While there's a wealth of information on the internet to help choose where to stay - glossy hotel websites, reviews on booking sites and professional hotel reviewers such as Mr and Mrs Smith (www.mrandmrssmith.com), how do you sift fact from fiction? Rather than the carefully curated images that a hotel posts about itself, take a look at the real-life images posted by guests on sites such as TripAdvisor. They're far more likely to tell the real story, warts and all.

Hotel reviews posted on the same site are an obvious source of information but anyone can post a review, not just guests who have paid and stayed. This leaves the site open to fake reviews, either from those looking to boost the hotel or those intent on tearing it down. Another solid resource is Oyster oyster.com which sends its own reviewers to road test hotels, with the pros and cons of each and unedited images of rooms, beds and public areas.

Google Maps Street View won't take you inside a hotel but it can tell you a very different story from the one the hotel is telling. If the property is located in a semi-industrial zone, near a railway line or the middle of traffic fly-overs, Street View reveals all.