Raleigh-Durham Getaway and Hotel Guide

The Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area of North Carolina, dubbed the Triangle, is a hotbed of education, sports, government and business. And while it features several different hotel markets, there are ample choices for every kind of traveler in its more than 20,000 rooms.

"The Triangle isn't centered around any one dominant city like regions such as Atlanta or Charlotte," says Reyn Bowman, president of the Durham Convention & Visitors Bureau. "We're (spread out), more like Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and Annapolis."

And, he adds, only one to five percent of those visiting one of the Triangle cities overlap a visit to one of the two others on the same trip. "The Triangle is actually five or six different hotel markets."

So, like real estate, the most important thing when picking hotels in the Triangle is location. After all, Bowman says Durham has one market because its entire city area is in one county, while some of the other six counties in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill region have up to three hotel markets in the same county.

While the hotels differ, so too, does each city in the Triangle.

Raleigh, named after Sir Walter Raleigh and the state capital, is home to North Carolina State University and was the launching pad for Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., on his WRAL broadcast commentaries before his election to the Senate. Helms became known in local circles for railing out at the liberal Chapel Hill, home of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, as "Little Moscow."

Chapel Hill, home to the oldest state university in the country, is where Michael Jordan first gained fame on the basketball court. Helms was right about one thing: in comparison to the rest of the state, Chapel Hill is liberal; in the 1972 presidential election, Chapel Hill and surrounding Orange County stood as the only area carried by George McGovern when it went against Richard Nixon by 65 percent to 35 percent.

The third leg of the Triangle, Durham, meanwhile, is home to Duke University, where Nixon went to law school years before becoming president, and where legend has it, he broke into the dean's office to check on his grades. That famous alumnus has become part of the ritual of slogans as Duke and archrival UNC slug it out in sports; UNC fans signs have read "Nixon Went to Duke - What More Can We Say?"

The three universities account for much of the traffic behind the growth in hotels in the region - whether it be for weekend football or basketball games, class reunions, graduation in the spring or for visitors attending to business at one of the schools.

And due to the popularity of sporting events and the crowds at graduations, hotels in the region do get crowded. While there is never a sellout, the hotel of your choice may not be available if you don't plan ahead.

Additionally, the area, specifically Durham, is home to the Research Triangle Park, a 7,000-acre research and corporate headquarters complex located near Raleigh Durham Airport. Among the top employers of the park's 45,000 employees are IBM, Nortel and Glaxo Wellcome. Visitors with business in RTP tend to stay mainly in Durham, but also to a lesser extent in Raleigh and Chapel Hill.

Keep in mind that although the Triangle area does have a generally slower pace of life than if it was one big city, there can be traffic jams.

While a travel agent may not know or may not tell you, in a three-city region with those 20,000-plus total hotel rooms, the Triangle is truly home to different hotel markets. Clearly the smallest in terms of numbers of rooms is the Chapel Hill/Orange County area, with 1,195 rooms, including Hillsborough to the north, the Carolina Inn (the only hotel in downtown Chapel Hill), several chain hotels and Bed & Breakfasts.

Durham, a single-city county, is the next biggest in numbers of hotel rooms in the Triangle, totaling 7,166 rooms. Some seven other hotels, with 689 rooms, are under development. And there are always 600 rooms on hand, no matter what, the CVB says.

Raleigh is the biggest area for sheer numbers of hotel rooms in the Triangle: there are 13,221 rooms in all of Wake County (which encompasses Raleigh) and more than half of those rooms are in the city of Raleigh proper.

Rates in the Triangle run the gamut from under $75 a night to over $170. Near the top of the line is an inn and golf course in Durham at $235 a night. In Raleigh, 37 business-oriented properties offer special weekend leisure rates from $36.95 to about $100.

Hotels under development include a new chain hotel near the airport and a resort/conference center near the N.C. State campus. Several other hotels in the region are undergoing renovations. So, while you can't get too lost in this Triangle, there are plenty of hotel rooms for each kind of traveler.

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