minutes away by car. Call the Smith24 team for help arranging all your travel.

Trains

Take the Amtrak train to Albany/Rensselaer station, which is two-and-a-half hours from New York’s Penn station. From here, it’s around an hour drive to the hotel.

Automobiles

A car gives you the freedom to explore the arty towns and rolling hills of Berkshires, and pop into Vermont and Upstate New York. Besides, it’s the natural way to arrive at a motel. Hire from the airport, and park up for free.

Other

If you’ve got your own jet, you can land it at Harriman & West airport, a small airfield that’s just across the road from the hotel. How handy.

Worth getting out of bed for

There’s nothing wrong with whiling the days away on your terrace, but in the steamy summers you’ll want a dip in the pool. Then explore the estate. Cross the Hoosic River on the suspension bridge and fork right to an eerie wind-chime sound installation, or left to an abandoned textile mill that once produced uniforms for Union soldiers in the Civil War. The timber cottage by the road has been transformed into an antique-laden speakeasy, which opens for special events. In-room massages can be arranged on request, and in the warmer months guests can limber up with sun salutations on the yoga deck.

You’re at the junction of two major trails – the Appalachian and the Mohawk – so buckle your boots and pick a section to hike, or jump in the car and drive the scenic route. From Massachusetts’ highest point on Mount Greylock (3,485ft) you can see five different states…and a whole lot of forest. See what you catch with Berkshire Rivers Fly Fishing, or stop by Berkshire Outfitters for all the gear you need for kayaking, biking and more. The band Wilco come to town for their very own Solid Sound Festival each June (expect plenty of groupies at Tourists, the bass player’s hotel), and Williamstown Theatre Festival runs all summer long. Mass MoCA (Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art) is not just the blockbuster attraction of North Adams, it’s an internationally revered institution. At the very least, visit the exhibitions at the sprawling converted factory; better still, catch an avant-garde performing arts show.

Local restaurants

Public Eat+Drink (34 Holden Street) has you covered for American comfort food in an industrial-styled space, while Brewhaha (437 W Main Street) takes itself more seriously than you’d think, especially when it comes to coffee. In nearby Williamstown, Mezze is a cottage dining room serving seasonal produce and small-batch wines.

Local bars

The finest cocktails for miles around are shaken behind the Lodge bar at Tourists, but for a feisty craft ale go to the pride of North Adams, Bright Ideas Brewing (111 Mass MoCA Way).

Reviews

Photos Tourists reviews
Laura Neilson

Anonymous review

By Laura Neilson, Travel-hungry style writer

As a busy New Yorker who grew up in the countryside, having access to the outdoors and fresh air is an essential component for keeping my current lifestyle sustainable. I need that occasional escape – or at the very least, I need to know it’s available in a hurry. Usually I head straight up the Hudson River to the rural Hudson Valley village I grew up in, but this time I opted to try out Tourists, a new, 48-room hotel in the foothills of the Berkshire Mountains. 

It had been a year since Mrs Smith and I’s last trip together – a fraught girls’ weekend in Miami to cope with heartache – and this time around, we were both in much better states. We were looking forward to the three-hour car drive to chat and bring each other up to speed on our fast-paced lives (she’s an on-the-go photographer), as much as we were eager to finally see our destination. Tourists had been generating quite a bit of buzz and I was beginning to feel like the only one who hadn’t been there yet. 

We arrived in North Adams shortly after 6pm, with just enough time to take a quick look around the property before sunset. I’d expected the hotel to be set further back from the main road, but the location and architecture of the rooms (single-level rows of connected cabins) lent a motor-lodge-meets-mountain-retreat charm to the whole setup.  

Summer’s been slow to arrive in the area, so the smell of wood smoke wafting from the main lodge was the perfect lure from the crisp outdoors air. Once inside, we lost all sense of time and season. Beyond a standing bar for ordering drinks and food (which discreetly doubled as the reception desk) the space opened up to a spacious common area handsomely outfitted with fat, caramel-colored leather sofas, tables cut from tree stumps, an assortment of faded patterned rugs, and plenty of corner nooks for tucking yourself into. Thoughtfully designed, but hardly precious-feeling, this was a place you could settle into for a good long while. A few guests had already gathered for early evening drinks near the fireplace, and we were eager to do the same.

Our Canopy room facing the Hoosic River had that same effortlessly considered feeling. Overall, there was an airy, Scandinavian vibe, appropriately complemented by subtle campground references: hand lanterns for strolls after dark, two folded outdoor chairs hanging on the wall, and vintage travel postcards posted above the desk. There was an outdoor shower on the private deck, and a massive daybed built into a window nook. Our bathroom was kitted out with products from the all-natural skincare brand Ursa Major (full-sized bottles, too).  

After checking out the hotel’s newly-opened Airport Rooms, a standalone building right next door serving up classic cocktails and elevated takes on roadhouse favorites (wedge salad, chips and dip, and the like), we decided on a fireside dinner in the lodge: warm olives, chickpea fritters, and a creamy vegetable pasta, along with a round of Negronis. 

The North Adams/Williamstown area has long been a bastion for arts and culture enthusiasts. There’s MASS MoCA, The Clark Art Institute, Williams College Museum of Art, and for theater buffs, the summer season’s Williamstown Theatre Festival, which often draws an impressive lineup of well-known thespians. 

Those seeking more time in the great outdoors have Mount Greylock (Massachusetts’ highest peak) less than a mile away, along with plenty of hiking trails, and fishing spots. On this particular getaway, Mrs Smith and I were seeking none of these things – not this time around, at least. All we wanted – what we needed – was rest and relaxation, and we were determined to honor that. 

After breakfast (multiple free cups of coffee, a rye waffle with a billowy dollop of sweet ricotta, and a delicious dried cherry compote that should be sold in jars at the front desk) and showering, we explored Tourists’ own walking trails over the footbridge. (Head to the right for ‘Chime Chapel’, a large and curious sculpture fashioned from wood and wind chimes and beyond that, epic countryside views. Head to the left, and you’ll walk beneath an overpass and eventually emerge behind an abandoned factory down the road.) 

By lunchtime we were still feeling pretty full, so we hopped in the car and drove to the organic market just down the road for some light picnic provisions to enjoy on our terrace. The rest of the afternoon comprised reading, napping, sunbathing – lazy and perfect, especially with the soothing white noise of the Hoosic in the background – before heading up to the lodge to settle in at one of the outdoor fire pits with a bottle of wine. After scanning the new seasonal menu, Mrs Smith and I decided to share the summer tomato salad: a zippy combination of thick tomato wedges and arugula, scattered with shavings of grana cheese, and a vinaigrette dressing. 

We wanted to try more off the new menu – and the quinoa and freekeh grain bowl looked especially delectable – but the lazy day gave us little opportunity to work up our appetites. So we retired to our room for a movie and an early night’s sleep, especially knowing that we’d have to pack up and depart shortly after breakfast. Even though it was only our second morning there in the lodge, there was a comforting familiarity this time, as if the space were the living room of a best friend we were visiting. 

On the drive home, we asked each other if we’d return for another stay. I absolutely would. It’s is the perfect spot to decamp to with friends. Or make some new ones, of course… Like the sign says: Tourists Welcome.

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Price per night from $200.00