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Inspiring overworked citizens and spouses of the world to escape the rat race and head down under, the movie “Australia” featured Nicole Kidman as an English aristocrat who arrives in Australia to sell off her husband’s poorly performing ranch, just as the rest of the world is preparing for World War II. She ends up falling in love with hunky cattle driver Hugh Jackman amidst the beauty of Australia’s landscape. Not to mention, she falls in love with the Outback and its people too.

As if a hit movie weren’t enough (the film earned Golden Globe and Oscar nominations, a $26 million campaign courtesy of Tourism Australia has helped boost Australia’s global image in a major way.

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You know the scene. You open the door to your brand new hotel room, run over to the window, open the blinds and bam, you are hit with the anti-view. Maybe you are looking down a dirty alley, witnessing a drug deal, staring at an air shaft in the face, or seeing a brick wall. Whatever you are viewing it is not extremely pleasurable. Help out your fellow hotel mavens by uploading your anti-views to the HotelChatter/Flickr photo pool, or by sending the photo along to us. Remember to tell us the name of the hotel and the room number with the not-so-easy-on-the-eyes view.

Does Rice-A-Roni still call itself “The San Francisco Treat?” Because it’s

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We are suckers for a room with a killer view.  We find that we are even more likely to forgive some minor hotel inconveniences if we can stare out the window at something pretty–yeah we are that shallow. Let’s help out our fellow hotel mavens by uploading rooms with killer views to the HotelChatter/Flickr photo pool, or by sending the photo along to us. We will feature our favorites in this space from time to time. Remember to tell us the name of the hotel and the room number of the hot view.

Confession time: one of us here at HotelChatter once thought the giant bean-ish sculpture in Chicago (British artist Anish Kapoor’s public

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It nearly took the skills of Nancy Drew to get to the bottom of what’s going on with the W Hotel and Residence Denver deal. Way back in July 2007, both DenverInfill Blog and the recently-shuttered Rocky Mountain News (R.I.P.) reported that Denver-based Sage Hospitality, headed by Walter Isenberg, planned to develop a W Hotel property at the corner of 16th and Market Streets in the LoDo district.

Sadly, today we learn the project is on hold and the promise of W Hotel’s signature Whatever/Whenever® service is definitely not in Denver’s immediate future thanks to the craptastic economy. A moment of silence for the trendy LoDo – Lower Downtown – District hipsters, please.

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Every so often we feature a hotel review from one of our readers that we feel should be shared with the rest of you dear hotel guests. These reviews are highlighted because they are timely, about cool hotels in cool places and are relatively level-headed. Think you can submit one just like this? Send it in.

Reader M. hit up the newly-renovated Sheraton Waikiki twice recently. Here’s his take.

The Sheraton Waikiki occupies one of the finest stretches of beach in the heart of Waikiki. Adjacent (and sharing the same superb beachfront location) as its much more refined and upscale neighbor, The Royal Hawaiian, The Sheraton is the largest and most popular

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One of the more surreal aspects of living in our nation’s capital can be the myriad meetings and conventions that are simultaneously occurring on any given day. You’re just walking down the street and, oh, look at that! Suddenly you’ve encountered a steady stream of gentlemen strutting around in their leather chaps, in town for — what else? — the National Convention of Leather Chaps Enthusiasts.

So that’s just a half made-up example, but you get the idea: Washington hosts all manners of conventions, and they tend to stay or congregate at the same hotels, often for discounted rates.

Memorial Day weekend being no different, this Sunday D.C. will host Rolling Thunder XXII, an annual motorcycle

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9 Beaches, that “ultra-casual resort” in Bermuda, has certainly gotten itself entrenched in the ol’ social media scene: they’ve been getting their bloggin’ on for a long time (two-esque years), but now the place seems to have gotten tons of web 2.0 action, from YouTube vids to this sort of thing.

Recall 9 Beaches is the place that promises (no, guarantees) 68-degree days, and also was kinda too smelly for a reviewer once (oh yeah; we never let anything go around here). Per the 9 Beaches peeps:

Most recently YouTube videographer Kevin Nalty (fondly known by his online moniker Nalts) visited 9 Beaches and captured her essence on