Sitting in the midst of the exciting streets of Los Angeles is a small, unassuming building with a truly dark history: the Cecil Hotel.

Sitting in the midst of the exciting streets of Los Angeles is a small, unassuming hotel that some people out there would probably like to avoid at all costs—the infamous Cecil Hotel. For practically all of its history, many things have gone seriously wrong inside this building. From spooky tragedies to unexplained mysteries, here are disturbing facts about the one and only Cecil Hotel.

TRAVEL TIPS

Flight Attendants Say They Hate It When Passengers Do These Things—So Don’t Do Them

Flight attendants are trained to remain calm and polite while hundreds of strangers slowly forget how to behave inside a metal tube. That does not mean they have not noticed what you just did. And according to the people who work these flights, the same irritating habits appear again and again.

August 11, 2026 Jesse Singer

GUIDES

I went on a trip with friends who drink heavily every night, and I felt trapped. How do you leave a vacation dynamic like that?

Feeling trapped on vacation because your friends want to party every night? Learn how to step away from an uncomfortable group dynamic without damaging your friendships.

August 11, 2026 Allison Robertson

DESTINATIONS

Tourist Towns That Americans Say Have Changed The Most In The Last Decade. Do You Agree?

August 11, 2026 Jane O'Shea

An archaeologist stands beside divers recovering a wooden shipwreck from the sea.

WORLD HISTORY

Archaeologists Found A 2,000-Year-Old Egyptian Pleasure Boat Beneath Ancient Alexandria’s Sunken Harbor

Archaeologists discovered a 2,000-year-old Egyptian pleasure boat beneath Alexandria’s sunken harbor, revealing evidence of ancient luxury travel, shipbuilding, and maritime life along the Mediterranean and Nile during the Roman era.

August 11, 2026 Alex Summers

AI-generated image of a woman worried about transportation costs after booking a hotel outside of the city.

TRAVEL TIPS

I chose a hotel outside the city to save money, but getting anywhere became exhausting. Did I make the classic budget-travel mistake?

The hotel looked like an easy bargain compared with the prices downtown. Then every sightseeing day began with a long commute, every evening ended with another complicated trip, and the transportation costs started eating into the savings.

August 11, 2026 Peter Kinney

TRAVEL TIPS

My hotel charged me for an extra guest because my friend visited my room. Is that a real policy or was this shady?

You check into a hotel, a friend stops by for 20 minutes, and suddenly the front desk adds an extra guest fee. It sounds absurd at first, but in some hotels, occupancy rules are written broadly enough that a short visit can trigger a charge or at least a confrontation. The catch is that the answer depends less on one universal rule and more on the hotel, the rate, and local law.

August 11, 2026 Miles Brucker

Sitting in the midst of the exciting streets of Los Angeles is a small, unassuming building with a truly dark history: the Cecil Hotel.

Sitting in the midst of the exciting streets of Los Angeles is a small, unassuming building with a truly dark history: the Cecil Hotel.

READ MORE

Flight Attendants Say They Hate It When Passengers Do These Things—So Don’t Do Them

I went on a trip with friends who drink heavily every night, and I felt trapped. How do you leave a vacation dynamic like that?

Tourist Towns That Americans Say Have Changed The Most In The Last Decade. Do You Agree?

Archaeologists Found A 2,000-Year-Old Egyptian Pleasure Boat Beneath Ancient Alexandria’s Sunken Harbor

I chose a hotel outside the city to save money, but getting anywhere became exhausting. Did I make the classic budget-travel mistake?

My hotel charged me for an extra guest because my friend visited my room. Is that a real policy or was this shady?

Surviving 72 days in the Andes: The 1972 Flight 571 disaster is one of history's most harrowing survival stories.

Sitting in the midst of the exciting streets of Los Angeles is a small, unassuming building with a truly dark history: the Cecil Hotel.

Sitting in the midst of the exciting streets of Los Angeles is a small, unassuming building with a truly dark history: the Cecil Hotel.

READ MORE

Flight Attendants Say They Hate It When Passengers Do These Things—So Don’t Do Them

I went on a trip with friends who drink heavily every night, and I felt trapped. How do you leave a vacation dynamic like that?

Tourist Towns That Americans Say Have Changed The Most In The Last Decade. Do You Agree?

Archaeologists Found A 2,000-Year-Old Egyptian Pleasure Boat Beneath Ancient Alexandria’s Sunken Harbor

I chose a hotel outside the city to save money, but getting anywhere became exhausting. Did I make the classic budget-travel mistake?

My hotel charged me for an extra guest because my friend visited my room. Is that a real policy or was this shady?

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